The SSRIs over three years have given me serious side effects. Two years ago I had respiratory arrest after stopping Citalopram and landed in the ER.I'm currently between docs, but have a new one now, or at least an appointment. The last doc thought I was resistant to treatment, and wouldn't prescribe anything else for me. But in previous years, I've taken disipramine, norpramine and right now have to taken small dosages of imipramine to be effective.

All the SSRIs (which my sister also thought were toxic), have serious effects on the respiratory system and also kick in "serontonin syndrome", often if taken with another med. What did work for me was Wellbutrin, in the "atypical group"; I felt really up, happy and energized, but by the second day it caused a tremor in my head. Weird, I know, but that's what it felt like. BTW...for women, the atypical group is the only one which doesn't suppress sexual response...all the others, well, we won't go there.
I haven't tried Effexor, but I'm hoping my new doc will be good enough to know the research and prescribe something for depression and social phobia. Paxil worked well for depression and anxiety, but again, it has serious side effects. Without anti depressants, I am hypervigilant all the time, cannot sleep; at least some anti depressants did help me sleep, but I usually felt dizzy when awake. I hope this info might have been helpful to someone.