Withdrawals

You know that feeling when everything is so terrifying and uncomfortable that one day you find yourself shaking in your room like a rescue pug, eating nachos that arrived cold, deciding on a new and inventive way to call in sick because what good is a steady paycheck anyway if it means having to leave the warm embrace of your Ikea bed and a Klonopin?

Okay, maybe you don’t know that exact feeling. But have you ever been crushed by depression or anxiety until it halted your daily routine so much you eventually had to ‘do something’ about it? If not, and you’ve had a blissful existence thus far, please read on (and share with us your secret coping mechanisms). If the above scenario sounds even a bit familiar, please definitely read on.

Chances are that either you’ve been prescribed, recommended, or suggested an antidepressant. Maybe you have a friend or family member who has taken them. Maybe your primary care physician put you on them for anxiety only for you to become so blank that a guy at a sports bar named ‘Pizza’ told you you have no personality. This last part may be autobiographical. We’ll move past this.

These big-pharma tic-tacs are supposed to rewire your brain and help you get up and get excited about the free snacks in your fluorescently lit office and your two-day guaranteed shipping and your Instagrammable latte, but, sorry to break it to you, they don’t always work as expected.

Antidepressants work differently in every body. Taking them comes with an adjustment period. Similarly, quitting cold turkey (ahem, you’re not supposed to do that) will have adverse effects on each person. I had my three closest friends tell me that quitting their antidepressants out of the blue (seriously, don’t) made them experience everything from insomnia to weight shifts to suicidal tendencies. When I quit mine, I just felt more like myself again. The fact that four such similar millennial women could have such different experiences from the same drug fascinated me and with my friends’ halfhearted permission I knew this was a story I’d have to someday tell.

In Withdrawals we follow twenty-somethings Rosa, Quinn, Peggy and Bianca as they decide to re-evaluate their mental health choices after seeing their childhood pop icon Joany Almond overdose before taking the stage at her comeback concert in New York.

The friends’ separate journeys give us a peek into just some of the many potential side effects that can erupt when one stops taking antidepressants, with the goal of opening up a discourse about mental health and discussing both the pros and cons of inviting these drugs into your brain. Most importantly, the film aims to emphasize that everybody’s mental health needs are different and each person has to evaluate and decide what’s right for them… whether that be antidepressants, therapy or nachos.