Antidepressants can cause severe, sometimes irreversible, sexual dysfunction that persists even after discontinuing the medication.

Sufferers have described it as ‘chemical castration’ – a type of genital mutilation caused by antidepressants, mainly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

The condition is known as post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD), a condition largely unrecognised, and the true incidence of which is unknown.

David Healy, psychiatrist and founder of RxISK.org said, “I saw my first patient with PSSD in 2000, a 35-year-old lady who told me that three months after stopping treatment, she could rub a hard-bristled brush across her genitals and feel nothing.”

Josef Witt-Doerring, psychiatrist and former FDA medical officer said, “This condition is so devastating that it will cause serious changes to your life and to those around you.”

It happened to Rosie

In 2020, during protracted covid lockdowns in Melbourne, 23-year-old Rosie Tilli felt an increasing sense of anxiety and depression.

Her psychiatrist prescribed a low dose of Lexapro (escitalopram), an SSRI to help Rosie calm down, assuring her that if she experienced side effects, they’d go away once she stopped the medication.

Soon after taking the medication Rosie felt emotionally blunted, but took it as a positive sign.

“At first, I thought it was great because it felt like the medication was working. But then I couldn’t feel my emotions, I couldn’t cry, I had no sexual desire, and my genitals went numb.”

After four months, Rosie decided to slowly wean herself off the medication. Some of her symptoms improved and the fog lifted, but over the next two years her libido faded to nothing.

“It has been two years of hell. Now, I have no sexual function. I’m numb down there. I can’t have an orgasm. It feels like my soul has just been vacuumed out of my body. I feel completely asexual,” said Rosie.

She sought help from various professionals, but none believed it could be the antidepressant because the drug had already left her system. They concluded it was all in her mind.