"this medication was by far the worst antidepressant have taken. the first month i seemed to do very well on it, after a year on it, i hit rock bottom mentally. it caused more terrible symptoms than what was beneficial to me. i had weird brain zaps that left me in bed for days, sleep disturbances, attention seeking behavior, as well as ocd that i had never experienced previously. it took forever to get off this terrible drug and i call it a terrible drug because your brain and body get physically addicted the way a street drug would, you miss 1 day and you start having severe withdrawals, sweats, extreme brain zaps, feeling out of touch w/reality/strange thoughts. after a month of being off effexor, all of the bad stuff stopped."