I’m Katinka and in 2012 I had insomnia as a result of going through a difficult divorce. I was prescribed the antidepressant escitalopram and after just two doses I became acutely psychotic. I hallucinated that I had killed my children and that I was being filmed and everything was being broadcast to the world. I ended up in a private hospital where they told me I had psychotic depression rather than recognising that I’d had an adverse drug reaction. They insisted I stayed and gave me more antidepressants and antipsychotics. Over the course of a year I suffered agonising akathisia and at other times I was catatonic and could barely get out of bed. I put on four stone and lost all sexual functioning.

I was lucky because after a year I was taken to a different hospital who cold turkeyed me off the seven drugs I was on. Within a month I was better. Since then I have fully recovered – I have run half-marathons, resumed my career as a film maker and brought up my two kids who lost me to psychiatric drugs for a year.

I’m profoundly grateful that I only had to endure the agony of these drugs for a year and hope my experience can help others.

I wrote a book - The Pill That Steals Lives and started Antidepressant Risks to spread awareness and to give a voice people who have had their lives stolen by medication. I hope my story gives hope to other people suffering the dangerous side effects of these drugs.