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I had been on Effexor XR for fifteen years before making the decision to get off this terrible drug. My concern is that I waited too long. I was tired of the feelings if I missed a dose, the sexual side effects and the general lack of emotions. Had I know how difficult and painful this journey was going to be I would have stayed on the poison just to avoid all of the difficulty. In the beginning of coming off the drug I had all the symptoms others have described. The crying, the brain zaps, the panic attacks at night all were just the tip of the iceberg with coming off. I unfortunately came off too fast. I did the standard weaning described by my doctor from 150, 75 to 37.5. What I should have done was to open the capsules and count the beads. I also should have lengthened the time between each drop in dose. I would say after 3 months in I had it beat, I felt litter but that was short lived. I then began my journey of trying to find other alternatives. I tried Accupunture, Counseling, LDA therapy, NAC, Inositol, heavy doses of vitamin D, magnesium, zinc, omega fish oil, restore, brain octane...... I then , after 9 months off Effexor, decided to try Prozac in order to cope with life. Everything has become insurmountable and my thoughts are all negative. I have never been so pessimist as I am right now. Now only to I judge myself against all others, I internally do the same with my children and their accomplishments. Nothing is ever good enough. I feel perhaps that Effexor has damaged me somehow. My once optimistic trial and error ways have turned to a pessimistic future. My next journey is to try CBD in the hopes that I can return to some normal aspect off life. I welcome all comments, ideas, stories or pep talks to get me through!

Hey there, A very brief summary. Been taking 50 mg of Zooloft for around 15 years after some serious depression episodes brought on by breaking up with girlfriends at the time. In the meantime - about 8 years I came off Benzos (very very slow taper over almost 9 months) after about 2 years on them - OMG - that was an absolute nightmare - was insane coming off that stuff - probably the hardest thing I have ever done. Anyways, had many side effects that were very frustrating - including not being able to think straight, serious headaches, not sleeping deeply, lack of sex drive etc. etc. So about 4 months ago - I started to taper - after a great deal of thought. Have done quite a bit of reading on tapering off Anti-depressants - so have been very cautious. Tapered from 50 mg to 25 mg over the last 4 months. And plan to take it even more slowly for the rest of it. Over the last month or so - I have had the following - although consider myself fairly lucky - as am functioning extremely well Main side effects have been: 1. Crazy dreams; 2. Extreme anger about 1.5 months ago for a few weeks - was soooo angry at the world - it wasn't funny. Although, it seems like I have passed through that stage - at least for the moment - so that is a positive 3. Over the last couple of weeks - I have days when I am extremely sad about life for no reason at all - feel really down in the dumps. And feels quite scary - but I have been exercising, drinking water, being healthy etc. etc. - and looking after myself - and getting lots of sleep. Which seems to help generally. So am extremely lucky. But just wondering (even though I have read about all this stuff) - if anyone else has experienced similar feelings?? Thanks a million, look forward to interacting with more of you, although I am not that active on the forums - as been there and done that when was doing the Benzos withdrawal - virtually lived on them - as I barely was able to function for almost a year or so. Over and out. Oh and yes, not taking anything else whatsoever except serious doses of exercise, water, fruit and sleep Cheers, Davo

Hello all, I am very happy to be able to share with the world part of my issues. In the hope that these words may help someone, I think it is worth taking the effort and time to type it down. I was born and bread somewhere in Transylvania in a happy family with lots of friends and people around me. During my childhood I spent my time building things and interacting with kids. None of this social media nonsense kids spend time on nowadays. I married an Australian and move to Adelaide in 2001. I left parents and friends behind. Started everything from scratch, including learning a new language. Changing cultures and languages is NOT beneficial most of the times from a comfort point of view. In 2006 I started a driving instructing business. From that point on my health spiralled down. Sitting 12hrs in a car and stressing with my novice clients while under pressure from the idiots on the road, soon made my blood pressure reach the limits of normal. I ignored it. Around Easter 2013 I had 2 episodes of massive unbearrable headaches which landed me in the ER. The doctors suspected a stroke both times. First time hey did a CT scan but were not sure of the result. They wanted a spinal lumbar puncture. I knew the risks but decided to go on with it. After a horrible sickening experience the result was no stroke or some signs of blood in the sample taken which could have been a very minor stroke or contamination from the needle on the way in the spine. A few days later again massive headaches. I continued to have all these panic attacks in the middle of the night. Again ER. CT scan with dye. Specialist neurologist. All ok. I took 3 days off work to recover. Before these issues, I used to drink coffee, energy drinks, coke, sleep late and wake up early. I would scold a redbull and sleep like a baby. Wake up early, work like a machine 6 days a week and 12hrs a day. While at home during the 3 days I decided to play Call of Duty on a 27" pc screen. I remember vividly how while playing this game I got so dizzy, I go up and looked out the window to recover. No matter what I did I could not recover to normal. I thought if I sleep I will be ok. From that day on, my hell began. Continuous dizziness. I hate typing that word as i researched it for months on end. That's how I learnt about vertigo and how to fix it, functions of cerebellum, diseases of the brain etc. My only refuge was sleep. The only time when things were stable. I got so worried that I will no longer be able to perform my career. I was gonna loose the job, the house, kids won't go to a private school etc. Things got worse. Unable to find understanding at doctors i turned to natural remedies. I seen so many doctors here in Australia as well as in Romania, from GP to specialists and surgeons. No one had any idea what my dizziness was about. My poor GP tried everything. I took Stamatil for vertigo and did nothing. I took so many medications and it did not make any difference. I then got into fish oil, krill oil. My heart was going crazy. I was having panic attacks every few minutes. While waiting at the lights in the car, thoughts of harm would come into my head. Heart going into panic mode. I took to the heart specialists...any possible test was done. Then i took to the kidney, neuro, i even paid for my own MRI scan, ET specialists. I forget now how many types of doctors and medications I tried. I was given Arcoxia which made me nearly impossible to walk. Then the worst happened. Anxiety struck me bad along with depression. I will only say that everything round me was hell. I lost my sense of peace, sudden fear was repeatedly hitting me every few minutes, my thoughts were only on my bad state, my kids meant nothing for me bringing no happiness, i was in the constant need to hug my wife. I was constantly seeking company otherwise i was very afraid of my surroundings. From a guy that would come home at lunch and watch YouTube or a movie, I was now scared and so down to sit on my own, I had to have someone next to me. Suicidal thoughts were my only company. I didn't tell anybody afraid to not be ridiculed and locked up. My psychologist said to me that if I have any harming thoughts she has the authority to call the cops and ambulance and have me locked up. I didn't mention anything about it. By this stage all the doctors found nothing wrong with me but most of them noticed very high blood pressure and anxiety. The psychology lessons did NOTHING for me. I would suggest you try a counsellor or a mature person that can listen and understand you rather than a pseudo scientist called psychologist. It made it worse. I was having heart palpitations, massive headaches, sharp pains behind the head even with blood pressure medication. All until one day I went to see a GP. I described how I was going for the millionth time, repeated the tests again, all perfect. One day I could no longer function, my brain had it. I was an emotional, psychological wreck. I needed help and FAST. That's how I got introduced to Cymblta. I will relate the story next time as it's a bit late now, I need to go to sleep.