8 months off benzos and no improvement

If you went cold turkey at first, it might have been too much of a shock. Benzo addiction is very serious, and it is always recommended to do a taper unless absolutely necessary. And even then, it would need to be a life-or-death thing, due to the risk of seizures.

I don't know about doing a taper now, but it might be something to consider trying. Like, find the dose you need to barely get relief, stay there just for a week, then start tapering down slowly. I'm no doctorb though, tread carefully.
 
I've had a good week since last posting to this thread. I've been sleeping much better, looking less haggard, and doing a lot of work.

The feeling of simple-mindedness intrudes periodically but I'm doing my best to push through it, to keep the faith that clear cognition will one day return for good.
 
I've had a good week since last posting to this thread. I've been sleeping much better, looking less haggard, and doing a lot of work.

The feeling of simple-mindedness intrudes periodically but I'm doing my best to push through it, to keep the faith that clear cognition will one day return for good.

Good to hear, phoenix! It's always just a matter of time with these things.
 
The tribulation seems to be passing. And this time there is a feeling that it may be passing for good.

To elaborate on this past week, I have been able to tolerate caffeine during the day and still sleep, to perform demanding intellectual work (writing), to feel like an ordinary human being. My moods have been leveling out.

Within me there lingers a bottomless dread that, once again, joy is being trickled back into my life only so that inexorable blasts of senseless suffering can scour it away. It still seems at times that some entity exists, or is in the process of being formed, that has spelled out an unspeakable fate, a fate that has engulfed or will engulf or perhaps is currently engulfing us all, a fate communicated via a multi-pronged sequence of exponentially multiplying and worsening omens. Which is to say, a sort of religiosity that causes only misery and is not permissible in contemporary society. A sort of religiosity no better, no more sophisticated, than my conviction early on in the withdrawal that I needed to make the digits on the treadmill add up to certain sums in order to avert tragedy.

At the same time I recognize that this dread is the consequence of damage to my brain and nervous system and that it, too, will pass. All of this that is not already in the process of passing, soon will be.

As tired as I am, and as much as it saddens me that three years with benzos and other drugs may have flattened my mind permanently, I have learned to adopt frames of thought that can help me to endure any agony. And although I am hesitant to say it, things are looking up, and my life is going to be at least a lesser iteration of what I've always envisioned for it.

What a relief!
 
phoenix, it is so heartening to hear you say that you feel that your life has some small feeling of joy trickling back in. I am so glad that you feel relief. I think your ability to cultivate patience is what is going to get you through this all the way back to a full recovery. <3
 
dude i think at least 5 people have asked you now and you still havent answered - WHAT KIND OF BENZO WERE YOU TAKING. im sure people could offer better advice after learning that information. sorry if i come off as annoyed but i was searching the whole thread to try and find what you were taking and i thought you were gonna post it after so many people asking but i guess not. please grant my wish lol
 
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It takes some people 2 years to heal from benzos. Check out www.benzobuddies.org for support.

At 8 months off I was sleeping maybe 5 hours a night on a good night and awake all night on a bad night. I had severe agoraphobia and anxiety and crippling depression. I also had severe cog fog.

I'm 20 months off now and the only thing I still deal with is insomnia, but even that is a lot better. I thought I had destroyed my brain but now I'm back in school in a math based major. Things do get better, just not on the schedule we would like them too.

I was a high dose abuser for almost 10 years if that makes any difference.

How do you feel now? How many months did it take you to get to 100%?
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Hi. It can take 2 years or more. I ended up going back on the benzos because I just don't have the time to kick them. Best wishes to you, benzos are the worst. I'd rather be doing heroin than these.
 
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