It’s not just the taking of antidepressants that can cause extreme violence. Withdrawal from antidepressants can cause extreme violence too.
Research shows that in just a few days, a person can unknowingly go into severe withdrawal and not even know why he or she is feeling violent or suicidal.
A common symptom of withdrawal is the the return of the symptoms that drug was supposed to treat. Psychiatrists will commonly tell you that this is the “return of the mental illness.” It is not. This is withdrawal, an indication of addiction or dependency.
What is happening is that after months or years of taking a psychiatric drug, the body has become adjusted to it. When you take the drug away, it creates trauma within the body, as it now has to adjust back to functioning without it.
Rather than recognising withdrawal reactions for what they are, psychiatrists will frequently insist on putting the patient back on the drug. This practice has been referred to by one expert as “chasing one’s tail, medicating withdrawal, and needlessly prolonging the patient’s exposure to the drug, often for years.”1
For years, pharmaceutical companies and psychiatrists covered up the addictive effect of their drugs. When there was too much proof to ignore, one drug company funded a closed-door conference with experts who decided to rename it “discontinuation syndrome” to avoid the negative connotations of drug withdrawal effects.2
Whether you call it drug withdrawal or just discontinuation syndrome, the bottom line, says Dr David Healy, is “if there is withdrawal, then there is physical dependence.”3
- Joseph Glenmullen, MD, Prozac Backlash (Simon & Schuster, NY, 2000) p75.
- Ibid., Glenmullen p76.
- Sarah Boseley, “Seroxat maker abandons ‘no addiction’ claim,” The Guardian (London) 3 May 2003.
