“Taking care of your mental health means, first of all, not doing it yourself, but, as with any disease or disorder, being followed by the appropriate specialist”. And, as regards all drugs, especially for psychiatric drugs, “it is essential to ‘follow the instructions’ of your doctor, both when you have to take them and when you have to stop them. An abrupt interruption decided independently, is always to be avoided”. While the doctor “must clearly communicate to the patient the risks of any side effects of the prescribed drug”. These are the reflections, general and not related to the individual case, of the president of the Italian Society of Psychiatrists (Sip), Emi Bondi, on the video in which Fedez revealed that he had suffered from the side effects of an antidepressant, prescribed after his cancer diagnosis , and for the consequences of an abrupt discontinuation of the medicine, the so-called rebound effect.
“I don’t know the specific case of Fedez or how it was followed up in therapy but it is important to reiterate that, as with any disease, even those involving mental health, there are pharmacological or psychotherapeutic treatments and they must be guided by a specialist, both in starting them and in interrupting them”, explains Bondi. In fact, there may be “consequences linked to abrupt suspension because the body has to readapt to a pre-drug situation and because there may be a rebound of the initial symptoms, kept under control by the drug. This also applies to pathologies that do not concern the psychic sphere, think of the cures for the thyroid or the simple antihypertensive”. As for psychiatric drugs “today they are safe. When we suspend them from patients because they are no longer needed, in the majority of cases no problem is created or in any case they can be mild symptoms that disappear within a few days”, the particularly unfortunate experience of Fedez, therefore, “must not suggest that there are inevitable side effects or that these treatments are not safe”.
The president of the psychiatrists Sip then fully agrees with the singer when, in the video, she tells her followers “take care of your mental health, of your wounds. If you don’t, your wounds will claim the need to be take care”. Mental discomfort, or mental illness, “which are obviously two different things, must absolutely be treated because they are conditions that can compromise the quality of life, of relationships, as well as worsen the course of any organic disease”, concludes Bondi, underlining the validity of Fedez’s message “words, the ability to communicate are very important because they change the destiny of so many lives, in the sense that they help them choose to take care of themselves or, on the contrary, not to. And this makes the difference, for luck and sadness”.