Almost three years ago, I woke up and found myself in a mental hospital in West London. I looked down and saw wealds on my arms where I had torn my skin apart.

There was a mirror in the tiny room where I’d spent most of the last four weeks undergoing an agonising cold turkey withdrawal from five antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs. I stood on the metal bed and struggled to recognize my body beneath the blue hospital gown. I used to be a keep fit fanatic, my body reasonably lithe and toned. Now I was three stone heavier – but that was the very least of my problems.

I had a vague recollection of the last year. It had started when I had hit a wall of despair while going through a divorce. Sleepless nights took me to a psychiatrist, who prescribed escitalopram, a common antidepressant. Within hours I was hallucinating, believed I had attacked my children, and stabbing myself with a knife, an event which I still have no recollection of.

I ended up in a private hospital where doctors clearly thought I had a screw loose when I told them I was being filmed and that I had a suicide pact with God. My psychosis ended when I said I wanted to stop taking the antidepressant, but doctors insisted I take more pills to treat stabilise my mental health. This began a terrible decline during I couldn’t leave the house, dress myself, finish a sentence. Worst of all, I couldn’t feel love for my children, Lily and Oscar, aged 10 and 11 at the time.

It was pure luck that I got better. At the end of a year, my private insurance ran out and I ended up sectioned at an NHS hospital. They made a decision that, without doubt, saved my life. I was taken off all five drugs. I was climbing the walls, screaming, shouting, and begging my family to get me out of there.

Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures Show all 10 1 /10 Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report 30 per cent of people deal with anxiety by talking to a friend or relative, or by going for a walk. Getty Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report Almost one in five people feel anxious all or a lot of the time. PA Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report 22 per cent of women feel anxious a lot or all of the time, compared to 15 per cent of men. Roman Levin/Flickr Creative Commons Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report 45 per cent of people who feel anxious in everyday life cite financial issues as their biggest cause of worry. Getty Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report And 26 per cent of people who feel anxious say fearing for the welfare of their children and loved ones leaves them burdened with worry. And 26 per cent of people say fearing for the welfare of their children and loved ones leaves them burdened with anxiety. Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report 27 per cent of people who suffer from anxiety say work issues, such as long hours, are the source of the problem. Getty Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report But 16 per cent use alcohol to cope, while 10 per cent turn to cigarettes in the face of anxiety. Unemployed people are more likely to resort to these harmful strategies: 27 per cent use alcohol and 23 per cent use cigarettes. AFP/Getty Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report Only seven per cent of people who say they suffer from anxiety seek help from their GP. Getty Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report People are thought to be more anxious than they were five years ago. Alessandra/Flickr Creative Commons Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report The stresses of modern life are thought to have created "The Age of Anxiety". Getty

But then, one day, I woke up and I was fine. And that was where I found myself a few days before my 48th birthday in October 2013.

My kids by then had become scared of the monster I had become and were living with my estranged husband. I had lost almost everything but, that day, I had the most important thing back: me.

I needed to unravel what had happened. Before I became unwell I had been a television documentary director. Now, even though I was still incarcerated, I had a laptop a mobile phone and, most importantly, I had my mind back. It didn’t take me long to discover that, for a significant number of people, antidepressants have some bad side effects: hallucinations, psychosis, hostility, increased depression, and suicidal ideation – all the things I’d been suffering for a year.

Could it possibly be the case that I had never been depressed at all? That everything I’d been suffering from in the last year was side effects of the drugs the doctors I’d insisted I take?

I went on to discover that billions of dollars have been paid out by drug companies to victims and that courts around the world have ruled that people have killed as a direct result of these drugs. Just two years after Prozac came onto the market, a 48-year-old man, Joseph Wesbecker, went into his workplace with a gun, killing eight and injuring 12 before killing himself.

The drug company, Eli Lilly, paid vast amounts of money to the families of victims on condition they keep quiet. A few years later there were 170 claims against Eli Lilly from people who claimed similar instances of violence and suicide.

I began writing a book, for which I interviewed people who had no history of mental illness yet suddenly became delusional or psychotic after taking antidepressants and went on to kill those closest to them.

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There was a man from Canada, who, two weeks after taking Seroxat, became convinced he had to kill his 11-year-old son because he was in a better place. He meticulously planned an event where he took his son up to their holiday home, strangled him and then rang the police to announce he had done the right thing.

There was an American banker, who, 48 hours after taking Prozac, became convinced the lawn sprinklers were telling him to kill his 8-year-old twin daughters, who he then stabbed to death. And there were people who woke up in a police cell to be told they had committed armed robberies and killings but could remember nothing about these incidents at all.

In all of these cases, the perpetrator showed absolutely no remorse until they came off the drugs. Emotional blunting is another side effect of these drugs.

On 13 March 2016, French investigators released a report on the case of Andreas Lubitz, the German wings pilot who locked himself into the cockpit of a plane and crashed the plane carrying 150 people into the Alps. When I opened it I felt sick; just nine days before the accident, he was put on exactly the same antidepressant medication that I had been on when I became psychotic and nearly killed my kids. It was clearly stated in the toxicology report – citalopram, mirtazapine and zopiclone sleeping tablets.

German Wings Airbus A320 crashes over French Alps

There were other signs in that this man was suffering severe drug toxicity. The report said he had complained of visual problems and, like me, he had been unable to sleep. This is far more serious than it sounds.

Every sufferer of antidepressant psychosis that I’ve interviewed has had an agonizing condition called akathisia. It means you literally cannot sit still, and it is accompanied by an excruciating inner anxiety, leading to some sufferers ending their lives to escape the agony. In one case, Sandra Sorg, a nurse from Wisconsin, suffered it so badly that she asked to be put in a straitjacket. Eventually she hanged herself with a sheet.

When I went into antidepressant-induced toxicity, I remember how I suffered this condition and how it led to two sleepless nights when I paced my house like a deranged animal. This was the precursor to my mind being tipped into full blown psychosis.

So, while the press reported that Lubitz was depressed, I had a unique insight into extent of insanity this cocktail of drugs could potentially cause. The official report into the accident even concluded that “according to valid aero-medical regulations he had already been unfit to fly due to use of an antidepressant and massive sleep deprivation”.

Professor David Healy, an expert in the drugs, he told me the chances of Lubitz becoming psychotic from depression were 1 in 20,000 and the chances of him becoming psychotic from antidepressant medication were 1 in 200.

In the last month there have been three events that have chilled me. Ali David Sonboly, the 18-year-old student in Munich who went on a rampage shooting 10 and injuring 27 before turning the gun on him was not a terrorist. He was not known to the police and didn’t have a criminal record. Later a police spokesman confirmed: “The suspect spent two months having inpatient psychiatric treatment last year. After leaving hospital he continued to receive outpatient treatment for social anxiety disorder and depression for which he was receiving medication.”

Eight days earlier, 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Boulel, drove a 19-tonne cargo truck into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing 84 people and injuring more than 300 before being shot dead by police officers. His father said he had no links to religion but described his son as “always alone, always depressed”, adding that Mohamed had previously been to see a doctor, who prescribed medication to counter his depression”.

When I tell my story, people tell me cases like mine are very rare. But violence and hallucinations are listed as a side effect on one well-known antidepressant for 1 per cent of users. With 5 million in the UK on antidepressants and over 100 million worldwide taking them, a small percentage is a very large number.

In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack A man reacts near bouquets of flowers near the scene where a truck ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores and injuring more who were celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday in Nice Reuters In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack A woman arrives with a toy and a bouquet of flowers as people pay tribute near the scene where a truck ran into a crowd in Nice Reuters In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack A woman reacts as she places flowers in front of the memorial set on the 'Promenade des Anglais' where the truck crashed into the crowd during the Bastille Day celebrations in Nice EPA In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack People gather to view the floral tributes near the site of the truck attack in the French resort city of Nice AP In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack A man reacts near bouquets of flowers as people pay tribute near the scene where a truck ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores and injuring more who were celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday, in Nice Reuters In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Floral tributes are laid out near the site of the truck attack in the French resort city of Nice AP In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack A child's toy is placed among the floral tributes laid out near the site of the truck attack in the French resort city of Nice AP In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Investigators continue at the scene near the heavy truck that ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores who were celebrating the Bastille Day in Nice Reuters In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Crime scene investigators work on the 'Promenade des Anglais' after the truck crashed into the crowd during the Bastille Day celebrations in Nice EPA In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack A forensic expert examines dead bodies covered with a blue sheet on the Promenade des Anglais seafront in the French Riviera city of Nice Getty Images In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack A forensic expert evacuates a dead body on the Promenade des Anglais seafront in the French Riviera city of Nice, after a gunman smashed a truck into a crowd of revellers celebrating Bastille Day Getty Images In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack A man reacts as he sits near a French flag along the beachfront the day after a truck ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores celebrating the Bastille Day in Nice Reuters In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Discarded items are left on the beach, not far from the site of the truck attack in the French resort city of Nice AP In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Bullet holes in the windscreen of the lorry that was driven into the crowd at high speed Reuters In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack A man walks through debris on the street in Nice, France, the morning after a lorry ran into a crowd, killing at least 84 and injuring 50 Reuters In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Rescue workers help an injured woman to get in a ambulance AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Authorities investigate a truck after it plowed through Bastille Day revelers in the French resort city of Nice, France AP In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Celebrations of Bastille Day were targeted by the lorry driver AP In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack People cross the street with their hands on thier heads as a French soldier secures the area after at least 84 people were killed along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice Reuters In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack A paramedic attends one of the dozens of people injured in the Nice Bastille Day attack In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Soldiers march on street where the lorry crashed into the crowd REUTERS In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack A man sits next to a body seen on the ground after at least 84 people were killed in Nice, when a truck ran into a crowd celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday Reuters In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Bodies are seen on the ground after at least 84 people were killed in Nice, when a truck ran into a crowd celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday Reuters In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Children were among the 84 killed in the atrocity, with around 50 more hospitalised Reuters In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve (2nd L) speaks to the media in Nice AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack A man walks with his hands up as police officers carry out checks on people in the centre of French Riviera town of Nice AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack With injured people laying in the street police and onlookers react near to a truck in Nice AP In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Police officers, firefighters and rescue workers are seen at the site of the attack AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Police officers speak with a soldier after a truck that ploughed into a crowd leaving a fireworks display in the French Riviera town of Nice AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack Police shine a light into the cab as they approach the driver's cab of a truck, in Nice AP

From 2004 to 2011, there were 10,000 reports to the FDA of psychiatric drug side effects linked to violence including 300 homicides. These include every one of the SSRI antidepressants, which are dished out liberally to people like me who are going through difficult life events and sufferers of social. And the FDA admits that only 1 to 10 per cent of adverse events are reported.

When people have react badly to antidepressants they are at risk not just to themselves to others. Delusions can last a long time and can involve the perpetrator planning a killing or act of violence, and then typically planning to end their own life. The patient can be functioning at a very high level, but with totally deluded ideas – which stop immediately if they are lucky enough to survive and come off the medication.

I would not have believed this had it not happened to me. When I was psychotic, within hours of taking that first drug, I was capable of anything. In fact, I thought I was in a dream or a video game. It was pure luck I didn’t kill myself or my kids, or both. If I had access to a gun or a plane, a truck, or a knife who knows what could have happened.

When crimes like these recent terror attacks shake the world, the first question we should be asking is whether it was induced by the side effects of potentially dangerous antidepressant medication.