More and more people are being put on the pills but some experts are now warning they do more harm than good
Twenty years ago, Henry was living a fulfilled life. A happily married father from the Home Counties, his sales career was going well, he had a wide social circle and played football and golf regularly. “I was a conservative, head-down, career-minded person who enjoyed my life,” he says.
But in 1995, a bout of flu left Henry, then 31, exhausted and lethargic. His GP told him he was depressed, and prescribed the world’s most popular antidepressant, Prozac. “He said depression was a common complaint, the drugs would fix it and then I’d stop taking them.”
More than a decade later, Henry was far from cured and still on antidepressants. “None of the drugs made me feel better, and most made me considerably worse. But every time I stopped them, the symptoms of what I thought was depression **— but now know were of withdrawal — returned even more strongly.”
By 2009, he was so unwell that he had to give up work. Finally, suspecting the drugs were the cause of his problems, he quit them, only to enter a new hell.
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Lives ‘left in ruin’ by rising tide of depression drugs
Twenty years ago, Henry was living a fulfilled life. A happily married father from the Home Counties, his sales career was going well, he had a wide social circle and played football and golf regularly. “I was a conservative, head-down, career-minded person who enjoyed my life,” he says.
But in 1995, a bout of flu left Henry, then 31, exhausted and lethargic. His GP told him he was depressed, and prescribed the world’s most popular antidepressant, Prozac. “He said depression was a common complaint, the drugs would fix it and then I’d stop taking them.”
More than a decade later, Henry was far from cured and still on antidepressants. “None of the drugs made me feel better, and most made me considerably worse. But every time I stopped them, the symptoms of what I thought was depression **— but now know were of withdrawal — returned even more strongly.”
By 2009, he was so unwell that he had to give up work. Finally, suspecting the drugs were the cause of his problems, he quit them, only to enter a new hell.
more
Lives ‘left in ruin’ by rising tide of depression drugs
