My name is Denise, I live in Essex and in 2018 my husband John had his life stolen by citalopram and zopiclone.

John was having trouble sleeping following news his twin brother had cancer. I suggested he go to our GP. John was understandably distressed but I do not believe he had depression. Yet he killed himself by standing in front of a 100 mile an hour through train.
John was 9 days into the prescription issued to him over the phone, by a GP who did not know him.
Desperate to try find out what could have made John do this, I eventually discovered the drugs he’d been prescribed, although far from uncommon, are known in “rare” cases to make people suicidal.

I am heartbroken at his senseless death and angry that everyone is lied to about ‘mental health’ and these ‘medications’. Which in fact do not treat or cure anything. Like many others, I’ve taken antidepressants myself, believing the story I’d been told that ‘depression is the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain’.

Following John’s death, I discovered this is totally unsubstantiated.
I believe the term ‘Mental health’ – is actually a clever rebranding of mental illness espoused by the drug companies.

There have always been people who experience mental illness but since the drug companies who produce antidepressants got us all talking about mental health there has supposedly been an epidemic. We diagnose ourselves with depression and anxiety and even request the pills we are told are the solution. No one bats an eyelid if a GP suggests painful emotions are symptoms of a mental health problem, the treatment for which is antidepressants.

On the other hand, if we were told we had a mental illness requiring powerful mind-altering psychiatric drugs with an array of side effects ranging from mildly unpleasant to potentially life threatening – if we were told the truth about how hard it is to come off them because of unpleasant withdraw symptoms – would we regard their prescription as quite so harmless?

These drugs are over prescribed to people, like John, who have life problems – not ‘mental health’ problems.

They kill people like John, who did not want to die but just wanted to feel better. And they leave in their wake people like me, facing a life alone robbed of my husband and best friend of 33 years.