Hello, My name is Amy and this is my partner Bills story of how he lost his life to antidepressants.

Bill and I are from a small town outside of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Bill was put on Effexor over 20 yrs. ago for a stressful event happening in his life at the time. He stayed on Effexor for 20 yrs and after meeting me decided to wean off of it with a Dr.'s help.

He weaned off it slowly for a year and seemed fine but he was not fine. He slowly began to fall apart emotionally over the course of three months. He felt incredibly anxious and depressed.

He went back on Effexor but it did not work. He was given Ativan to calm him down until the Effexor began working and it didn't help either. He was given Klonopin to sleep because the Effexor made sleeping impossible. The Klonopin didn't work so he was switched to Trazadone for sleep. All the while the Effexor was slowly being increased. He never felt better only worse. They finally had him on over 250 mg daily of Effexor, a higher dose than he had ever taken before.

After only two months of being back on the Effexor he took his life. He wrote me a suicide note and in it he said “The anxiety and depression became so much worse he didn't think he would ever feel normal again and that he can't take the pain of it anymore".

He was unable to sit still, eat or sleep those last two months of his life due to the antidepressant drugs he was given. He made an impulsive decision to end his life that he never attempted to do before and I believe he would not have made if it wasn't for the drugs in his system prescribed to him.

He was an intelligent man, didn't use street drugs or drink alcohol, only took what was prescribed for him. And he died as a result. Just 61 yrs. old and had so much to live for. This is a TREMENDOUS loss for the people who loved and needed and relied on him.

These drugs need to be banned from the market so we can stop losing our loved ones.