As a psychiatrist, I naturally get a ton of questions about medication. (I’m glad—it’s what I’m there for!) When it comes to antidepressants, a lot of people are particularly concerned about “antidepressant withdrawal,” a colloquial term often used to describe what’s medically known as antidepressant discontinuation syndrome (ADS).

A lot of times this question seems to come from a patient’s fear of staying on medication forever. Since I work on a college campus, I see a lot of people who are worried about starting to take something when they’re 18 or 19 that they might need for the rest of their lives. (While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking medication for your mental health, I know the stigma around it persists all the same.) So they want to talk about if, when, and how they can stop the medication in the future. But I also get this question from patients who have been on antidepressants for some time, are interested in getting off of them, and have heard some pretty…intimidating stories about that process.

Read more at Self.