# Staying on your antidepressant is fine > A psychiatrist on what the new push to get people off SSRIs gets wrong, and what to actually ask your doctor. - Title: Staying on your antidepressant is fine · Men's Health - Summary: A psychiatrist on what the new push to get people off SSRIs gets wrong, and what to actually ask your doctor. Quitting an antidepressant is a decision to… - Keywords: mental health, antidepressants, ssris, depression, psychiatry, Staying, antidepressant, fine, Men's Health - Source: Men's Health — https://menshealth.com/health/a73586007/why-staying-on-your-antidepressant-is-out-of-fashionand-also-radically-ok - Author: Gregory Scott Brown, MD - Published: 2026-09-13T13:00:00+00:00 - Read time: 3 min - Topics: mental health, antidepressants, ssris, depression, psychiatry ## A morning that changed things A psychiatrist heard HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announce plans to curb psychiatric overprescribing, and immediately thought about his own patients. ## Two claims that are false Kennedy said some people have a harder time quitting SSRIs than heroin, and that the drugs partly explain rising gun violence. Neither holds up. > I knew both claims were false, but I was also eerily aware that I am not the one with the bully pulpit. ## Staying on became the radical idea As the coverage piled up, continuing a medication that works started to sound like the contrarian position. That is a strange place for medicine to end up. ## Bigger than a news cycle He suspected a shift in prescribing culture on the scale of the 1980s Prozac revolution, and that it would not fade in a day. He wishes he had been wrong. ## Now there are guidelines coming HHS convened an expert panel to write clinical guidance on helping patients discontinue antidepressants. Deprescribing is fine for some people and risky for others. > Stopping your antidepressant may be in fashion, but I'm here to tell you that staying on it may be OK, too. ## Are they overprescribed? Maybe Millions of Americans take SSRIs like Lexapro, Zoloft, and Prozac, for depression but also anxiety, OCD, and PTSD. At least seven SSRIs are common in the US. ## Why doctors reach for them They are prescribed heavily because they have been studied, they work, and most people tolerate them. Since the 1950s, antidepressants are estimated to have saved tens of thousands of lives. ## Same as any other drug Not every patient on an antidepressant needs one. Not every patient on an antibiotic needs one either. Doctors decide with the information in front of them. > Such is the nature of medicine. ## Depression is not receding There is no consistent evidence that depression rates are falling. They look like they are rising, especially among young people, despite easier access to telehealth prescriptions. ## The number behind the argument Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for men 35 to 44, and second for men 25 to 34. In the US, 130 people die by suicide every day. > Antidepressants are not the problem, they are part of the solution. ## The real bottleneck is access Mental health services often go uncovered even with good insurance, and a good psychiatrist can take months to see. That is the crisis worth naming. ## Side effects are real but uneven Some patients get sexual side effects, upset stomach, or weight gain. Many get none, and there is no reliable way to predict who will. ## The long-term research flips Studies disagree on whether SSRIs lower testosterone, and on heart effects. Untreated depression itself raises the risk of death from all causes, heart disease included. > Any physical risk from being on an antidepressant must be balanced against the mental health risk of being off the medication. ## When the drug stops working About 25 percent of patients hit antidepressant tachyphylaxis, where a medication that worked loses its effect. Regular check-ins catch it early, and switching often fixes it. ## Non-drug options do help Sleep, meditation, and time with people matter, and trauma-informed yoga has evidence for PTSD. Medication can jump start what you are already doing. ## Therapy plus medication Therapy works on its own. In severe depression, studies show the combination can work better or faster than either one alone. ## Wanting to stay on is valid Some men like how they feel on the medication. Others found their symptoms came back when they stopped, which means the drug was doing its job. ## Never quit cold turkey Stopping abruptly or tapering alone can bring dizziness and stomach trouble, and can bring symptoms back harder than before. Talk to your doctor first. ## Withdrawal is manageable About 15 percent get insomnia or headaches when stopping, per a Lancet Psychiatry study. Shorter-acting drugs like Paxil are tougher to quit than Prozac, and psychiatrists are trained for it. > It's not even close to withdrawing from heroin. ## Key takeaway Quitting an antidepressant is a decision to make with your doctor based on your symptoms, not a decision made for you by a news cycle.