Board of directors

President

A citizen scientist, Adele Framer started her research in 2004 while in protracted antidepressant withdrawal, which forced her retirement from information systems design.

In 2011, she founded SurvivingAntidepressants.org, a peer support site collecting more than 6,000 longitudinal patient narratives, which have been the basis of several scholarly articles and highly influential in bringing prescribed psychotropic withdrawal syndrome to public attention. Her 2021 journal article “What I have learnt from helping thousands of people taper off antidepressants and other psychotropic medications” has garnered close to 150,000 views and 51 citations, and is among the top 1% of the 28 million research outputs scored by Altmetric. She has co-authored several other papers and been interviewed by The New Yorker and the Economist. She is an advisor to Outro Health, a medical deprescribing service.

Secretary

As an R.N., Karen worked in various areas of health care. Her clinical background includes Level I Trauma ICU, CVICU and ER; in addition, she has expertise in data- driven healthcare and nursing education. 

After surviving a life-changing multi-trauma accident, Karen was prescribed duloxetine and pregabalin for pain management. In 2017, after a rapid taper off of the two drugs, she experienced acute withdrawal symptoms, then successfully reinstated to halt the withdrawal process. Since then, Karen has diligently and meticulously researched how to get off antidepressants safely.  

For the last 5 years, Karen has been an active administrator for the largest antidepressant withdrawal group on Facebook, a group with more than 38,000 members, becoming a dedicated advocate and mentor for safe, gradual tapering off psychiatric drugs and a “lived experience” researcher among other citizen scientists, academics, and peer support advocates.

By combining her science background as a nurse with her personal lived experience, Karen offers a unique perspective in this growing movement for safe psychotropic deprescribing.

Treasurer

Sherri Underland is a passionate advocate for safe tapering practices. After years of taking fluoxetine for panic attacks, Sherri experienced a tumultuous journey when stopping her medication, despite what was considered a slow taper by her doctors. Not knowing what was happening, Sherri sought answers from multiple doctors and was prescribed additional medications. Despite challenges, she found support in online withdrawal communities, where she learned about the importance of a slow tapering process. Currently, she is tapering her last medication. 

Sherri brings a business degree and professional financial experience to her advocacy work. She is dedicated to raising awareness about psychotropic medication withdrawal and ensuring patients receive the support they need during the tapering process. Through her own experience, Sherri emphasizes the importance of compassion and understanding in supporting those tapering off medication.