Why, then, would I ever want to break up with the thing that had brought me actual mental health? And why hadn’t I known how hard it would be? To be honest, I hated how I looked and thought Zoloft was to blame, and the idea of being on any medication for my whole life made me feel seriously uneasy. Also, my psychiatrist had suggested that I start the tapering process now that I had been (relatively) panic-free for three years. So I did it. And it sucked.

An estimated 16 million people are “long-term” antidepressant users, of those, 70 percent are women