What could plunge a smart, successful 55-year-old woman into such depths of despair that she takes her own life?
Kate Spade’s husband unwittingly answers this question in his heart-breaking letter to the New York Times when he says that “she was actively seeking help for five years and was taking medications for both depression and anxiety.”
I know what she was going through, because I was on the same drugs for 30 years and thought about suicide every day, visualizing in great detail exactly how I was going to do it.
When I told my doctors I was suicidal, they would either increase the dose of the antidepressant I was on or switch me to a new one. They tried to treat the debilitating side effects of antidepressants with more drugs: anti-anxiety meds, sleeping pills and amphetamines for misdiagnosed ADHD. Over the years, I was prescribed 16 of the top selling 25 psychotherapeutic drugs.
Finally, I’d had enough and stopped taking antidepressants three years ago. The tapering process was rocky, but I made it.
Now I’m back to being my old self again – the major depression and high anxiety that ruled my world for three decades are totally gone.
I’m lucky I didn’t become a statistic. A recent study reports an alarming 63% increase in the suicide rate among middle-aged women versus an overall increase of 24%.
Could there be a connection between the high suicide rate among middle-aged women and the fact that over forty million women in their 40s and 50s take antidepressants?
For the complete text of Andy Spade’s letter to the New York Times, go to https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/style/andy-spade-statement.html