I want to share something that took me years to discover, because I think it could help many people in this community.
When most doctors tell you to come off antidepressants, they typically suggest cutting your dose in half or dropping by a fixed amount every few weeks. What they often don't know is that this approach is too fast and too crude for how our brains actually work. At lower doses, the same milligram reduction that felt manageable at a higher dose can feel completely overwhelming. That is not weakness or dependency. That is neuroscience.
The Horowitz-Taylor hyperbolic method, published in The Lancet Psychiatry and now endorsed by the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines, shows that we need to reduce by a percentage of our current dose at each step, using liquid medication to enable tiny, precise reductions. The difference in how your body responds can be significant.
I built a free calculator to make this accessible to anyone. You enter your medication, your current dose, and your target, and it generates a full personalised tapering schedule with the exact volume in ml for each step. It also includes guidance on talking to your GP, how to use an oral syringe, and crisis support numbers if things get hard.
No sign-up. No data collected. Five languages. Completely free.
If you are in the middle of this right now and finding it brutal, please know that is not a reflection of your strength or your mental health. This process is genuinely hard and you deserve proper support and a proper method.