Cecily Bostock was a musician, an artist, an over-achiever in almost everything she did. She was having a lot of trouble sleeping, had racing thoughts, was over-analysing, and was overly sensitive. This prompted a prescription of paroxetine.
Her mother Sara said that within three weeks of taking Seroxat, Cecily became a totally different person.
“The last two days she was just a complete zombie I have to say. She was just agitated, jumping at every noise and not making sense. I was very concerned. We were very close to Cecily. I just loved her deeply.”
Sara found her daughter lying on the kitchen floor. There was a large chef’s knife on the floor by her and just a trickle of blood from her chest. Cecily had stabbed herself twice through the heart. Her autopsy revealed she had a very high blood level of paroxetine, which reflects poor metabolisation and is a feature common to many of these suicides.
Cecily killed herself about 20 days after she had started taking Seroxat. She was just 25 years old.
Since her daughter’s death, Sara has been campaigning and creating awareness about the dangers of antidepressants. She spoke at a charity conference in 2008 about her experience and knowledge from years of research, which is on video (http://vimeo. com/16727219). Sara has also given testimony at an FDA hearing and has co-founded www.ssristories.com, which is a collection of over 5,000 stories that have appeared in the media.
(First published in my book, Deadly Psychiatry and Organised Denial)