Meg Jay

I mean, so with the caveat that I am the age that I am, so I don't remember the introduction of Prozac on the scene, for example.

But I think that my impression is that they have had periods in which they've been more political.

I believe that at that time, you know, when Elizabeth Worzel was writing Prozac Nation, there was a concern that they were going to be sort of like the opiate of the masses and people were just going to numb themselves.

And then I feel like that faded away for a while.

And now it seems to be very much back in the conversation with the rise of the Make America Healthy Again movement.

Yeah, Maha has really focused on antidepressants, among other things.

And the main sort of voice of Maha would be HHS Secretary RFK Jr.

What has he said about antidepressants exactly?

So there have been a couple of different claims.

One was that he said in the past, I believe at his confirmation hearings, that getting off antidepressants was harder than getting off of heroin and that antidepressants were addictive.

All right, that's pretty pointed language there.

What do we know about the facts?

Are SSRIs addictive?

Are they hard to come off?

They are not addictive.

They don't produce the spikes in dopamine that you would get with alcohol or drugs like cocaine or heroin, which are so pleasurable that they have you sort of seeking out your next hit as soon as you come off of them.

Instead, they work by targeting serotonin in the brain, which is a whole different part of your system.

So it'll make you feel more stable, but not that kind of high that you might get off of a drug.

They do, however, have the potential to cause withdrawal symptoms.

So that part is a genuine concern.