To come off or not?

Ok so my story is long but I will try to keep it short. I have been on Aropax for 11years. To be honest it saved my life. I had a pts breakdown and developed agoraphobia and sever panic attacks. I had always had low level untreated depression. So after lots of ups and downs 3 years in, my life was actually better than it had ever been unmedicated, BUT. I have gained massive amounts of weight over the 11yrs and find it very hard to shift, I still feel quite normal, but do see that I don't feel extreme highs and lows. I can still feel anxious and have mild panic attacks (infrequently) and suffer depression. But no one seems to have any idea what will happen if I stop taking the pills. I recently missed a couple pills and was very surprised how clear my head felt. My sinuses opened and I felt I could breath for the first time in years. I am not worried about withdrawal symptoms. I am aware that it could be awful. What worries me is that I may spend weeks/months coming off and I wont be any better than I was 11years ago.

Low level depression is called dysthymia according to the Docs and its bloody awful thing to deal with. You are not quite fully depressed so people don't understand why you feel the way you do and it saps the pleasure from just about everything. At least that's what its like for me.
On meds like Aropax and Prozac for most of my teens and half my adult life, I quit cold turkey about 5 years ago. Not the best idea but done now. Meds have their place as part of an overall plan to deal with whatever is causing your depression, however in my case they quickly became a crutch, and they have a nasty habit of distorting your perspective by making things seem better than they really are. Consequently you make decisions based on less than reliable data.
I went a little whacky when I first came off them after 12 years, acted out in some strange ways, lost a job and fell into a pit for a while, but now I can think more clearly and understand things that before just confused me, no good when you are trying to study I bet. MY advice don't do it without some professional guidance from your GP cause these drugs are powerful and affect all sorts of things in your body, aside from your brain chemistry.
You have to ask yourself the question... Do I really need them, Is my problem some chemical in-balance (which cannot be diagnosed with any degree of certainty) or is it something else. Who knows hmmm