My name is Emma, I’m an actress and photographer and in November 2020, I went to my father’s private GP in Chelsea with tinnitus. I woke up with a loud ringing in my ears - it was distressing because I’d not had anything like this before and didn’t know what was going on.

I went privately because I expected the doctor would have contacts and refer me to a specialist for tests.

Instead the GP prescribed me a tranquiliser, lorazepam, telling me it would calm me down and help me sleep. He said he was going to give me something I could take until the pandemic is over as we were in lockdown.

The GP said they were completely safe and I could take them until the end of lockdown.I thought nothing of it because he’s a doctor and I trusted him.

It helped me to sleep at first but then it started to have the opposite effect. I was waking up in the early hours in a state of terror . It got worse until it wasn’t just in the middle of the night, it was throughout the day, too. And it didn’t help my tinnitus

I asked the GP if I should continue taking the drug and he said it was safe to carry on with it.

With Covid travel restrictions relaxed, I had gone to stay with my father who lives in Spain. I was in the glorious sunshine but I felt anxious all the time. I couldn’t eat, concentrate or do anything.

Eight weeks after starting on the lorazepam I saw a doctor in Spain who diagnosed what I now know is interdose anxiety, and prescribed citalopram as well.

Within hours of taking it, I started having a feeling of constant terror, I was rocking back and forth in my bed and I was unable to sit still. It was obviously akathisia.

I wondered if the medication might be to blame for my symptoms – so a month after being put on citalopram, I started to reduce the dose. While the akathisia improved, I still wasn’t back to my usual self, suffering insomnia and unnatural anxiety – I could barely leave my room. So two months after coming off the citalopram I decided to come off the lorazepam, too which I’d now been on for five and a half months.

But this made my condition even worse.

I started getting electric shock feelings, and I didn’t sleep at all. My eyesight was blurry and my hearing was muffled. I had this strange feeling that I had left my body.

My dad was so concerned he took me to a hospital.

I was strapped into a chair and taken up to this awful psychiatric unit – it was like a prison, rather than a place where your doctor would send you to get better.

I realised it was the medication that was making me ill and the last thing I wanted was any more drugs. But they made me take sertraline and threatened to inject me with the antipsychotic olanzapine if I didn’t.

My tinnitus was screaming in my ears , it felt like my whole body was a melting pot of hell.

After three days I persuaded the doctors to discharge me butI was still suffering.I Googled how to kill myself – the awful thing is I didn’t want to die, I just wanted the suffering to stop. The physical torture was indescribable.

In the summer of 2021, my mother flew over to take her back to the UK. Back in London my condition worsened.

At this point I’m down to 5 stone - usually I’m 8 stone - I’m 5 foot 4. I’m pacing 24/7 in a circle and I still can’t sleep, The doctors come around and tell my mum that if I don’t go into hospital immediately I’m likely to die. At that point I’m in full psychosis. I thought I was dead, that I was in hell and that my mum was the devil.

Over the next four months I was sectioned twice and put on more antidepressants and antipsychotics. My physical and mental health declined as the akathisia and other withdrawal symptoms escalated and resulted in more attempts to take my life.

My nightmare ended in November 2021, a year after it began when a nurse gave me some lorazepam, the drug that had begun my ordeal to help me with the agitation and constant pacing.
Suddenly I felt ok. It was like a miracle. I was able to have a normal conversation.

I saw a private psychiatrist who told me I was suffering protracted withdrawal from the lorazepam and he recommended I reinstate it and taper off it slowly along with the other antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs I’d been prescribed.

I’ve been doing this for 2 1/2 years now, and I’ve been told it will take several more to get off them completely. The withdrawal symptoms are sometimes so bad that it feels as if I’m having seizures or a stroke. And sometimes the akathisia comes back.

I still have tinnitus - a specialist has diagnosed a problem with my Eustachian tube, probably caused by Covid which Ihad in the first lockdown. I’ve experienced the feeling of nerve damage as I taper, have severe migraines and pain in my eyes and am often confined to my bed for weeks because I’m so unwell

It’s crazy how these drugs can alter your state from being a very happy person to all of a sudden thinking about suicide all the time. I didn’t actually want to die, I was just experiencing the side-effects of these drugs.

As time goes on my body feels more human and I'm almost back to feeling at peace with my body. I've gone from feeling like I'll never be normal to now having hope for the future. I'm so grateful for the healing I've had and that I'm slowly getting better.