I've been on Effexor for years -- love it -- works great for me. Made me really hyper in the beginning, though, but that settled down pretty quick and now I take it at bedtime because it doesn't have any effect one way or the other on my alertness.

I've had the brain-zaps and they SUCK, but I got cold-turkeyed off of it while they tried emergently to find a cause for my physical illness. Once they let me back on it, I was and continue to be fine.

Candy