- Deprescribing Medications for Mental Health in Australia
Many people feel bad coming off antidepressants and other psychotropic medications.
But what is happening?
Most people’s first reaction is that it must be a relapse? But is it? Could it be a withdrawal reaction? What else could it be? How can you tell? How should you figure it out? So many questions … time to discover more to get some answers.
There is a reason you went on this medication in the first place.
If that comes back again, that’s a relapse.
It’s important to plan for this.
If you are no longer taking your medication, will that problem come straight back again? Without the medication, what will you do?
Many psychotropic medications make you feel numb, or less able to feel emotions. You might fear what will happen when you get back access to the full range of your emotions.
When you start on medication it will have some effects within hours and days, and then over weeks, months and years your body adapts to the chemical.
When you reduce and stop, this process reverses.
In the first hours, days or weeks, your body will notice the medication has been discontinued and is no longer there.
Then over days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years, your body has to undo the adaptations it made while you were on the medication.
Some people are more affected by these changes than others – some are mild or absent, some can be very severe and long-lasting.
Either way these withdrawal effects come from how these medication interact with your body. They are something new. They are not a relapse.
If you stop the medication, and you feel bad, you need to know why.
If it is a relapse, then the medication might have been stopping that from coming back.
If it is withdrawal, then this is about your body’s response to the medication, and nothing to do with the original problem at all.
Many people think they need to stay on medication because they “still have the problem”, when in fact that problem is gone. The symptoms they are noticing are from their body being “dependent” on the medication, and as they try to stop, they go into withdrawal.
You went on the medication for a reason. You may be staying on the medication for an entirely different reason. It’s vital to know the difference.
