TLDR: Do not let any psychiatrist prescribe you Effexor/Venlaflaxine if you are under the age of 25. You will be at a significantly higher risk for suicide if they put you on this drug, especially if you've already been trying different antidepressants and other mental meds. 


I am 25. A few years ago when I was seeking help and trying out meds, my psychiatrist prescribed me Effexor. I was taking the meds, and it started to "kick in" about a week and a half to 2 weeks in. It gave me energy, it raised my sex drive, and in some ways it was working. But then that energy turned to mania, despite the higher sex drive I was incapable of having an orgasm, I became more restless and more irritable. The psychiatrist just says I need to keep adjusting to it. Then vivid, terrible, nightmares and brain zaps came in. It felt like my brain was on fire and there was no way out. By week 4, I wanted to fucking die. More than I ever had before. My body was inhabitable to me, I could not focus on anything. I was completely out of commission, I could not go to work. I couldn't stand to be taking this any longer, and I stopped taking it. For almost 3 weeks, I spend most of it sobbing on the floor of my garage. Chain smoking, listening to music, being baby sat by my boyfriend and mother. Any time sleeping came with the guarantee of nightmares. Waking up in a sweat completely disconnected. Everyone around me seemed fake and plastic, multiple brain zaps a day, no relief, it felt like I had no control and I just wanted out of my body. I was furious with the psychiatrist, I told her my experience and how it almost fucking killed me. She blamed it on me, that I just should have kept taking it. She prescribed me Prozac and something else after. It was not very long after when I stopped taking those two. My body, my brain, and the rest of my sanity had enough. I was beyond done, I never took meds after that again. I focused on therapy, I found my own resources, etc. 


Here I am now, a few year later, and when I reupped my birth control (IUD), it was faulty and implanted wrong and it ruined me. I started looking into medical devices and their risk, but came across information about psych meds in my research as well. That's when I read that Venlaflaxine/Effexor, when prescribed to persons under 25, has a MORE THAN SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER RATE OF SUICIDE than when prescribed to persons over 25. This was proven through MULTIPLE studies that were published well before I had my prescription at 22. This is something my psychiatrist SHOULD HAVE KNOWN ABOUT. I went to a psychiatrist for help, assuming their schooling and certifications that I could never hope to achieve meant they knew better. That they put more thought in to what they were prescribing to their patients. I just wanted help, I went to what was supposed to be a trusted professional, who supposedly is bound by medical laws and promises to do the best for their patients who are mentally ill. But my assumptions were wrong, and I have suffered for it. I have had my life jeopardized by these medical professionals. My brain is not the same as it was before the psych med Russian roulette. And this is exactly how these "professionals" treated me, and how they are treating others. By loading their list of the top 10 psych meds into a fucking prescription gun, leaving you to pull the trigger and all it's risks blindly into your already comprised mental state. 


This is why despite whatever you have, BPD, Bipolar, C-PTSD, even just general depression, do not just blindly trust these psychiatrists. Because you may end up dead or permenantly fucked up. And I don't want ANYONE to go through what I went through. Life is already completely unfair, and it's even more so when your brain is already programmed against you. Your mental state in any shape it's in, is absolutely precious even with it's faults. While some of these drugs have been able to significantly help some people, you have to consider how they have not. How they have ruined lives. The repercussions they have. While it's one thing for me to have to deal with BPD, it's another thing to have my mental state further ruined and compromised by something that was absolutely preventable and should have been dealt with more care. Regardless of whose fault it is, the point is at the end of the day you are the only one left to deal with what's inside your head and all it's damages. You are condemned to live with yourself for the rest of your life. They don't have to live as you, they don't have to suffer what you suffer, they don't have to deal with the side effects you deal with, and so naturally and unfortunately there is always going to be this disconnect and lack of care for you when you are not them. I can not take back what happened to me, but I can at least try to help others by watching out for them. I know a lot of you on here are under 25, and I see your suffering and fear with this disorder. I see your genuine desire to get better, and I am happy that we have communities like this that let us connect so the suffering isn't so lonely. You guys have been a huge part of why I was able to get through these last few years. I have reached out to some of your posts (from different accounts and this one), and have tried to help where I can as someone who understands this disorder. It breaks my heart when I read some of your posts, and I just want to say that I love you guys and I want to see you all overcome this and get to a place in your life that is happy. I want you guys to find all the help you need through any means possible, but please, be weary of the drugs they prescribe. Here are some quotes pulled about Venlaflaxine/Effexor:


"According to the FDA analysis of clinical trials venlafaxine caused a statistically significant 5-fold increase in suicidal ideation and behaviour in persons younger than 25." 


"Among teenagers who were suicidal at the beginning of the study, the rate of suicidal attempts and self-harm was significantly higher, by about 60%, after the switch to venlafaxine than after the switch to an SSRI"


"The higher risk and increased severity of discontinuation syndrome symptoms relative to other antidepressants may be related to the short half-life of venlafaxine and its active metabolite. After discontinuing venlafaxine, the levels of both serotonin and norepinephrine decrease, leading to the hypothesis that the discontinuation symptoms could result from an overly rapid reduction of neurotransmitter levels"