“I will wager against your Xanix, and place my money all on SSRIs.”
SSRIs can be evil. I was prescribed them a long time ago, and each and every time after a couple of days they induced insanity. Recognizing this, I would stop, and a couple of weeks later would be fine. Repeat lather and rinse a couple of more times with different SSRIs and I knew these drugs were not for me.
BUT, I can easily imagine this happening to a child, the child not having the concepts and vocabulary to express exactly what was going on, and the child’s parents pretty much saying “Shut up and take your medicine, the doctor said you need it and it’s good for you.” After a few weeks of being hopelessly insane, the poor child finally gives up and kills themselves (or others).
It’s not that SSRI’s directly induce suicidal thoughts, it’s the fact that these drugs instantly drive some people insane, and suicide seems like the preferable way out when no one will listen and they keep forcing you to take a medication that directly induces mental illness. While SSRI’s are bad drugs, the real problem is ignorance and atrociously bad parenting.
From second-person experience, I’ve noticed that being on antidepressants isn’t the problem, it’s missing a couple days - the disruption makes a hellacious week for all. Weaning someone off entirely is a very hard couple months; “cold turkey” is horrible.