My story started when I stopped sleeping for 6 weeks, sleep was pretty poor each night, maybe 1 or 2 hours, things came to a head and I had to move into my parents because Stress had caught up with me, resulting in depression and a level of anxiety. I visited my GP and he put me onto Sertraline as advised by a psychrotherapist, which over the following days, I literally became numb, more depressed and anxiety from morning until night, and I mean anxiety. Everything was much worse, the suicidal thoughts, etc and sadly a conversation with a family member resulted in my collecting an Anxiety issue with them, and only people that suffer anxiety may be able to relate to that. The situation in question, I had no issue with and I know when I'm okay again with the help of CBT, I will be fine with it. Anyway, the thoughts were so bad, I ended up being admitted to a mental health unit for 5 weeks, albeit as an outpatient. I asked to be taken off the sertraline and was put on Mertazapine, 15mg. All was well for the first 2 weeks, and then the dosage was increased to 30mg, I began to feel worse, anxiety was creeping in and my mood was worsening, so what did they do...yep, the GP upped my dosage to 45 mg, the anxiety became a real problem as did the low mood, crying. I visited my GP and they reduced back to 30mg, and each time the dosage changed, I would get side effects, the anxiety issue kicked in, which has now resulted in me being really anxious at family get togethers, and ruined for me a family holiday as I was anxious morning to night. I decided to come off the metazapine my CBT had started and I really felt the side effects and the fact the drug didn't agree with me just gave me the reasons to stop. I am now off the drug, the last tablet was 3 nights ago. I feel very agitated in the daytime all of a sudden, and a level of adrenaline in the system, anxious and trembling in the morning, and the anxiety is there all day too, sometimes the fear and agitation, crying kicks in. Oh, when I spoke to the GP about withdrawl symptons, I was told ' no you should be ok as my time on them was only 8 weeks'. Clearly they don't read the forums to understand what is really happening. I think what I'm trying to say is, if you visit your GP, and they want to dish out tablets like sweets, ask them to explain everything to you, the side effects, withdrawl effects, etc. If you can, try to recover with a therapy such as CBT or another. I have to be honest, I have lost a lot of faith in the GPs, certainly when I was put on the metzapine whilst in the unit, I wasn't told of the side effects or withdrawl issues. I know the tablets are not ok everyone and for many people they do work really well. Anyone reading this, I truly wish you the best recovery.