I’d taken sertraline for about 668 days until Christmas Day last year when I decided to stop it, cold turkey. The first time I swallowed one of the little white pills was in February 2024 after a summer of feeling pretty blue the year before.
I didn’t jump straight for the antidepressant, but tried to shake off the not-so-nice feelings through weekly therapy. And while the sessions helped me understand what was happening in my head, there was only so far I could get without a leg-up – and only so many times I could go to bed in tears, wake up in tears, and not escape the tears throughout the day.
Pre-sertraline feels
I wasn’t particularly sad about anything, which I think is pretty common (and annoying) about suboptimal mental health. Nothing was ‘wrong’ in my life. I just woke up one day not feeling as bouncy as usual (which is normal, you can’t be bouncy every day), but instead of bouncing back, the bounce sorta ceased to exist – and I felt like the personality I’d spent 25+ years shaping fell into a hole.
I wasn’t just crying, but spending night after night lying in bed with my eyes closed impossibly tight, but brain still horribly awake, a constant and noisy whir of thoughts, conversations, and scenarios. The ‘blue’ also manifested itself as anger, anger that I’d never known before, with a hot, heavy rage becoming part of my everyday. And all this led to more tears and more anger, because I was in such an unfamiliar and frustrated state that I couldn’t get out of.
This part’s for the star sign girlies
I’m a Taurus, and whether you’re an avid horoscope-r or you think it’s all a load of shite, I’m pretty much what every zodiac website says I should be: stubborn and impatient (but also very, very loyal).
I’m as aware of my flaws as the next person, but pre-sertraline me in 2024 had totally lost any grip on how to handle them. That’s not to say I was stamping my feet at work whenever someone disagreed with me or took forever to make a decision (though it did – and does – happen). I’m self-aware, which probably explains why I did all of my stamping, stomping, and general ‘ARGGGGHHHH!!!’ at home on my own. I was confused and embarrassed about how I felt, and I hated how easily riled up I was getting over things. Sobbing would always follow the exasperation. And to be fair, it did ease it. It’s true what they say – most things are better out than in – and a fat, long cry does go some way in rebalancing your emotions.
There was more to why I ended up on the sertraline, but I think this is enough to paint a picture of how my angst (and OCD, but we’ll come onto that) had started to get a liiiiiiitle of out control. I didn’t want to end up at bottom of the slippery slope, so I took advice and saw the GP. Who, bless her, had to deal with the fact I’d arrived in an absolute STATE because 1) my head and 2) the bottom of my car had literally fallen out on the drive there.
Life, eh. (But no surprise that I walked out with a prescription for sertraline, or ‘ser-trch’ as I affectionately call it.)
Therapy, meet sertraline
So that was all two years ago and along with the tablets, I carried on with therapy to try and double-whammy the blue out of my system. The sertraline wasn’t there to fix how I felt, but to take some of the load off so I could do the work to hash out the stuff in my head and relevel myself.
And take the load it did. I won’t pretend the first couple of weeks were snazzy, what with all the gurning (first time for everything) and shattered-ness, but a few weeks in and the side-effects sorted themselves out. I felt more confident to be honest – reaaaaally honest – in my therapy sessions, knowing that if I got angry or needed a big cry, I’d be able to, and then get myself back to a relatively ‘normal’ state.
I wasn’t as scared of how I’d been feeling, so I was able to get into the nitty-gritty of what the f*ck was happening in my head, and importantly, why.
And then most importantly, what I needed to be doing to give it more of a break.
The OCD dance
One of the biggest breakthroughs was when my therapist and I were talking about my OCD tendencies – and no, I don’t mean the misconception that because my flat is clean or that I’ve arranged books on my shelf in colour order that I must ‘be’ OCD. I mean the misunderstood mental health condition that’s been interrupting my life for years.
The revelation came about when she asked me how far my obsessive thoughts and repetitive behaviours prevent me from doing normal life things – like leaving the house.
And I’d never, ever said anything like I’m about to write out loud before.
“You mean, do I make sure I’ve got 10-minute buffer (at least) when leaving my flat because I have to stand over my hob and tap out loud at least eight times (but usually 24) before I’m satisfied that the gas hasn’t turned itself on and magically been lit with a flame which the wooden spoon in my utensils holder has fell onto and caught fire burned my flat, my neighbours’ flats, and the whole damn block down, which results in us all dying a horrific death – or worse, leaves me in prison (where I wouldn’t do very well, let’s be honest) charged with gross negligence manslaughter? And my reputation and my family’s lives totally fucked??? Because yes, that’s what goes through my head every time I think of nipping out, even if I’ve not used the hob that day. And that’s just the HOB scenario!!!”
(That was a condensed account of how I answered, no-one needs the long version. So yes, the sertrch was brought in to counter these less-than-ideal thoughts, too.)
What they really mean when they say ‘talk to someone you don’t know’
So how are we here, 30 days on from pulling the plug on the tablet that’d gone some way to slowing down the not-so-shiny disco ball of ideas in my head?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (and again) – therapy has been SUCH an addition and revelation to my life. I didn’t get what people meant when they said it’s useful to ‘talk to someone you don’t know’ (why would I want to talk to anyone but my friends and family?) – and I still don’t to be fair. But I reckon if we pitched therapy as the place you go to get all of your worst thoughts, difficult feelings, and absolute hates out (ones that would mortify you if anyone you actually knew found out about), then more people would get it.
As the months of therapy x sertraline went by, I’d still get worked up by something small and have glum days, but the bounce back was back. I wasn’t always living my best life (WTF is that about, anyway?), but I was living a life where I was more in control of my emotions – and overwhelmingly, that was a relief, because for a moment I was really worried I was losing what made me ‘me’ for good.
Trying to stop sertraline
That all brings us to the start of last year when I rang the GP to get some advice about coming off the tablets. I was feeling more myself and waaaaaaay more confident that the peaks and troughs in my emotions were back to my norm. She listened but warned me about weaning off them in winter (it’s cold and dark, which doesn’t go well with feeling blue, appaz).
And then she asked if I had any major changes happening in my life. Well, I’d just bought my flat and moved in alone, and I was leaving one job to start another. That was enough for her to advise against coming off them at that time.
At first, I was a bit pissed off (ironic, I know), but a few weeks later I had a big wobble so was glad the sertrch was there to make me feel less like jelly, more like cake. But as 2025 went on, I felt as though I was back to pre-sertraline me. So did a LOT of reading, thinking, and talking about coming off it – and that takes us to Christmas Day morning 2025.
What were you thinking?
I know – sure, Christmas is Christmas and all la-de-da, but it’s also winter. (And not even the depths of it – hi, January.) But I also understand myself more than I ever have before, and it just seemed to make sense and feel like the right time. Come on, I wasn’t gonna cry over a fat Christmas dinner and bottle of red, was I?
(I didn’t.)
Now, I won’t pretend it’s been easy – the first week was fine, but the second wasn’t ideal. I was in the absolute PITS with insomnia, which amplified every other emotion (good, bad, but mainly ugly). I got narky at the smallest things, was short with my friends, probably snapped at a few people at work. But I also just gave myself a break, because here I was doing January without the SSRI that had spent the best part of two years having all of this under some sort of control.
Post-sertraline
It’s now the 23rd of January and I’m sleeping better. By no means am I getting the eight hours I know I need, but it’s not the three broken hours I survived the first fortnight of January on.
I’m tired, obvs – that goes without saying – and I’m finding myself thinking more about what I say and how I say it, just in case any of the ‘ARGH!’ tries to make a comeback. And I may have been more distant, but I know that’ll settle.
Most of all, I’m trying to be proud of myself. None of this is easy, but I’m determined to make sure it’ll all have been worth it.
Boring disclaimer that I’ll try to make fun
I guess most of you reading this will know me and know I’m not a doctor or a mental health professional in any way shape or form (I’m sure my bank account would be a LOT healthier if I was). What I’ve written is wholly mine – my thoughts, my experience, my opinions – and I’ll go out on a limb to say probs don’t take it as advice. Though…
…therapy is always a good idea.
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