Here's a recent Guardian article:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/17/i-stopped-sl...
From the article:
> Horowitz experienced a prolonged antidepressant withdrawal in 2015 that caused intense panic attacks and, he says, even left him contemplating suicide. This personal experience has led the training psychiatrist to become an advocate for reforming antidepressant deprescribing.
> In June 2022 the UK health regulator, Nice, amended its guidance on how to support people coming off antidepressants, acknowledging the severity and length of withdrawal symptoms can vary. Nice encourages slow, staggered tapering over many months, if needed.
> In Australia, the RANZCP guidelines continue to recommend tapering by halving and quartering the lowest dose over about two to six weeks, and acknowledged that while slower tapering might sometimes be needed, it mostly isn’t possible in Australia “as current preparations of antidepressants do not allow for the dose to be reduced by such small decrements”.
There are well documented side effects of stopping SSRI usage that are not related to the original symptoms that the drug is prescribed to treat.
But yes, we all have different experiences, and there are many types of SSRIs. :-)