Hello,

My name is Daniel. I'm 41 and from Blackpool, England.

In September 2025, I was a healthy man. I exercised daily. I slept deeply and woke rested. I could think clearly. I could feel genuinely calm and relaxed. My father had died two years earlier, and I had carried significant grief and emotional stress. But I was not severely mentally ill. I had hopes, plans, and a future I wanted to live for.

I had been taking a low dose of mirtazapine, 15mg, for about 18 months. It had been prescribed for low mood and helped with sleep. But I was feeling emotionally numb and flat. I wanted to feel enjoyment, excitement, and connection again. I wanted my life back. This is what I told the psychiatrist I went to see.

The First Error: Abrupt Withdrawal and a Stimulant Drug

The psychiatrist made a decision that would destroy my life. He told me to stop the mirtazapine abruptly, with no taper, and to begin bupropion 150mg prolonged-release the very next day.

I was not warned that stopping an antidepressant suddenly after 18 months causes a severe withdrawal syndrome. I was not told that bupropion is a stimulating, activating drug that increases norepinephrine, the chemical of stress and arousal. I followed the instructions exactly, trusting the doctor.

The Neurotoxic Reaction

Within five days, everything collapsed.

The abrupt mirtazapine withdrawal had already destabilised my nervous system. The bupropion ignited a catastrophic neurotoxic reaction. I was plunged into a state of extreme agitation, inner terror, and total insomnia. My mind felt on fire. I could not be still. I could not rest. I could not escape an unbearable internal torture. This is called akathisia—a drug-induced neurological injury that creates a physical sensation of terror and restlessness. It is not anxiety. It is not depression. It is a chemically-induced state of torment.

I became suicidal. This was not a natural worsening of depression. It was a direct effect of the akathisia. When the body is locked in a state of unrelenting inner torture, death feels like the only escape. This is a documented, known phenomenon.

The Medical System's Failure: Denial and Gaslighting

When I sought help, the medical system did not recognise what had happened. I was hospitalised. I told the psychiatrists repeatedly that I believed I had a brain injury from the bupropion. I knew something was physically wrong.

They told me I was wrong. They told me it was not possible after only five days of use. They told me I was delusional. They took my accurate perception of a drug injury and called it psychosis. This is medical gaslighting. They did not listen. They did not investigate. They applied the only framework they had: you are a psychiatric patient, therefore your symptoms are mental illness.

The Cascade of Mistreatment

What followed was not care. It was a series of escalating, harmful interventions, each one compounding the injury:

· High-dose mirtazapine (45mg): Instead of reinstating my original 15mg dose to stabilise withdrawal, they tripled it. At this dose, mirtazapine activates norepinephrine, the very chemical already flooding my brain. It made the agitation worse.
· Polypharmacy: I was trialled on fluoxetine, olanzapine, lamotrigine, promethazine, diazepam, and lorazepam. Each new drug added new layers of chemical chaos to my already-injured brain. I was polydrugged with SSRIs, antipsychotics, and multiple benzodiazepines.
· Clonazepam dependence: I was placed on 1mg of clonazepam daily. This is a high-dose benzodiazepine, equivalent to 20mg of diazepam. What should have been a short-term, weeks-long bridge became months of continuous use. My body became physically dependent. The drug that was meant to calm me is now a source of constant suffering, as tolerance and withdrawal have locked my nervous system in a state of relentless agitation.
· Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT): I was given six sessions of ECT. I consented out of sheer desperation, while hospitalised and in an unbearable state. I was not capable of making a truly free or informed choice. The ECT added neurological trauma on top of the chemical injuries, shocking a brain that was already chemically burned.
The correct medical response to my condition was clear and simple:

· Reinstatement of low-dose mirtazapine at 15mg to stabilise the withdrawal
· Propranolol, a non-addictive beta-blocker, to calm the noradrenergic storm
· Possibly a short-term, time-limited benzodiazepine for two to three weeks, with a clear exit plan
· Time, safety, and protection from further drug trials or coercive interventions

This combination—low-dose mirtazapine for sleep, propranolol for the physical terror, a short benzo bridge, and patience—would likely have allowed my nervous system to settle and heal. Instead, I was given the exact opposite at every turn.

The State I Am In Now

I have been in this state for seven months. I live with constant, severe agitation that never stops. I have headaches from unrelenting muscle tension and vascular stress. I never feel calm or relaxed as I once did. The torture is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without respite.

My sleep, when it comes, is light, broken, and non-restorative. I do not dream as I used to. I awaken into immediate agitation, my body flooding me with stress hormones the moment I open my eyes.

I have lost my sexuality. My libido is almost completely gone. I no longer have the normal physical signs of male function. I feel chemically castrated, disconnected from a fundamental part of being human.

I feel brain-damaged. I feel permanently altered. I feel as though the person I was has been taken from me, not by illness, but by the very system I turned to for help.

The Isolation

When I tried to tell the truth about what was happening, I was called delusional by the doctors who caused the harm. Some friends believed me. My wife has supported me throughout, and her belief has been one of the few lights in the darkness. But some family members did not believe me. Some friends did not. I was told by my own brother to "get over it," that talking about what happened was making it persist. This betrayal, layered on top of the medical trauma, has deepened the suffering immeasurably.

The Trap I Am In

I am now physically dependent on 1mg of clonazepam. I cannot stop it abruptly without risking seizures and a withdrawal that could be even worse than my current state. I need a very slow, careful, medically supervised taper, likely lasting many months, possibly longer. The very drug that is harming me must be removed with painstaking slowness to prevent further catastrophe.

I am trying to access propranolol to help calm the adrenergic storm during this process. I am trying to find a doctor who understands benzodiazepine injury and iatrogenic harm, and who will not force more psychiatric drugs on me. I am searching for any path back to the healthy man I was before September 2025.

The Truth

This is not a story of mental illness. It is not a story of treatment-resistant depression. It is a story of iatrogenic injury: harm caused by medical treatment. I was a healthy man seeking help for low mood and emotional flatness after grief. Through a cascade of catastrophic medical errors, I was chemically injured, forcibly poly-drugged, given electric shocks to my brain, and made dependent on a drug that now holds me hostage.

Every single step after that first prescribing error was the wrong step. I have been failed at every level. And I am still here, still fighting, still trying to find a way back.