Journalist Johan Cedersjö has decided to stop taking antidepressant medication after ten years. In a new podcast from Perfect Day and Tredje Statsmakten, listeners can follow his journey toward the final pill and hear the story of how antidepressants took over the world.
At the age of 28, Johan Cedersjö, then a new reporter at Medierna on P1, began taking medication for severe anxiety. A decade later, he is still on antidepressants, just like 1.2 million other Swedes.
– The medication changed everything for me. I went from wishing that everything would end, to being able to meet the love of my life, start a family, take up space at work and socially. I became a different person,” says Johan Cedersjö.
Today, Johan is reflecting on who he is without the medication and why more and more people need it to cope with everyday life. This marks the beginning of a journalistic experiment on one of our time’s biggest public health issues, as well as a personal story about the era of antidepressants.
“Experimentet: Det sista pillret” is made possible by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond’s initiative “RJ Art and Culture”, which has, among other things, given the production company Tredje Statsmakten the opportunity to create journalism based on research. In collaboration with Perfect Day, the podcast is now being released for free on all platforms.
Tredje Statsmakten produces socially impactful podcast successes such as Söndagsintervjun, P3 Dystopia, and P3 Dokumentär, while Perfect Day has made a name for itself as the podcast company behind some of Sweden’s biggest commercial podcasts, such as Alex & Sigge, Ursäkta, and When We Were Kings. The podcast series Experimentet and its premiere season Det sista pillret (The Last Pill) is the first co-production between the two companies.
– The ambition of this collaboration is to, through our complementary areas of expertise, create commercially viable and well-produced podcast formats for a broad and socially engaged audience. Det sista pillret is an incredibly ambitious podcast series, and we are really looking forward to adding this type of content to our catalog,” comments Karolina Sandberg, Co-CEO of Perfect Day.
Experimentet: Det sista pillret premiered on November 20th, and the premiere season consists of eight episodes.
For more information, please contact:
Karolina Sandberg, Perfect Day Media,karolina.sandberg@perfectdaymedia.se
Anna Johannessen, Tredje Statsmakten Media, anna@tredjestatsmakten.se
Press images and graphic material are available at pillretpress.tredjestatsmakten.se
