Men's Health September 13, 2026 0 Comments

Why Quitting Antidepressants Is the New Trend—and Why Staying on Them Might Just Be Your Secret Power Move

Ever catch yourself wondering why hitting the “off” switch on antidepressants feels like stepping into a minefield—one minute you’re hopeful, the next rattled by stories that these meds are as hard to ditch as heroin? Yeah, me too. When HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. dropped his bombshell about curbing “psychiatric overprescribing” and linked SSRIs to everything from addiction nightmares to gun violence, my mind immediately shot to my patients—the real people behind the headlines. It wasn’t just another morning news blip; it felt like the calm before a mental health storm, the kind we haven’t seen since the “Prozac revolution” flipped the script in the ’80s. But here’s the kicker: while everyone’s buzzing about quitting antidepressants, what if staying on them isn’t the scandalous act after all? Let’s unpack this tangled mess, clear the fog, and get to what really matters before you decide your next move.

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A FEW MONTHS ago, when the morning news was first talking about how HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had announced plans to curb “psychiatric overprescribing,” I immediately thought of my patients. I often do before the sun begins to rise, but this was different. The news continued with Kennedy’s views on SSRIs, including that some people have “had a much worse time getting off of SSRIs than people have getting off of heroin,” and that they are in part responsible for an uptick in gun violence. I knew both claims were false, but I was also eerily aware that I am not the one with the bully pulpit.

After a commercial break, analysts weighed in on MAHA’s insurrection of the field I have devoted my professional life to. I listened carefully, but impatiently to journalists and medical correspondents weighing in on the science, as well as the stories and the chatter, and it almost seemed like the idea of staying on an antidepressant was the new radical idea. I suspected we were on the cusp of a controversial mental health shakeup—a blockbuster shift in the culture of antidepressant prescribing we have not seen since the “Prozac revolution” of the 1980s. And I had a feeling this one wasn’t going to succumb to the haste of a 24-hour news cycle.

I wish I were wrong.

As a psychiatrist, I sit on the front lines of mental health, not as a policy maker, but as a board-certified physician. I have worked with thousands of patients, many of whom I have helped start (and successfully stop) antidepressants. The news from this summer was just the beginning. Recently, the HHS convened an expert panel to begin developing clinical guidelines for how to help patients discontinue antidepressants. It’s a nuanced concept that at best risks subtle misinterpretation by medical professionals and at worst risks inducing thousands of patients into thinking the medications that are helping them are causing harm. Deprescribing is probably OK for some people, but it can be dangerous for others. Stopping your antidepressant may be in fashion, but I’m here to tell you that staying on it may be OK, too.

Before you call it quits on your antidepressants, here’s what you should know.

Why Overprescribing Matters

ACCORDING TO KENNEDY, the US is facing a “dependency crisis” that is driven by too many people taking antidepressant drugs, including SSRIs like Lexapro, Zoloft, and Prozac. Every year, millions of Americans are prescribed antidepressants, not only for depression, but also for conditions like generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and PTSD. SSRIs may help you feel calmer by allowing the brain to utilize the chemical serotonin more efficiently. There are at least seven SSRIs that are commonly prescribed in the United States. Since the first antidepressants were approved in the 1950s, and SSRIs in the late 1980s, antidepressants are estimated to have saved tens of thousands of lives.

But are they overprescribed? The short answer is “maybe.”

Antidepressants are among the most prescribed medications in the US and around the world. But that’s because they have been studied, have been proven to work, and most people don’t have severe side effects from them. It is only appropriate–if not humanistic–for a doctor when faced with a patient who is suffering from mental illness, to offer a safe and effective solution. Antidepressants, including SSRIs, are often the gold-standard, or first-choice treatment in these situations. While it’s true that not every patient who is prescribed an antidepressant probably needs to be on one, it’s also true that not every patient who is prescribed an antibiotic needs to be on one either. Such is the nature of medicine. Doctors make the best recommendations they can with the information they have with one goal in mind: to help their patients regain optimal physical and mental health and do it in a way that is safe.

Antidepressants Are Not the Problem

MENTAL ILLNESS IS a public health concern that impacts millions of people. Even though destigmatization campaigns like Love, Your Mind provide accessible mental health guides and resources, and popular telehealth services like Hims make it easier to acquire prescriptions for mental health meds, there isn’t consistent evidence that depression rates are declining over time. If anything, they are rising, especially among young people. Depression also remains one of the strongest risk factors for suicide, which is currently the fourth leading cause of death for men ages 35 to 44; second among guys 25 to 34. There is nothing radical about taking an antidepressant or staying on one if you need it, because antidepressants aren’t the problem.

The problem is a healthcare system in the United States that limits access to care for so many people who need it. The problem is that even if you have “excellent” health insurance, oftentimes mental health services are not covered. The problem is that it can take months to secure an appointment with a good psychiatrist. The problem is also a narrative that focuses on getting people off antidepressants, rather than ensuring that the people who need to be on them can access them. Instead of focusing on a dependency crisis, it’s time to shift our attention back to a very real mental health crisis that still sees 130 people die by suicide every day in the United States. Antidepressants are not the problem, they are part of the solution.

What We Know About Long-Term Use

SOME OF MY patients take an antidepressant for months, others for years. I have also worked with patients who have been on antidepressants for decades. Determining the safety of long-term antidepressant use (meaning they take the medication for several years) relies on weighing the risks and benefits. In some patients, antidepressants can cause sexual side effects, upset stomach, or weight gain. However, it’s difficult to predict who will have side effects and many of my patients do not have any side effects at all.

Regarding the long-term safety of antidepressants, research on some health effects have flipped back and forth, allowing anti-science factions to choose a convenient side. For example, some research shows that antidepressants may reduce sex hormones like testosterone, while other studies show no effect. When it comes to cardiovascular health, scientists are exploring a relationship between long-term antidepressant use and heart problems, but some reports suggest that people who are taking antidepressants actually have improved cardiac health.It’s important to note that these observations are not yet definitive, and there may be other explanations like depression making it difficult for people to exercise or make healthy dietary decisions. The bottom line is that depression, especially if untreated, puts people at an increased risk of death from any and all causes—including heart disease. Any physical risk from being on an antidepressant must be balanced against the mental health risk of being off the medication.

If you’re taking an antidepressant, it is also possible that at some point, the medication may not work as well as it used to. Sometimes this happens soon after starting a new medication or months to years after being on one that previously worked. Psychiatrists refer to this phenomenon as “antidepressant tachyphylaxis” and it impacts about 25 percent of patients. There isn’t necessarily a timeline for how long it might take for an antidepressant to stop working, or if it will even stop working at all. It’s important that you follow up with your doctor regularly so you can talk about your symptoms and adjust your medication early, if needed. In my practice, I usually find that switching to a different antidepressant—even a different SSRI—can help if the one you’re on stops working.

How Good Are Non-Drug Options?

IN THE AGE of Big Pharma, it can sometimes feel like antidepressants are the only available option for improving mental health. But self-care strategies like meditation, optimizing sleep, and connecting with friends and family can help, too. So can trauma-informed yoga as an alternative to antidepressants for treating PTSD. But if you’ve already tried self-care and you feel like it’s only gotten you to a certain point, antidepressants may help “jump start” the effectiveness of what you’re already doing. This is especially true if you’re dealing with more severe forms of depression, the kind that makes the very thought of getting out of bed feel like an impossible chore. SSRIs can also help you feel more motivated if you’re dealing with anxiety, and they can help “turn down the volume” on anxious thoughts, Anxiety tends to respond well to antidepressants regardless of how “bad” your the anxiety is. Therapy is also an effective alternative to antidepressants. But in severe cases of depression, studies show that antidepressants and therapy together may either work better or faster than antidepressants or therapy alone. The recommendation to start or stop an antidepressant should be a personalized discussion between you and your doctor.

Getting off Antidepressants

WHILE SOME PEOPLE may not need to be on an antidepressant anymore, especially if it’s been at least six months and they aren’t experiencing symptoms, it doesn’t mean that the goal of successful treatment should be to get off SSRIs. Sometimes, guys just feel more comfortable taking antidepressants, because they like how they feel on them. In other cases, anxiety or depression may have come back when they tried to stop antidepressants in the past. This means the drug was working the way it was supposed to.

If you’re taking an antidepressant and you want to stop taking it—for any reason—always have a conversation with your doctor first. Abruptly stopping antidepressants on your own or trying to taper them without professional guidance can cause physical symptoms like dizziness or upset stomach. Stopping an antidepressant too soon can also cause mental health symptoms like depression or anxiety to come back, sometimes stronger than before. It’s also important to know that not all SSRIs are the same. Some SSRIs, like Paxil, may be more difficult to discontinue than other SSRIs, like Lexapro. Paxil has a “shorter half-life” meaning that your brain may “miss it” more quickly than it would “miss” a longer-acting drug like Prozac. If you stop Paxil cold turkey, you might feel a little “off,” more irritable, or like you have a mild version of the flu for a couple of days. It’s not even close to withdrawing from heroin which often causes intense muscle cramps, vomiting, and profuse sweating (as a psychiatrist, I’ve treated patients withdrawing from both).

One study published in The Lancet Psychiatry showed that about 15 percent of patients experience withdrawal symptoms such as insomnia and headache when stopping their antidepressant. Psychiatrists are trained to treat withdrawal if it occurs. Sometimes that involves tapering the drug while monitoring for side effects or adding a second prescription to temporarily act as a “bridge” until withdrawal symptoms go away. Psychiatrists are pretty good at helping patients taper antidepressants in a way that is comfortable and safe.

These days, staying on your antidepressant may seem like a radical move, but it doesn’t have to be. Antidepressants are overall safe and effective drugs that have helped millions of people. Like most medications, they have side effects, but these are generally mild. Many people do well on antidepressants and some people are eventually able to discontinue them. We are all still learning about the long-term risks and benefits of antidepressants, but rather than attacking them, let’s focus on something that will never go out of fashion: improving access to care, increasing awareness, and improving mental health in the United States and around the world.

Gregory Scott Brown MD is a board-certified psychiatrist and Men’s Health advisor. He is a clinical associate professor at the University of Houston Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine and author of The Self-Healing Mind: An Essential Five-Step Practice to Overcoming Anxiety and Depression, and Revitalizing Your Life.