Why do we taper?

This might sound like a silly question, since the obvious answer is to get off these chemical stuff that most of us started taking with little to no informed consent. But seeing how the WD and discontinuation symptoms takes most of us through hell and back I thought I might ask this question openly to hear each of our reasons why we do it and hopefully to add some motivation for us going through this journey. So I'll start: I am tapering since I do not know where these drugs end and where I begin. I've been put on these things when I went through a tough time and I've never felt the same since. I get bouts of feeling my old self here and there, but there was always this feeling that some of my symptoms are induced rather than inherited. The penny dropped early this year when I (uniformed) were told I can just "stop" my Trazodone. The WD symptoms came without warning and was relentless. Sleep was crushed, anxiety was through the roof, suicidal thoughts were banging on the door and I basically cried non stop. I was told that the discontinuation proved that I needed the meds and in the same breath that I needed to switch over to Mirtazapine as its a good alternative since Trazodone wasn't working. Then to top it up I got added venlafaxine to manage the new found anxiety. Out of desperation I agreed to take it (like most of us), but from that day I knew something was up. My basic question was how can I go from moderate to suicidal basically in a few days' time when the only thing that changes as a reduction in my meds. At this point I started doing my own research and found that most of these drugs during clinical trials were on par with the placebo. Not only that, but the whole chemical / serotonin theory has not been proven. In fact it was disproved (please honestly correct me here if I'm wrong). It started making sense to me why I never really felt like my old self again for years while taking these drugs, only bouts here and there (I was simply labeled as treatment resistant) and when trying to stop these chemicals was dangerous. So the burning question is why do I risk going through hell just to taper off these things? And my honest to truth answer is that these drugs have take more than it gave me and I'd rather risk going through hell to find myself again than to keep living in a chemically induced state. That's my "why" Keen to hear yours. Vic