Coming off antidepressants. Withdrawal symptoms or depression returning??

[Trickymoments]

I've just started to reduce my fluoxetine dose & plan to do so very gradually & slowly. I haven't found them of much benefit for a while.

I've done a bit of reading and it seems you can get withdrawal symptoms but these sound almost identical to depression/anxiety symptoms so how do you know which it is?

Withdrawal symptoms happen quickly, so say you miss a dose or two, you can start to feel anxious and tearful (or something similar) and then you take the dose and you're ok. Return of the original illness takes longer to build up and can often be a gradual return of the symptoms, but I agree it's not easy to differentiate.