Shalini Ramachandran

What there is is a lot of chatter on social media.

Only, creators that Betsy and Shalini spoke to said that after extended use of antidepressants, they started experiencing downsides.

And now, there are TikTok testimonials trending with a very different tone.

A recent study found that moderate or severe withdrawal symptoms showed up in nearly two-thirds of patients who'd been on antidepressants for more than two years.

Shalini and Betsy found that just like with benzos, people can get trapped in a cycle of prescriptions with antidepressants.

Patients experience side effects, so their doctor raises their dose or switches to a new pill or layers on more meds.

And if they try to get off the drugs, they experience withdrawal symptoms.

So it sounds like there's still a lot that's not known about these drugs, how effective they are just on their own and what kind of impact they have on folks long term.

I just want to say again, many Americans have been helped by psych meds over the years.

But the more that Shalini and Betsy looked at these drugs and the hundreds of millions of prescriptions that are filled every year, the more apparent it became to them that these meds are embedded in American culture and that the U.S.

has yet to reckon with what it means to use these drugs for far longer than intended or ever studied.

If you or anyone you know is struggling, you can reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting 988.

That's 988.

That's all for today, Wednesday, December 3rd.

The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.

Additional reporting in this episode by John West.

Thanks for listening.

See you tomorrow.

So Davos is an alpine city in Switzerland. That's our colleague Shalini Ramachandran. It's the site of this annual meeting that brings together the planet's power brokers from like morning to past midnight. Meetings over coffee and cocktails and fondue and there are thousands of CEOs and billionaires.

So Davos is an alpine city in Switzerland. That's our colleague Shalini Ramachandran. It's the site of this annual meeting that brings together the planet's power brokers from like morning to past midnight. Meetings over coffee and cocktails and fondue and there are thousands of CEOs and billionaires.