Thread by @LauraDelano

65M Americans take psychiatric drugs.
1 in 4 adults. Nearly 1 in 10 kids.
Millions are medicated, numbed, and stuck with no safe way out.

If this affects you—or someone you love—this thread matters 🧵

America is running the largest uncontrolled psychological experiment in history.

CDC data:
• 23.1% of U.S. adults (~60 million people ) take ≥1 psychiatric drug
• 8.2% of U.S. children (~4.5 million kids) do too

Almost 1 in 4 adults, nearly 1 in 10 kids—medicated long-term with no clear exit strategy.

Why does this matter?

Patients describe it in chilling terms:

“Like living in a fog.”
“I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t feel sad. I didn’t feel anything.”
“I became a zombie.”

SSRIs and other psych meds may blunt suffering—but they also blunt love, joy, empathy, and meaning.

Watching your child graduate… feeling nothing.
At a friend’s funeral… unable to cry.

This is not healing. It’s emotional castration.

But what if you want to get off these drugs? The answer is terrifying.

Stopping SSRIs and other psychiatric meds too quickly can trigger severe withdrawal:

• Insomnia
• Panic attacks
• “Brain zaps”
• Akathisia (a severe restlessness)
• Hallucinations
• Paranoia
• Suicidal feelings

For some, these withdrawal symptoms are protracted, lasting months, or even years. (Hengartner et al., 2020; Davies & Read, 2019)

But here’s the shocking part:

Most U.S. clinicians don’t realize psychiatric drugs can cause physical dependence (not addiction) or that withdrawal symptoms often mimic mental illness.

As a result, withdrawal is often misdiagnosed as:

• A relapse of the “underlying illness”
• Or the onset of a new mental disorder

The consequence? A feedback loop that keeps people trapped forever.
(Horowitz & Taylor, 2022; Guy et al., 2020)

And here’s the shocking truth when tens of millions try to stop…

Despite tens of millions taking these drugs, the NIMH, APA, and other U.S. authorities have zero official tapering guidelines.

No protocols. No support. No safety nets.

In the UK, clinicians can follow the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines. In the U.S., patients are on their own.

Patients are prescribed psychiatric drugs indefinitely. When they try to stop, they’re told: “Just cut the dose in half for a week, then stop.”

That advice has wrecked lives.

Because the system failed, patients had to figure it out themselves. They discovered hyperbolic tapering—reducing the dose by smaller and smaller amounts over months or years.

The slower you go, the more likely you are to successfully taper off.

Here’s how hyperbolic tapering works:

Instead of cutting in fixed chunks (25mg → 20mg → 15mg), people reduce by progressively smaller amounts over many months, sometimes years:

25mg → 22.5mg → 20.3mg → 18.2mg…

Why? Lower psychiatric medication doses have disproportionately larger effects on the brain (the opposite of what patients are told)

Here's a sample schedule from the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists:

If you or someone you love is thinking about stopping a psychiatric medication, don’t go it alone.

Proper preparation takes time, and it’s more than just the taper itself. For many, it’s the biggest decision they’ve ever made.

Your knowledge is your power.

Fortunately, hundreds of thousands of current and former patients worldwide are freely sharing the critical information, resources, and support you need.

Thanks to those who’ve walked this path, all the guidance you need is available at your fingertips—right now.

This isn’t anti-medicine. This is pro-truth, pro-choice, pro-human freedom.

Because every person deserves more than a life of numbness, dependence, and fear.

Take control and get the full picture:

• What “slow, safe, hyperbolic tapering” really looks like
• Why withdrawal is often mistaken for relapse
• How other patients have managed and coped
• The real ways coming off a drug can change your life

Learn more and empower yourself here: lauradelano.com/learnmore

Learn more about safely coming off psychiatric drugs:

Follow these orgs to learn more about the risks of taking and stopping psychiatric drugs:

@_innercompass @ACE_CoalitionEd @BZInfoCoalition @PSSDNetwork @healixuk @cep_uk @rxisk @MISSDFoundation

DATA & SOURCES:

CDC Mental Health Care: cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/p…
NCHS Data Brief (children): cdc.gov/nchs/data/data…
UK Taper Plan:
rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/…
Davies & Read, 2019; Hengartner et al., 2020; Horowitz & Taylor, 2022; Guy et al., 2020; Sørensen et al., 2021; Gray et al., 2013; Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines, 2024.

Disclaimer: This thread is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. It's important to collaborate with a well-informed prescriber about making any changes to medication.