I’m Luke from Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, England. Not an easy thing to post this and its very personal but I feel I need to make everyone aware of what's happened to me over the last year.

In 2018 I went to my GP due to not being able to sleep (work stress) and they put me on a drug called mirtazapine. It's an antidepressant but also a sedative. At the time it worked and I thought it was great.

6 years later! I found myself stuck on this drug with basically no GP follow-ups assessments from the day I was prescribed it.

So last year (2024) I decided that I needed to come off the mirtazapine as I knew my emotions were affected and I wasn't myself (emotionally blunt). Initially I attempted to taper myself off the medication slowly however I started to get horrible side effects (insomnia and anxiety).

I went to my GP surgery and the doctor gave me 8 weeks supply of mirtazapine to taper off. He also then prescribed me sertraline for some reason whilst I tapered off the mirtazapine. I followed my GPs advice and started the sertraline and came off the mirtazapine. This is where things took a big turn for the worse.

Over the following weeks/months I started to get a burning sensation in my head/tongue and tinnitus. I also started to notice that I wasn't having any emotions (excitement, sadness, happiness) a condition called anhedonia. All of which I still have as I write this post.

So I went back to the GP surgery a number of times and they said this was down to "mental health" and the "side effects" of the medication they had put me on. Initially they raised my dose of sertraline but after my symptoms did not improve they changed the sertraline to a drug called citalopram.

Weeks and months went on and I made repeated visits to the doctors regarding my symptoms and even had blood tests and a CT scan. I was palmed off by them with comments like "Get your eyes tested" "You have depression" "Take a holiday" "Go to Andy’s Men's Club" and “Just keep taking your medication”.

I carried on taking these "antidepressants" trusting that the GPs knew what they are doing. But my symptoms only got worse! So I took to the Internet to find some answers to what was happening to me. I started to research the medications I had been taking, especially the mirtazapine. I watched YouTube videos on the discontinuation of antidepressants and came across a condition called ‘Protracted Withdrawal’ and instantly knew that this was what I had.

Protracted withdrawal is a neurological brain injury caused by the discontinuation of antidepressants. This was the cause of my anhedonia (the inability to feel pleasure), tinnitus and burning sensation. Unfortunately, the subsequent prescribing of other antidepressants after stopping mirtazapine had only made things worse.

There is no cure or treatment for protracted withdrawal. Most people do heal over time however this is usually measured in many months or years. The NHS has only recently recognised protracted withdrawal in the last couple of years. Unfortunately, my GP's had never heard of protected withdrawal and insisted that I had a mental health problem and took very little interest in what I was trying to tell them. They just wanted to prescribe the symptoms away.

I decided to go to a local mental health crisis team. On my initial visit the people I spoke to were great (not doctors). They listened to what I was saying however they also did not want to know about Protracted Withdrawal.

The next day I attended the crisis team again to speak to the psychiatrist. He put my symptoms down to "anxiety or depression" and told me to stop the medication I was currently on and start taking yet another drug called venlafaxine. I took this for around 7 days but inside I knew that the antidepressants were only making things worse for me. I was 1000% certain that my symptoms were due to the discontinuation of the mirtazapine and the adverse effects of the subsequent drugs that had been prescribed to me by the doctors.

I took the difficult decision, but what I believe to be the right decision, and stopped taking the venlafaxine (enough was enough). After telling the psychiatrist I did not want to take any further medication he no longer wanted to see me!

I'm now finally off these antidepressants that I should never have been on.

I wish I could go back to 2018 and not have taken that first mirtazapine tablet and just made life changes to address my insomnia. I wish the GP back then had warned me of the dangers of this drug and I wish the GPs that subsequently chopped and changed my medication after coming off mirtazapine had known about protracted withdrawal and not made things worse for me.

How many people put on antidepressants get left on them for years and, when they do come off, doctors misdiagnose saying they are "relapsing from depression or anxiety" when in fact they are suffering from protracted withdrawal? Back on the antidepressants they go...

This is a very personal thing I'm going through but I just felt that I had to put it out there and in doing so hopefully prevent people from getting injured in the future. I'm not saying antidepressants don't have a place. They can help in the right situation but I do believe that the NHS seriously needs to change the way these drugs are thrown at people and also have a much better system in place to safely taper people off the medication. For most people, these drugs should be taken short-term not for a lifetime.

Although life is extremely hard living with protracted withdrawal (especially the anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure) I know that I'm now healing and will hopefully make a full recovery and one day I will be myself again.

For those who may find themselves being prescribed antidepressants in the future please make sure you are aware of the risks. They can have the opposite effect of helping.

For those who have been on antidepressants for years and want to come off them please, please slowly taper off them to prevent protracted withdrawal.