I've been off of it for 19 months now. I posted in spring that I took myself off the medication after reading a peer-reviewed study that described what I'd been experiencing pretty much in detail: massive depression that led to an emergency trip to the psych ward, unconstrained rage, eating, sleep, and hygiene disorders, paranoia, substance abuse and more. I basically suffered a severe mental health crisis. The study said what happened to me is a rare but known occurrence with bipolar 2 patients on antidepressants (bipolar 2 is my diagnosis, and I feel it's correct). Effexor was singled out as the one most frequently tied to it.

I had already been knocked down from 75 to 32.5 and added mood stabilizers after the hospital visit, but as a medical step, not as a taper. So I did quit from a low dose. I initially went cold turkey in a rage fit wanting to wreck my life, yet started feeling like my head was clearing out within days. Curious, I went digging and found the study, and decided I would ride it out and never take the medication again.

I experienced nausea and vertigo for about two weeks if I recall correctly, and the brain zaps persisted for at least six. Like someone was putting a small cattle prod to my skull. I was never told when I was prescribed the drug by either my GP nor the pharmacist that if I decided to discontinue use, I could possibly experience severe withdrawal symptoms, which in fact I did. But mentally I could tell my mood was improving by the day. That made the misery worth it. For treatment I mostly got out walking every day, three to six miles, and kept my focus on the end goal: being free of it.

I'm pretty bullheaded, a mixed blessing, but in this instance it helped. Within weeks I was no longer fantasizing about self-harm; sleep, eating, and hygiene disorders resolved themselves; I lost interest in alcohol and weed and stopped without really trying; it all went away on its own. (The three things I'm most thankful for, in order, are 1) I'm still here, 2) my wife not leaving me when the rages were going on, and 3) that I dodged needing alcohol recovery; I was guzzling vodka and enormous amounts of weed nightly. Not anymore. It wasn't forced, I simply quit wanting it.)

The emotional gushes set in after about two months, and they still occur all this time later. But I feel my emotions now. Something I'd lost. So I'm actually thankful for them. I lost my sister, father, and mother in pretty rapid succession and bulldozed through the period without shedding a tear. The tears finally fell when I could finally feel again. I still well up over both sad things and joyful things. But after years on that drug, I'm feeling life again, and for this I'm grateful.

Stick with the withdrawal. If the drug is hurting you, dealing with the side effects is better than suffering further harm. And it's OK to feel those emotions. They'll help you regain your connection to life.