I was on some several years ago. Getting off of them was a nightmare. I hated the effects of them, and getting off was something out of “lost weekend.”.
If someone I loved was on them, I would be sure to have 90 days worth, and a pill cutter on hand. Slowly weaning yourself is certainly not advised with professional input, and it is no picnic.
I don’t trust myself to get started on this topic, I could rant for an hour. My close person was my husband, and he wasn’t told a single thing about withdrawal. In fact the ADs themselves caused enough problems (perscribed for anxiety and made it worse) that he wanted to get off them, so I started reading about them in general and the more I read, the more horrified I got. We took our concerns to his psych (he’d been referred to a psych by his GP because he had adverse reactions to the first AD and it freaked the GP out) and were treated like little children, told that withdrawal was a myth, stop meddling in his efforts to treat, there’s no way my husband’s anxiety was worsened by the drugs even though the inserts that come with them list them as possible side effects (he told us that the drug companies put them in there for liability purposes, not because they’re an actual concern!), said he’d been on the board during development for one of them - can you say conflict of interest? My husband said he wanted to get off them anyway and the psych said, just take a half dose for a week, you’ll be fine. Not!
OK, must stop typing before I get too incensed. :)