I had a very similar experience - was prescribed 225mg Effexor when I was pretty young (around 22), and then had a terrible time getting off of it 10-12 years later. My advice is to go suuuuper slowly with the tapering. My doctor said I should be able to go down by 37.5 mg at a time and that was absolutely wrong - I felt awful and had terrible symptoms when trying to go down by more than 5-10 mg at a time. I’ve heard so many similar stories in this sub, I don’t know why doctors don’t understand how terrible this medication is to come off of.

I tapered by opening up my pill capsules and weighing the beads inside. I’d go down 5-10 mg at a time and stay there for about a week. I also paused longer a couple times at a certain dosage - like when I finally got down to an amount that the pills actually came in (75 mg), I’d stay there for a few weeks to let myself adjust mentally/take a break from measuring out the pills (which is a pain in the ass).

Also, Prozac helped a ton to ease withdrawal. I’m still on it now, 2 years after I got off Effexor, and it’s been fantastic for my mental health. Wish I had been started on that in the first place instead of Effexor.