I know this is a bit of an old thread, but just wanted to describe my experience. I've was on Sertraline, max dose of 7 years, last year I started therapy with a clinical psychologist and one of the first things we talked about was antidepressants and their effect on feeling emotions, I wasn't feeling anything at the time, just living in this entirely numb bubble, so in May this year without input from any doctors or anything I decided to come off the Sertraline, I'd already stopped taking any other antidepressants, mood stabilisers, antipsychotics and tranquilizers beforehand and have to say now around 3 months after stopping taking Sertraline I can feel so much more, and for the first time in as long as I can remember I actually feel alive.
When discussing the effects of antidepressants and other medication with the psychologist and having read about it quite extensively I came to the conclusion that they don't stop working as such, but what they do end up doing is preventing the natural variation in brain chemicals that lead to you feeling happy, or sad or anything really (at least in my case), I believe there is a strong case for taking antidepressants, but at least for me I probably took them for about 6 years to long. I believe there is research out there that does recommend not staying on antidepressant for too long, I think in my case I'd been "depressed" for around 3 years before starting to take antidepressants and the benefits of taking them had worn off after about a year, i.e. the benefit in terms of raising my mood had worked after about a year, but then following 6 years that I took them just left me feeling flat or numb.
Just my experience.
When discussing the effects of antidepressants and other medication with the psychologist and having read about it quite extensively I came to the conclusion that they don't stop working as such, but what they do end up doing is preventing the natural variation in brain chemicals that lead to you feeling happy, or sad or anything really (at least in my case), I believe there is a strong case for taking antidepressants, but at least for me I probably took them for about 6 years to long. I believe there is research out there that does recommend not staying on antidepressant for too long, I think in my case I'd been "depressed" for around 3 years before starting to take antidepressants and the benefits of taking them had worn off after about a year, i.e. the benefit in terms of raising my mood had worked after about a year, but then following 6 years that I took them just left me feeling flat or numb.
Just my experience.