Using Lived Experience to Challenge Systemic Prescriber Inexperience in Antidepressant Withdrawal
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What is the guest’s personal and professional background related to antidepressant withdrawal?
Welcome to the Madden America Podcast, your source for science, psychiatry, and social justice.
Welcome to the Mad in America podcast. My name is Brooke Seam and I am the author of the award-winning memoir on antidepressant withdrawal may cause side effects. Today I'm with Carla Delgado. Carla is a San Diego native with eight years of experience in healthcare and a master's in healthcare administration. She also has a personal story with SSRI withdrawal. And in my efforts to talk to folks with lived experience, I really wanted to speak with her because of her unique background in healthcare administration and helping to navigate the system, which has not been that friendly for folks in withdrawal. So I am thrilled and grateful that you're sharing your story with us and the knowledge that you.
you have acquired from this experience. And I just thank you. Welcome to the show, Carla.
Thank you so much, Brooke, for the opportunity to share about my experience. And I hope that it will be able to help at least one person as they navigate their own trainings.
I'm sure it will. Well, let's just start with a little background on your experience with antidepressants and SSRI withdrawal.
I was first subscribed an SSRI bath in 2020. And so, of course, that was when we were going through the pandemic. And so just a mix of Things that were going on in my personal life, but also just what was going on in the world at the time. My primary care physician at the time felt that. It would be me. good for me to start one. And so I was prescribed that, but I was very hesitant to start. So I waited personally around three months before even starting. Um, once I started it, I could not have expected the journey that I was going to go on with being on the medication for as long as I have been, and then my personal attempts to come off from medication and it not going well. And so there were other layers to my story as far as
personal job loss, going through insurance hurdles, not necessarily having access to the care that I thought I would have while concurrently trying to come off a medication I felt I no longer needed to be on navigating the system and believing that the system would be there to help me during a time of crisis, I was able to see the crux as I experienced it personally, as I tried to get health.
How did Carla first get prescribed an SSRI and what were the early side effects?
Um and That enlightens me a lot as to what other individuals must go through while they try to seek the care and the help that is absolutely necessary when trying to come off a prescribed medication. And so me not having those resources, I actually needed to find resources elsewhere. And so interestingly enough, um, my sister sent me a reel on Instagram of someone who was going through this experience. And that totally validated what I was going through because nobody else could really answer what was going on with me. But seeing that real and that personal experience, it totally made me feel seen in a way that I hadn't felt seen by the system, by the providers I sought care from. And it changed the narrative that I had received as far as, oh yeah, you can totally come off this medication easily.
Like you just gotta titrate, you know, over a short time period and you can easily switch from one to another. It's no problem. Um, but I think that's from a lack of information. And Um, it's easy to say that coming from a provider perspective, not personally having been on the medication, it's another thing when you're going through it yourself and your experience is vastly different than what you've been told.
What drugs were you on?
So I was on Xenopacine, FXOR, yes. And so I had been prescribed that. And it wasn't my first prescription actually. I was prescribed a cetalifram at first, but had a negative reaction to that. And so I was totally switched to trial a different medication. And stuck through that initial two week, three week period where you need to stick through all the side effects. And so that completely flipped my world as well because it was not only insomnia. But daytime sleepiness, also just
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the guest’s personal and professional background related to antidepressant withdrawal?
0:04–2:48
2
How did Carla first get prescribed an SSRI and what were the early side effects?
2:48–7:23
3
What challenges did she face when trying to taper off the medication?
7:23–11:23
4
How did she create her own tapering plan and what doses did she use?
11:23–17:55
5
What insurance and employment hurdles affected her access to care?
17:55–22:29
6
How did interactions with new providers impact her withdrawal journey?
22:29–27:36
Speakers
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