Lesson 10: Antidepressants Can Make You Want to Die

One of the more important issues around mental health I feel it prudent to discuss, is medication. Antidepressants in particular. Fair warning, it’s necessary for this post to touch upon a period when I was feeling suicidal, if that’s uncomfortable for you then you can stop reading. Just know that you’re being part of the problem and not the solution. If you can live with that, fine. No, I’m not calling you a bad person. Make your own decisions. Throw plastic bottles at seagulls if that’s how you want to live your life. It’s your choice.

The story in a nutshell is this — I took antidepressants at a time I was feeling very low and anxious. I was experiencing some suicidal ideation but no intention. The difference being fantasising about jumping into a volcano, and actually putting your swimmers on.

My swimmers were very much still in the drawer. A week or two into the medication, however, I became full on mental and begun limbering up.

At the time I thought my mind was worsening of its own accord, despite the best efforts of antidepressants. This is what led me to feel even more hopeless, and realistically that I should end my life, because surely there was no salvation now. I’d tried everything else. The meds were the last hurrah.

It was only later that I realized the drug prescribed to help me had itself pushed me over the edge. Very funny and ironic.

I’d put my hands into the belly of the statue, hoping to receive a magnificent gem, and instead had my hands melted off and millipedes flung at my eyes.

The situation understandably made me angry, both with my mental health nurse and the system which allowed her to prescribe the antidepressants so carelessly. It’s one thing to mix up paracetamol and ibuprofen, this was more like prescribing an emetic to save someone from starvation. It would be kinder to shoot your patient in the face with a musket.

As a result, my warning here is to be aware before taking antidepressants. If you have even one or two daily thoughts about how nice death might be, and the antidepressants you’re considering can exacerbate suicide-y feelings, well… just think twice before drinking the Kool-Aid.

If you do drink the Kool-Aid, at least be aware that an increase in your suicidal leanings may be due to its early side effects. You will hopefully then be more resilient, knowing it should pass.

However, it can take weeks to reap the benefits of antidepressants. If you’re thinking about topping yourself tomorrow, that’s a little long to wait.

The mental health nurse did mention some of these things, but I feel they should have been gravely overemphasized to someone like me. A) Because my scrambled up brains needed to retain the information. B) Because it’s pretty important — ‘Hey, if you’re thinking about killing yourself, these might help, but at first they might encourage you to do it. So fuck you, actually.’

Of course, everyone reacts to drugs differently. I did not enjoy my torrent of suicidal dreams and feelings, but I don’t know anyone else to have experienced those side effects. And I know more than a few pill-popping mentals. Perhaps I’m just special.

But no, this is a known issue. On Reddit. Plus, it’s mentioned in that film ‘Love, and Other Drugs’ with Jake Gyllenhall and Anne Hathaway. Irrefutable sources. Antidepressant can make you want to die.

It’s unlikely but it happens. Most people are fine, a few are less than fine. As we don’t know who will or won’t be, everyone ought to be clear. You don’t want to wind up one of the blue few, without a clue, blaming your own brain.

That’s no crispy chocolate treat. That’s… no Bueno. I’m here all week.

Thankfully, I overcame Sertraline’s suicidal hurdles. But I wonder how many people don’t.

Eventually I came down to a numb normality on the drugs, and that was fine. Just fine. It was difficult to tell whether it was the drugs or my usual cycle of anxiety diminishing, which it always does after reaching a climax period.

I continued to struggle with anxieties nonetheless, however. Even months into the course. Well after passing the adjustment period. Considering I had been taking the antidepressants for anxiety, they turned out to be, to my mind, rather a pissing waste of energy.

I would consider taking Sertraline again, despite all this, but I’d do things differently. Firstly, I’d not take it if I was having suicidal thoughts. If they tried to offer it to me anyway, I’d tell them to stick it up their arse.

There are other medications not known for exacerbating suicidal tendencies, such as SNRIS. (Don’t ask me to explain the difference between SNRIs and SSRIs because it’s either deeply confusing or surprisingly boring. I can’t even say serotonin-norepinephrine, so I’m not the person to explain it.)

Secondly, I’d have support structures in place beyond just one (I’ll refrain from using savage adjectives here) mental health nurse. I’d call my GP, therapist, whoever, as soon as suicidal symptoms arose or increased, not wait for the next appointment. Hopefully they would take better action than my mental health nurse did. Hopefully she’s long since been dishonourably discharged and fallen into piteous ruin.

I’d also have frequent check-ins with a reliable friend or family member. Someone to tell me if I’m getting weird or worse and remind me that it may be the medication. That I don’t usually sacrifice pigs to Satan and perhaps I ought to try tapering off.

If you are seeking medication under similar circumstances I was, all of these things are what you absolutely, 100% should do. Keep an eye on yourself.

The darker stuff done with, if you’re not suffering the suicidal side of things, you probably have a lot less to worry about. But it’s still good to be aware that adjustment takes a minute. During that time you might not feel any improvement. You might feel worse. You might get fat and suffer erectile dysfunction. You might have extremely strange and upsetting dreams. You might feel sick all the time and become an odious fart machine. These symptoms are comparatively manageable, and they pass. (If they don’t and your noxious gasses and borderline impotence are ruining your life, ask to change your medication)

Other side effects, like death, insanity, and cancer, that they like to put on the box to scare the bejesus out of people like me, will probably not happen.

These side effect leaflets are another splendid way to mess with anxious patients. ‘The medication you’re taking may kill you or drive you insane, the two things you fear most, good luck!’

The list is literally unbelievable. It’ll say things like ‘may cause blindness’, ‘deafness’, ‘dumbness’, ‘loss of balance’, ‘seizures’, ‘boneitus’, ‘cancer’, ‘communism’, ‘vomiting blood’, ‘unwanted pregnancy’, ‘impotence’, ‘loss of bowel control’, ‘the ten plagues of Egypt’, ‘vaginas for eyes’, ‘extreme allergic reactions to anything purple’, ‘all your friends will tell you to fuck off’, plus ‘You’re gay for animals now and society will never accept you so you should just kill yourself’.

And that’s page one of seventeen, ultimately ending in ‘insanity’, ‘death’ and ‘the reason you’re taking them in the first place will be made worse’.

They’re basically the side effects you’d expect from medication doled out in Hell.

It’s worth reminding yourself (I have to) that these are each isolated, extremely rare effects. Probably no one has ever got them all at once. Stop imagining your entire body melting into a puddle, like a Chernobyl nuclear technician. Is that what happened to them?

Well, it’s not going to happen to you.

Some other things to mention, that further ramp up anxiety but bear remembering, are how exactly you take them. Or how not to take them. Upsetting the balance could send you bananas. And not in a fun Gwen Stefani way.

So:

• Try not to miss days. This will upset the chemical equilibrium in your brain, and as a result, your emotions.
• Don’t double drop the following day if you do (even if you think you’re a legend — unless it’s paracetamol or Rennies, double dropping is always a bad idea).
• Don’t drink heavily and frequently, or much at all if you can help it (even if it’s difficult because you’re such a double-dropping legend). This dampens the effects, similar to missing days.
• Don’t do MDMA. You could get serotonin syndrome and have the worst comedown of your life that literally drives you insane and kills you. Someone may need to fact check that, but serotonin syndrome is definitely super horrible and you don’t want it. Google it.
• DO NOT stop taking the meds cold turkey. Taper off. Unless you like giving yourself a hard time on purpose.
• Don’t buy grapefruit shower gel.

Kidding, of course, on that last one. I’m sure you can. But weirdly the one thing they tell you not to eat is grapefruit. I hate grapefruit so it was no real loss for me. Then I realised it was the flavour of my shower gel and stopped drinking it immediately.

PS

I briefly mentioned SNRIs, as opposed to SSRIs, but I think, as with anything, it’s worth doing your own research and putting precautions in place. I’m mad as a hatter and maybe just so anxious about everything that I get extremely anxious about taking drugs for anxiety. But I took an SNRI once, yes just one, and it was too much for me.

I didn’t give it a good enough go maybe, as has been suggested, but for those 24 hours I was buzzing my tits off like I had taken a sizeable hit of MDMA. I know what that feels like and honestly it was the same. My pupils were dilated, I chain-smoked a hundred fags, and I had the urge to run to London just to burn some energy. I was gurning for Christ’s sake.

It wasn’t that this was necessarily a bad feeling, especially when compared with, say, a massive increase in the urge to kill yourself, but it wasn’t comfortable. Nobody wants to take a party drug on a weekday when there’s no one around to get ‘waved’ with. Having that mind-bending experience by yourself kind of takes away from the lift that your body might otherwise be feeling. It puts you instead on the verge of having a very serious existential crisis.

They told me it could be days like that before it tapers off. No fucking thank you.

Not to mention some guy on Reddit said his penis stopped working permanently after taking them. That was the last nail in the coffin, as I leered over my laptop at two in the morning, foaming at the mouth and jittering like an addict.

I realise that I have said antidepressants effect everyone differently but most people find them helpful, even life savers, then regaled two horrendous accounts of taking them. Sorry about that. But at the same time, I wish I’d read a blog like this before I took those drugs. If I can prevent one person suffering the same fates, through going in blind, I’ll be satisfied.