> How did you determine that "Millions more tried them... and then desisted from treatment without major lifelong mental alterations"?

We have lots of public data on SSRI usage (20+ million in the US alone each year) and discontinuation rates. The drugs themselves are decades old and have been through countless trials and studies, and of course there are databases like FAERS that track reports of adverse drug reactions.

Is your assertion that this is false? That in fact the typical SSRI patient is mentally/emotionally crippled by the drug? Doctors and public health agencies are hiding a public health catastrophe to sell genericized pills that cost tens of dollars a month?

Of course severe side effects can and do happen. Doesn’t mean every bad thing that happens to a person who happened to take SSRIs for a few days should be taken as a big cautionary tale.