Venlafaxine
"I may have had good experiences with Effexor the first six months or so. But, without a mood stabilizer, I soon went into a hypomanic stage. At times, on the medicine, I went into an full-blown manic phases. Once again, without a mood stabilizer.

The most challenging part about this medicine, (or the generic venlafaxine which I took) is quitting it. Now, I am a poster child for doing it wrong, no doubt.

That is, it is extremely challenging to quit this medicine going Cold Turkey. You will read online where people will tell you point blank, "Do not quit this medicine cold turkey." Listen to them.

It took at least five months to feel like this medicine was totally out of my system."