It washes out quickly, but the withdrawal symptoms can persist for some time. There have been a lot of posts here about that.

For me, I quit cold turkey from a relatively low dose. The nausea and vertigo lasted about a week. The brain zaps took about six weeks to resolve. Then I had months of emotional surges, which many others have noted. But in many ways I appreciated those since I feel the drug had kept me emotionally corked, with first anger, and then increasingly, depression the only emotions I experienced. Ten years after my sister's death, I was finally able to cry. And at the other end, I felt genuine joy for the first time in years. So I was OK with that period of the withdrawal.

A year-and-a-half later those feelings aren't so strong, but healthy emotions are now the norm.

Reading the experiences of others, I feel like I got away fairly easily.

I don't know what if any studies have been done that explain why this happens, but withdrawal is, from what I've gathered, highly variable from one person to the next. And it can last for a very long time for some. The drug is out of your body rather quickly, but the after effects aren't. I do hope this gets put to scrutiny. We need to know why this is, and if it should even be prescribed given these problems.

I was never told about the difficulties one can experience coming off the medication, and after my experience, I feel that fully informing patients about this is critical. I probably would not have begun taking it if I'd known first.