Mental health · Conversation prep
This tool prepares you to have a safe-tapering conversation with your prescriber. It does not tell you to stop, when to stop, or by how much — that is a decision to make together with your doctor.
Just to check — are you feeling unsafe right now, or is this something to raise with your prescriber?
What you’ve written can be a sign you need to talk to someone now — not next appointment.
Coming off antidepressants can affect your mood, and you don’t have to manage that alone.
This tool helps you prepare a conversation — it can’t tell if something is serious. If your mood is getting worse or you feel unsafe, call your prescriber, 000, or Lifeline 13 11 14 now.
In your words
The one thing to know
If you stop suddenly and feel dizzy, foggy, or get ‘brain zaps’ in the first few days — that’s usually withdrawal, not your depression coming back. The two look alike but behave completely differently. Knowing which is which is the whole game.
Comes on fast — within days of a dose drop — and settles quickly if the dose is restored.
Creeps back slowly, over weeks, without the dizziness or electric-shock feelings.
Distinguishing the two can be genuinely hard — that’s exactly why this is a conversation to have with your prescriber, not a guess to make alone. Australian Prescriber.
The shape of a safe taper
A descending step ladder: starting at the full dose, the dose is cut by 25 to 50 percent and held for 1 to 4 weeks at each step. The steps get smaller as the dose gets lower, down to a very low dose held for about two weeks, then stop. This is a general shape to discuss with your prescriber, not your dose.
The usual approach: drop the dose by 25–50% every 1–4 weeks, down to half the smallest tablet, hold there about 2 weeks, then stop (Therapeutic Guidelines / eTG). After longer use, the steps often need to get smaller and slower near the bottom — sometimes over months — because the last little bit of dose has an outsized effect on the brain (Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines, now an RACGP Accepted Clinical Resource). Your exact steps depend on your drug, your dose, and how you go — that’s your prescriber’s call with you.
The honest bit
The honest bit. Tapering slowly lowers the risk and severity of withdrawal — it doesn’t guarantee an easy ride. Some people stop with barely a bump; others struggle even going slowly, especially after years of use or on the faster-leaving drugs. There’s no plan that makes it certain. (Australian Prescriber; Maudsley.)
And the other honest bit. Stopping isn’t always the right move, and ‘feeling better’ is sometimes because of the medication. Whether to stop at all is a decision to make with your prescriber — this tool only helps you have that conversation well, not make the call for you.
You’ll get a clean printable: the withdrawal-vs-relapse difference, the taper shape, and the exact questions to ask your prescriber — on one page you can hand over.
That doesn’t look like an email — mind checking?
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This is the general version. The full antidepressant deprescribing kit walks you through a week-by-week tracker for your exact drug, what to watch for, and how to tell withdrawal from relapse as you go — built to do alongside your prescriber. → See the kit
Deciding whether to stop at all? Try the questions-to-ask generator. Want to show your prescriber how your mood actually is right now? Try the mood check-in.