I take Paxil and I have to admit, it's been one of the most successful drugs I've ever taken (15 mg/day). My two top concerns when I started were i. sexual side effects (I luckily have experienced none) and ii. withdrawal when that day comes. The most common method people use is switch to a long half life ssri like prozac, cut the paxil and then wean from thee prozac. That sounds scary as shit to me because I actually got serious anxiety when I took prozac. So, when that day comes, I don't know what I'll do. Kind of scary.

Paxil is one of the hardest antidepressants to be on or come off of, if doesnt work for you. That's the crapshoot with this stuff, it is a complete guessing game. It can be worse before better coming off of antidepressants, and doctors often increase the medication rather than consider removal. 2-3 month withdrawal period from Prozac for me, and that was worse than being on the med itself. Titration down was by microdosage that in the end, was so tiny, I mixed it with juice. I still felt the withdrawals for a couple of weeks after that was gone(that small dose). Paxil is known anecdotally to be harder to come off of that Prozac or Zoloft. There are many young kids under age 15 being given this drug for 'social anxiety'. I have personally been witness to 2 kids on antidepressants under age 18 for years, have suidical thoughts and /or attempts while on the ADs. The news coming out from FDA or manufacturers are what some people have suffered through for years, and I have personally been telling doctors for 5 years. (that the antidepressants cause suicidal ideation).
Just like every medication , there are side effects, and reactions indiviualized to the person taking the med. This is why "stabilization of symtoms" is just as elusive as true happiness. Once you have either of those, hang on to it and appreciate the moment, the week or the month, or even years, because it can slip away as mysteriously as it came.

I got put on Paxil when I was 10 years old, because my family had moved across the country and I was depressed. I was manic for four months straight and it was really fun. I went off of it and seemed to do ok. Then I started taking it again when I was 15 and a week later felt like I was in hell and tried to hang myself. So these days I avoid SSRI's. Especially Paxil. But to each his/her own.