{"id":39945,"date":"2025-04-22T02:56:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T02:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/39945\/"},"modified":"2025-04-22T02:56:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T02:56:13","slug":"i-almost-ended-my-life-at-25-because-of-the-cocktail-of-anti-depressant-drugs-i-had-been-put-on-from-the-age-of-14-after-ditching-them-everything-changed-and-i-even-had-my-first-orgasm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/39945\/","title":{"rendered":"I almost ended my life at 25 because of the cocktail of anti-depressant drugs I had been put on from the age of 14. After ditching them, everything changed… and I even had my first orgasm"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the age of 25, Laura Delano decided to end her life. She had grown up in privilege \u2013 her father is related to former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and she inhabited a world of boarding schools and debutante balls.<\/p>\n

Yet, despite these advantages, she felt she had been handed a life sentence.<\/p>\n

For the previous 11 years, she\u2019d been on 19 different psychiatric drugs, including mood stabilisers, antidepressants and antipsychotics. The cocktail of medications had begun when she was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder at just 14 years old.<\/p>\n

Her suicide attempt was precipitated by a psychiatrist telling her that, after more than a decade of being medicated, she wasn\u2019t getting better because her condition was \u2018treatment resistant\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018I felt I was left facing this decision: keep going with this miserable, mentally ill life of hospital programmes, not being able to work [other than the odd part-time job], not able to have relationships, or end my life because I didn\u2019t think there was any other option,\u2019 says Laura.<\/p>\n

It was by chance that her father found her unconscious on rocks in woods near her grandparents house in Maine<\/a>, north east America. \u2018My parents were told: \u201cIf she survives, she\u2019ll likely be vegetative.\u201d Everyone was resigned to the fact that I wasn\u2019t going to make it.\u2019<\/p>\n

Two years after her suicide attempt and after more hospitalisations, changes in medication, and further expert opinions, Laura began to question the story she had believed for over a decade.<\/p>\n

\u2018I took it for granted that bipolar disorder is a biological disease, like diabetes, and that being bipolar meant my brain was defective and that I would have to take psychiatric drugs for the rest of my life just to stand a chance of living a normal life,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

\"Laura <\/p>\n

Laura Delano, now 42, has a husband and children and is\u00a0off all her medication. She warns that diagnoses and medications can be too easily handed out<\/p>\n

\"For <\/p>\n

For 11 years, Laura had been on 19 different psychiatric drugs, including mood stabilisers, antidepressants and antipsychotics (Stock Image)<\/p>\n

\u2018I had this lifelong condition caused by a chemical imbalance, I was told.\u2019 (In fact this chemical imbalance theory has never been scientifically proven.)<\/p>\n

\u2018But then I thought, what if my life was falling apart, not in spite of my treatment \u2013 but because of it?<\/p>\n

\u2018Looking back, I realise much of my problems were caused by adverse effects of the cocktail of drugs I was prescribed. They took away my ability to connect, so I became socially reclusive and had such brain fog that I just spent hours zoning out in front of the TV.\u2019<\/p>\n

Laura\u2019s path into the world of psychiatric treatment began when her concerned parents decided she needed professional help.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was acting out, self-harming, screaming at my parents,\u2019 she recalls. \u2018I see now it was a reaction to a world I didn\u2019t belong in \u2013 a culture that celebrated material success that didn\u2019t make sense to me. So I felt like there was something wrong with me.\u2019<\/p>\n

Laura\u2019s life today, at 42, looks very different. Now off all her medication, she lives with her husband, Cooper, their four-year-old son, and her 11-year-old stepson in Connecticut.<\/p>\n

Together, they run Inner Compass Initiative, a non-profit organisation she founded to provide information about taking and safely tapering off psychiatric drugs, and to provide a community to support one another.<\/p>\n

Laura has now published a book, Unshrunk: How The Mental Health Industry Took Over My Life \u2013 And My Fight To Get It Back, telling her powerful personal story alongside an investigative look into the potential harms of psychiatric diagnosis.<\/p>\n

She stresses that medication does have its place. \u2018I\u2019m not anti-medication or anti-psychiatry, I just want people to know the facts,\u2019 she says. \u2018For example, drugs such as antidepressants and antipsychotics are on average only tested for six to eight weeks \u2013 and that a psychiatric diagnosis is a subjective opinion, not a biological fact. People deserve to know that.\u2019<\/p>\n

She adds: \u2018And this idea that if you\u2019re struggling, you have a mental health condition \u2013 in many instances that label may not be helpful.\u2019<\/p>\n

Laura\u2019s concerns mirror a wider debate over mental health overdiagnosis, with increasing numbers of people now labelled as having conditions such as bipolar disorder, autism, depression and ADHD.<\/p>\n

This is a problem mental health campaigners and some psychiatrists have long spoken about, and now it\u2019s reached the political mainstream, with the Health Secretary Wes Streeting recently telling the BBC there is an \u2018overdiagnosis\u2019 of some mental health conditions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the NHS, one in five adults and one in ten children in the UK have a mental illness \u2013 but some experts challenge these numbers.<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr Suzanne O\u2019Sullivan, a neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, and author of a new book, The Age of Diagnosis: Sickness, Health And Why Medicine Has Gone Too Far, argues that rather than more people getting sicker, we are \u2018attributing more to sickness\u2019 \u2013 so that millions are now classed as unwell, when previously they may have been considered healthy.<\/p>\n

She told Good Health: \u2018We\u2019re almost instructing people to worry about missing a night\u2019s sleep or feeling down for a few weeks. One in five people may have a mental health condition, but are they really more ill than past generations?\u2019<\/p>\n

Dr O\u2019Sullivan highlights a crucial misconception: \u2018People assume mental health diagnoses are based on scientific discoveries, scans or genetic findings. In reality, a committee decides what counts as a disorder.\u2019<\/p>\n

The global rule book for diagnosing mental health conditions, such as depression and bipolar, is known as the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). It is compiled by a committee of US psychiatrists who decide what is considered a mental disorder \u2013 and the criteria for diagnosing it.<\/p>\n

Since its first edition in 1952, the number of disorders has nearly tripled \u2013 from 106 to almost 300. Critics argue that this steady expansion of diagnoses is turning grief, shyness and childhood energy, for instance, into medical conditions.<\/p>\n

And Dr O\u2019Sullivan warns of the dangers of the \u2018nocebo effect\u2019, where \u2018when you medicalise something, people start conforming to the label. If you\u2019re told you\u2019re depressed, bipolar or autistic, you start searching for symptoms in yourself. We need to find a way to support people without automatically turning them into patients.\u2019<\/p>\n

Dr Sami Timimi, an NHS child psychiatrist, also believes psychiatry is overdiagnosing emotional distress. \u2018Forty per cent of schoolchildren in Scotland are now labelled as having special needs, much of it related to mental health<\/a>. Soon special needs will be the norm for everyone.\u2019<\/p>\n

He warns, too, of teenagers self-diagnosing through social media.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The underlying problem is that diagnosis inevitably leads to medication \u2013 and the drugs themselves can lead to symptoms that lead to more medication<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m seeing a fair number of young people who believe their mood swings mean they have bipolar disorder,\u2019 says Dr Timimi, author of Searching for Normal, A New Approach to Understanding Mental Health, Distress and Neurodiversity. \u2018I\u2019m also seeing more young people who think they have a personality disorder, ADHD or autism. We need to re-educate both the public and professionals, including doctors and psychiatrists, away from the culture of diagnosis and towards an understanding of emotional distress.\u2019<\/p>\n

The underlying problem is that diagnosis inevitably leads to medication \u2013 and the drugs themselves can lead to symptoms that lead to more medication, as Laura says happened with her.<\/p>\n

Looking back, she believes her struggles were a normal part of growing up and coming to terms with the world she was born into. \u2018I remember thinking: why is life all about getting good grades, being a good athlete, having good manners, being thin, and all these superficial elements?\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

\u2018I became obsessed with achieving to the point where I developed an eating disorder and was exercising six hours per day. As the eldest of three siblings I felt pressure to be a role model.\u2019<\/p>\n

She was 13 when her parents sent her to a therapist, and a year later she was referred to a psychiatrist as she was self-harming.<\/p>\n

\u2018After a 15-minute consultation, the doctor explained that my irritability and outbursts were symptoms of mania [a psychiatric term for elevated energy levels and heightened mood] and that my despair and self-injury were symptoms of depression. I was told I had a lifelong, incurable condition called bipolar disorder, which is characterised by patterns of intense ups and downs. But I was told not to worry \u2013 there were medications that could help me.\u2019<\/p>\n

Laura was prescribed an antidepressant, Prozac, and a mood stabiliser, but, outraged by the diagnosis, she refused to take them.<\/p>\n

However her feelings of hopelessness continued, leading her to use ecstasy and alcohol.<\/p>\n

Despite her struggles, she got into Harvard University to study social anthropology, but broke down in her first year, aged 18, after attending a debutante ball.<\/p>\n

\u2018There I was up on this stage, the culmination of this fake life that I couldn\u2019t escape,\u2019 she recalls.<\/p>\n

\u2018I thought, \u201cI give up. That doctor must have been right four years earlier. Something must be wrong with my brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I told my parents I needed help and they made an appointment with a psychiatrist who put me on bipolar meds.\u2019<\/p>\n

From that moment, she fully embraced her diagnosis and began a regimen of increasing medication doses.<\/p>\n

Although she remained at Harvard, the next few years were a struggle, she says: \u2018That was when the prescription cascade started. First, it was an antidepressant, a sleep aid, then a downer like an antipsychotic and a mood stabiliser, along with benzodiazepines.<\/p>\n

\u2018When I started feeling anxious and jittery, they added more drugs. Over time, I was on up to five medications at once.\u2019<\/p>\n

She managed to complete her degree and graduate from Harvard (although she took a year off, during which time she admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital).<\/p>\n

However, after leaving, without the structure of university, her life spun out of control.<\/p>\n

Laura recalls: \u2018I was unable to hold down a job, I lost touch with all my friends, got into toxic relationships. As well as taking my medication, I was drinking to blackout, and taking cocaine.\u2019<\/p>\n

Over the next few years, Laura was hospitalised three times \u2013 once after her overdose and the other times because she was suicidal, which she now sees as largely caused by adverse effects of the drugs she was taking.<\/p>\n

She saw countless experts and was given multiple diagnoses, including social anxiety disorder, substance use disorder, binge eating disorder and borderline personality disorder.<\/p>\n

It was a chance visit to a bookstore at 27 that changed her life.<\/p>\n

She picked up a copy of Anatomy of an Epidemic, by award-winning US journalist Robert Whitaker. The book challenges the idea that psychiatric medication fixes chemical imbalances and suggests they may actually create illnesses.<\/p>\n

\u2018It was terrifying and liberating,\u2019 says Laura. She decided to quit her medication against the recommendation of her specialist \u2013 and without realising the risks.<\/p>\n

\u2018I came off them in six months without a proper tapering plan,\u2019 she says. \u2018I had horrendous withdrawal symptoms \u2013 spontaneous vomiting, migraines, diarrhoea, cognitive fog, my skin broke out in boils. I could barely function.\u2019<\/p>\n

Regaining her emotions after 14 years of medication was bittersweet. She says: \u2018When I started coming alive, it terrified me. But then I realised that this is what it feels like to be here. I just hadn\u2019t been here this whole time.\u2019<\/p>\n

At 27, she had her first orgasm \u2013 until then, she hadn\u2019t known that sexual dysfunction can be a side effect of the drugs.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019d assumed my sexual problems were my fault. That first orgasm was the most extraordinary and beautiful experience but it also set off a grieving process: until then I didn\u2019t realise what I\u2019d been missing for all those years.\u2019<\/p>\n

A key moment in her recovery was meeting Robert Whitaker, who encouraged her to write a blog for his website, Mad in America. This led to hundreds of people reaching out with similar experiences \u2013 they had also believed in the medical model, but now realised that in their case the drugs were harming them. That blog became the basis for her book Unshrunk.<\/p>\n

\u2018My life looks profoundly different now,\u2019 says Laura. \u2018I have my emotions, my cognitive function, my relationships back. It is such a gift to find my way back, post psychiatry. But I\u2019m still the same intense, sensitive, insecure me as I was all the way back in the beginning \u2013 I\u2019m just not afraid of it any more.\u2019<\/p>\n

Unshrunk: How The Mental Health Industry Took Over My Life – And My Fight to Get it Back, by Laura Delano, is published by Monoray (\u00a322)<\/p>\n

Laura appears on The Med Free Mental Fitness Podcast with Katinka Blackford Newman, available on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Youtube<\/p>\n