My first job after graduating from Boston University’s School of Public Communication was as an account executive with a boutique advertising agency in New Haven, Connecticut, on the Ann Taylor Sportswear account.
After a stint with another agency, I moved to Boston where I became vice president of marketing for a Boston bank. I had a full, active life: I loved my job, my friends, and took advantage of everything Boston had to offer.
In 1984, I was attacked twice in four months, once in the stairwell of my building and the second time in my apartment when a man shinnied up a drain pipe and came through a second floor window. I was prescribed antidepressants and tranquilizers to help me get over the trauma of these attacks. They helped me cope for a while, but the prescriptions never stopped. My cognitive decline started with the first pill I popped and only ended when I stopped taking them over 2 ½ years ago.
I returned to Maine where my parents lived and started working for an ad agency where I was in charge of a nationally-known fast-food account with a budget of over $2 million. I quit that job, embarrassed that I couldn’t do the work. I was hired and fired from another ad agency, then worked at a succession of typing and telemarketing jobs.
Not knowing what else to do, I opened my own public relations agency. Over the years I managed to chalk up some successes for my clients, but I was completely overwhelmed by the details of my job.
I didn’t know why I couldn’t do what I had always done so well before.
This is the story of how antidepressants affected my mind and body, why and how I came off them, and how your doctor can help you taper off these potentially harmful drugs. You can get your life back.