Antidepressant Coalition for Education

📢 It’s time to speak up. Join us in launching a community-wide reporting drive to push for long-overdue changes to antidepressant prescribing information. 📲 Visit antidepressantinfo.org for step-by-step instructions. 📝 Submit your report: accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwat…

This past week I had a chance to go to the @APApsychiatric conference here in San Francisco. I had planned to share a little bit about my experience today but after seeing the piece from @EllenBarryNYT this morning, I'd say she did a good job capturing the general sentiment toward deprescribing. So I'll just add a personal note. I left the conference feeling very hopeful about the future of support for antidepressant withdrawal and safer deprescribing practices. While I still believe there is more work to be done—for example, those of us who have experienced withdrawal know Stahl's guide misses the mark—there was a real openness to exploring antidepressant discontinuation and better support. I deeply appreciate these conversations. My hope is that as they continue, patients and psychiatrists find more chances to sit at the table together—as partners. I believe we all want the same thing: for patients to get the best mental health support possible. And no one understands that support better than the people living it. If you didn't get a chance to read Ellen's article yet, you can check it out here: nytimes.com/2026/05/24/sci…

For the millions of long-term antidepressant users in the US, hyperbolic tapering is currently the best strategy to reduce the risk of severe and protracted withdrawal. Linear tapers can work for short-term users, but many people who’ve been on antidepressants for >12 months find they need progressively smaller dose reductions at lower doses. Why? Antidepressants interact with serotonin transporters in a hyperbolic way, meaning tiny reductions become much more powerful near zero. Featuring ACE founder Morgan Stewart @morgan_stewar, Mark Horowitz @markhoro and Awais Aftab @awaisaftab, read more about hyperbolic tapering from WebMD below.

The average mental health patient has no power in any of the discourse happening. We have one side accusing another of being "fascist-adjacent," and another screaming "am not." Anyone who doesn't want to take meds or went through SSRI withdrawal is not "anti-psychiatry."

It’s only a matter of time before the distorting lens perceiving psychiatric medication withdrawal as relapse disintegrates and our culture is left, once and for all, to grapple with what’s happening here

Been on X for only 24hrs and got a d*ath threat for sharing my story about antidepressant withdrawal. A few years ago, I might’ve deleted this account. But if you saw the messages I get from people suffering through withdrawal—the desperation, the pain—you’d keep talking too. So I'll see you guys again tomorrow 🙂

It is heartening that the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology have taken a belated interest in deprescribing - they make some good points but they ignore a lot of core issues including withdrawal effects and methods of tapering. @cwestonclark and I here:

'Psychiatry has normalised long-term psychotropic use while investing remarkably little effort into understanding its long-term consequences.' The ASCP statement on deprescribing does little to change this. By @markhoro and @cwestonclark madintheuk.com/2026/05/rearra…

New article for Mad in America. Mark (@markhoro) and I break down the new ASCP deprescribing guidelines, which contain surprisingly little information about...deprescribing 🤔

It is a step. Polypharmacy is clearly a problem but there is plenty of non-empirically supported monopharmacy. Especially in the context of most relapse prevention studies being 'uninterpretable' (polite word) because of confounding by withdrawal

If people were told that antidepressants would make them numb rather than correct an underlying mechanism AND that we don't know how they do this or understand the consequences, at least they could make a better informed decision.

Hyperbolic tapering goes to Washington. A summary of the main ways to safely stop antidepressants and ways of implementing it in practice from the Washington conference. Link below

Make sure to let The Seattle Times know about your experience with antidepressants! 👇

FDA must warn the public. With this new study, there are now 13 -yes 13- consecutive MRI studies showing that SSRIs alter fetal brain development. (Listed below) There is scientific agreement. Common sense, basic science, & animal/human studies all show this. The Studies: #1 Wu, Y., Andescavage, N., Wisner, K. L., Kapse, K., Murnick, J., Ngwa, J. S., & Limperopoulos, C. (2026). Prenatal serotonin reuptake inhibitor exposure and maternal depression symptoms are associated with altered fetal brain and placental development. Neuropsychopharmacology. #MOESM1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">nature.com/articles/s4138… #2 Zanni, G, et al (2025). Perinatal SSRI exposure impacts innate fear circuit activation and behavior in mice and humans. Nature Communications, 16(1), 4002. doi.org/10.1038/s41467… #3 Koc, D., et al (2023). Prenatal antidepressant exposure and offspring brain morphologic trajectory. JAMA Psychiatry, 80(12), 1208–1217. doi.org/10.1001/jamaps… #4 Moreau, A. L., et al (2023). Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science, 3(2), 243–254. doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsg… #5 Campbell, K. S. J., et al (2021a). Prenatal antidepressant exposure and sex differences in neonatal corpus callosum microstructure. Developmental Psychobiology, 63(6), e22125. doi.org/10.1002/dev.22… #6 Salzwedel, A., et al (2020). Functional dissection of prenatal drug effects on baby brain and behavioral development. Human Brain Mapping, 41(15), 4123–4135. doi.org/10.1002/hbm.25… #7 Rotem-Kohavi, N., et al (2019a). Hub distribution of the brain functional networks of newborns prenatally exposed to maternal depression and SSRI antidepressants. Depression and Anxiety, 36(8), 753–765. doi.org/10.1002/da.229… #8 Rotem-Kohavi, N., et al (2019b). Alterations in resting-state networks following in utero selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor exposure in the neonatal brain. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 4(1), 39–49. doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc… #9 Lugo-Candelas, C., et al (2018). Associations between brain structure and connectivity in infants and exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors during pregnancy. JAMA Pediatrics, 172(6), 525–533. doi.org/10.1001/jamape… #10 Podrebarac, S. K., et al (2017). Antenatal exposure to antidepressants is associated with altered brain development in very preterm-born neonates. Neuroscience, 342, 252–262. doi.org/10.1016/j.neur… #11 Jha, S. C., et al (2016). Antenatal depression, treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and neonatal brain structure: A propensity-matched cohort study. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 253, 43–53. doi.org/10.1016/j.pscy… #12 Salzwedel, A. P., et al (2016). Thalamocortical functional connectivity and behavioral disruptions in neonates with prenatal cocaine exposure. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 56, 16–25. doi.org/10.1016/j.ntt.… #13 Knickmeyer, R. C., et al (2014). Rate of Chiari I malformation in children of mothers with depression with and without prenatal SSRI exposure. Neuropsychopharmacology, 39(11), 2611–2621. doi.org/10.1038/npp.20…

Make sure to follow Carrie on Twitter @cwestonclark

In this detailed account of navigating the mental health industry, Carrie Clark writes about her journey of being diagnosed with mental illness as a teen, the futility of medication, and ultimately leaving psychiatry and deconstructing the diagnostic paradigm. We highly recommend this captivating Substack. Link in comments!

Read Carrie’s Substack here: cwestonclark.substack.com/p/how-i-cured-…

💥FOIA documents show FDA examined reports of persistent sexual dysfunction tied to antidepressants — but declined stronger warnings Critics say the FDA set too high an evidentiary bar before deciding against stronger warnings about persistent sexual dysfunction linked to antidepressants. Link 👇👇 @abcsoka @PSSDNetwork @MikhailaFuller @unhealthytruth @benzosarebad @woodymatters @jeffreytucker @Mangan150 @newstart_2024

NEW Study: Fetuses with prenatal SSRI exposure have brain & placental alterations seen on in utero MRI. This is now the 13th consecutive MRI study showing that prenatal SSRIs are associated with altered fetal brain development. #MOESM1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">nature.com/articles/s4138… "Importantly, we observed decreased left & right hippocampal volumes, as well as reduced cortical gyrification index, curvedness, & surface area in fetuses exposed to SRIs compared to unexposed controls after adjusting for maternal depression scales." "SRIs cross the placenta & potentially influence fetal brain development by altering levels of critical neurotransmitters. Indeed, changes in serotonin levels during critical periods of brain development could alter the formation of neural circuits & potentially lead to brain structural alterations & subsequent neuropsychiatric outcomes."

As most of our community is aware, after petitioning the FDA, requesting tapering guidelines, and launching a coordinated reporting drive one year ago this May, the U.S. government has finally acknowledged an issue that has upended many of our lives: severe antidepressant withdrawal. On Monday, May 4, the Secretary of Health and Human Services acknowledged this problem and announced the development of deprescribing guidelines for antidepressants. We praise our community because this monumental step would not have been possible without decades of collective effort. No single person or organization brought this issue to a head. This moment was built on the backs of legends and pushed forward by others pioneering this advocacy: those who created the first withdrawal forums, our sister organizations that fought for benzodiazepine label updates and tapering guidance, advocates who built relationships with key decision-makers, researchers and academics who believed patients and dedicated their careers to producing the data and evidence needed to document severe withdrawal, and countless others who refused to let these harms remain invisible. Most critical to this movement, however, are the sufferers themselves. The people who stayed vocal despite being dismissed, those who submitted MedWatch reports, the many who devoted their time to supporting fellow sufferers through messages, phone calls, and support forums, the coaches who turned their own suffering into a commitment to help others navigate withdrawal safely, and the moderators and admins who sustained our support communities when the necessary infrastructure was, and still remains, absent within our health care systems. Together, we built what the systems that harmed us failed to provide. And together, we continued raising awareness until what now appears to be a tipping point. For those enduring severe withdrawal, we know that staying alive can itself be an act of resistance and, in a sense, advocacy. Please continue to hold on and please continue to be advocates because there is still more work ahead, and your voice matters deeply as both this movement and your recovery move forward. We acknowledge the political disparity within our community. The issue of antidepressant withdrawal will always remain nonpartisan, and so will ACE. While many in our community may not align politically with the current HHS leadership, we can still recognize the significance of this development and the progress it represents. We thank everyone in this community for making this happen. There is an awakening on the horizon and we must not stop now.

Doctors tweeting about hot topics for clicks and clout does not generate trust. Some of us have been fighting to improve systems for our entire lives because we have lived experience of harm. Others are piling onto a nuanced issue with hot takes to amplify their brand. Patients notice the difference between opportunism and authenticity.