I was on 2 mg 2x a day for 10 years. I was able to taper somewhat easily to 3 mg per day. I was also on 30 mg temazepam at night. What helped the process is the doctor had tapered me off the venlafaxine first. It was making me so anxious. It was super hard after that the doctor did major decreases. My doctor had left and this other doctor inherited me and he was angry I was even on it. The good news is I have now been off 5 years. They gave me some injection in the ER when I had stroke symptoms and they wanted to do an MRI. Unfortunately they couldn’t wake me up for hours. My body is non longer used to it. I am an anxious person and I now take trazodone 3 times per day. I wish I had a doctor that would have gone slower with me and adjusted and waited bit by bit. I am in counseling and I feel that helps, I did take diphenhydramine for anxiety and I do drink a great deal of camomile. I am not glad to be off of it.
I wish you all the very best. It is so nice not to need it. I did all this during the beginning of the pandemic. I think it was important for me to find a way to let off stress. Exercise or Art help me. So important to have a doc who we can tell our goals and they can help us achieve them with regard to this. Please feel free to ask more. It was super hard and I used to just scream every night for a while before bed. I find grounding exercises helpful.