Stopping antidepressants

I think it depends on your symptoms and why you started them.   I did this years ago-- thought I was good so I stopped.  But they eventually came back...

Antidepressants (ADs) often have a long half life so depending on the drug, it could take a week or more for it to "wash out" of your system. At that point, depending on how long you have been on the drug, your body will respond accordingly.  I recently discontinued mitazapine and after about 3-4 days I started experiencing brain zaps and body zaps.  You should talk to your doctor about whether it is appropriate to stop abruptly or to taper off.  Each drug is different.  Generally speaking, you should never quit a psyche medication cold turkey.  To do so is inviting a lot of trouble, e.g., seizures, etc.

Stopping cold-turkey is a dangerous thing. Like with alcoholism or recreational drug addiction, stopping cold-turkey, the first few days you think - "great, I can do this! It's not that bad!" - but eventually comes the vomiting, sweats, chills, etc.

While anti-depressants aren't "addictive", per-say, so your body won't respond quite as bad as stopping alcohol or recreation drugs cold-turkey, you can experience a sudden relapse of symptoms eventually. As said, the half life of anti-depressants isn't actually too bad, so you can still be under their influence a week gone-by. 

If you want to stop the medication, go to your doctor and get gradual dosage decreases to reduce any "withdrawal" you may get from them, but be prepared for a relapse of symptoms and having to start the medication again. Anti-depressants aren't a cure, the problems will more than likely still persist.

I agree that suddenly stopping your meds is a terrible idea unless you want some horrifying withdrawal symptoms!  You need to come off them very slowly.

Also the golden rule is that you feel better for at least 6 months before you consider coming off your meds as otherwise your symptoms have more chance of returning.  x