In desperate need of serious help (Trigger warning)

Hi, and thank you. My girlfriend recently began taking Effexor (Venlafaxine) and has turned for the absolute worst. All her life (she is 49 years old) she has suffered mental health problems, but NOTHING like this.

Upon starting on Effexor, she became a reckless/careless/destructive person. She managed to get her very first DWI of her life, and was caught drinking on the job also. She couldn't get through the day without guzzling alcohol, secretly or overtly, and I would classify in my opinion what become an almost over night alcoholic. She claims she feels an extremely intense craving for alcohol and that it helps her feel better (all of this began with Effexor). She will go to great lengths to get alcohol and to secretly consume it etc etc. She gained 20 pounds body weight from beer, whereas the girl I knew before Effexor would obsess over staying thin and maintaining a perfect weight. Now she doesn't care one bit.

Secondly and most importantly is she began self harming, for the first time in her life, slicing nearly half inch thick cuts into her wrists with a razor. She had been brought to the hospital after cutting her wrists with a soda can on the playground of the school where she works, in front of the children! She has lost all sense of care/empathy/concern for others when this is occurring, as well as her DWI.

Then, just recently, after work she cut her wrists very deep and drove 30 minutes home! Bleeding profusely into a cup as she as driving! This is all while she is an anemic, and passes out easily from blood loss. She did not consider any of that danger for one minute.

She has expressed a tremendous idealization of suicide and has even spoken to me at night about suicide as thought it's the greatest thing since sliced bread! And then she won't remember the conversations at all the next day!

As a close relationship partner of 4 years and knowing her life history like the back of my hand, I can say with complete confidence that this drug Effexor has been nearly killing my girlfriend and shutting down important faculties in her brain which are leading her to places she would otherwise never be. She is self aware that she hates the cutting, she expresses that this is "not her" and that she doesn't want to die, and that it makes her nauseous and she is afraid of these impulses which the drug seems to cause.

She has begun tapering off of Effexor with her doctor and is about halfway through the withdrawal period. I have been trying frantically to research, will this ever go away? If she stops the Effexor, will her brain recover? Will her faculties return to normal, her empathy, her compassion etc which all seem to be stunted or numbed out at the moment?

She has expressed a feeling that her empathy is gone, and that she feels numb all of the time, and mornings of SEVERE depression the likes of which she has never experienced before in her life.

She is no longer going to work, and I work full time with no one to watch her, so I am also frantically finding the best option for 24/7 surveillance over her and support without them pumping her full of drugs, and with someone who regards that she needs to be OFF of these drugs which are killing her! If anyone can provide ANY advice whatsoever, I would appreciate it greatly.

Are there any foods or supplements to help her brain to fight off the effexor numbing/carelessness/suicidal idealization? I am so afraid and overwhelmed, and I thank anyone for any support whatsoever. -Brian

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