Hi there,

I was on Paxil during my burnout to help me deal with anxiety and depression. It did help me with my symptoms, but it also made me very numb. I was on 20mg and I stayed on it for about 3 months. I decided to stop it because of the scary withdrawal stories and because the side effects were pretty bad. Some time later I was put on Lexapro (another SSRI), I liked it better in terms of side effect.

Back to Paxil, my long term side effects that I found most unpleasant:

Weight gain. Not sure if it was just Paxil alone or in combination with ice cream diet. I gained about 10 kilos. With my short statue it made me look pretty fat. The weight did not come off after I stopped taking it. Two years later I lost only half of what I have gained.

Fluid retention. I found this one very annoying, I couldn't wear rings on my fingers. This disappeared shortly after I stopped taking Paxil.

General apathy and complete lost of libido. Didn't care much about anything.

The "fun" side effects were occasional hallucinations (floating walls and such) and vivid dreams. The dreams were absolutely ridiculous, I kind of liked them.

All in all, if I had to take an SSRI again, I would go for something other than Paxil. But everyone is different, so it's really hard to suggest anything.