doesn't happen w/everyone, but i've been told its one of the worst for withdrawal.  my own family member experiences extreme and horrible symptoms....another family member not so much.  after seeing the bad one, i decided if i ever back off any antidepressant or knew anyone dealing with effexor, i would go off slower than slow....

in fact, i had a withdrawal thing from prozac when i was switched years back to wellbutrin.   i was convinced the wellbrutrin made me feel (it did) worse than i'd ever experienced in my life.....later a doctor convinced me to try wellbutrin again.  I was scared, but tried...his theory being it was too fast off the prozac....I've been taking wellbutrin ever since

slower than slow on stopping med is my plan if i do change anything

Withdrawal symptoms can last for serveral months. I experienced 2 stages with Paroxetine (Paxil). Sudden withdrawal caused zaps, D&A and vivid dreaming. Withdrawing by halving the dose every two weeks saw me off the drug, but then I had terrible body pains and core headache which only went on return to full dose. I found it neccessary to drop from 20mg (standard dose) to 10mg and stay on that for a month. I had mild and/or brief body pains but tollerable. If it is too troublesome then go back to full dose for 3to4 days then resume. The next drop is the critical one because I think this is where the dose becomes ineffective at 5mg. The pain can be worst here but use previous system of retreat for 3 to 4 days after symptoms had not occured for 2 weeks I discontinued and did not notice any adverse reaction. Although this is a different drug from what I have read it is similar in withdrawal. One point to note is that I used Remeron concurrently to control the return of the D&A.