Holly Workman was 14 when she was prescribed the antidepressant Seroxat. Although she had been low, she had never, until that time, felt like killing herself.

But after a few weeks on the drug, she began cutting her arms with knives or whatever she could get hold of as her frantic family hid all sharp implements from her. More than once she tried to commit suicide. But she felt as though she hardly knew the person who was doing these things.

"It was as if I was somebody else, as if my body had been taken over," she said. "I didn't know what I'd done after I'd done it. I'd cry about it because I was scared. I didn't know what was happening to me."

Three years on, Holly is certain the drug caused her self-harming behaviour and is equally certain that she was not depressed when she was prescribed it. "There was a lot going on. My parents divorced. I was getting bullied at school and I was pretty low. I wasn't eating properly," she said. "I don't think I was depressed and to this day nobody else does."

She was sent by her GP to see a child psychiatrist, however, who thought otherwise and recommended the GP put Holly on Seroxat. Six weeks later, she began cutting herself.

Several times she stopped taking Seroxat because she didn't feel she needed it, but she was persuaded to go back on it by her doctor, who thought it would stop the self-harming.

Holly found that her nightmares stopped when she was off it. Eventually she stopped for good. "I just started to get better. I wasn't self-harming and the nightmares started going."