Benzos suck dick. I know where you're coming from, except I've always had anxiety problems, however I was able to control them through excercise and mindfulness. I was doing quite a bit of coke, going out, socialising, having a good time. The coke and hang overs from alcohol would make me feel shitty but it was manageable and I was able to hold down a job and social life.
I had never done benzos before (even on major come downs from mdma in my youth)... then a friend introduces me to to valium. I loved them becuase any anxiety from doing coke wasn't there the next day and I could sleep well. I started doing them at work as well and before social events I felt anxious about attending... anyway 2 years later, im unemployed because I can't hold down a job without freaking out with panic attacks, I've pushed away most of my friends and am generally scared of life and leaving the house. Stopped taking the valium for about 2 months, but relapsed this weekend just gone - turns out I had the best weekend in a long time, felt relaxed and was able to socialise in a large group. Anyway, I know what you're going through and it sucks, wish I'd never touched them!
Quitting valium is easy compared to those benzos that work at sub-miligram doses. But even then it's difficult, I was at 20mg since 5 years, tapering from another benzo, but couldn't go lower than 20mg without getting waves of worrying thoughts and getting manic into looking at bad news all the time. So I had a victory anyway of going from 4mg clonazepam a day to 20mg valium. Now we're going 1mg less of valium a day, tomorrow I fall to 18mg, I gotta be scripted 10,5's and the ridiculous 2's I had never seen before (to be able to take uneven doses like now at 19mg). If it eats through paws, its perfect, we're taking a mg away every 3 weeks. If at some point I start feeling bad, we'll stay where I am or up back a mg or 2...(which is actually Ashton-method, I had a long discussion with my psychiatrist to get that going on, at first he was going too fast, wanting me on 15mg right away, and it wasn't enough).
Although I'll always need an hypnotic for my diagnosed insomnia/delayed sleep onset if I have to be awake when this society says I should be (I first was scripted a barb from 2000 to 2004 until my awesome nanny government removed all the good barbs in Nov 2004, I only had a script of 15 Seconals (Secobarbital) A YEAR for pre-exam anxiety/insomnia being even worse, and it was gone from my body when I went to bed, I had to reserve 12 hours of sleep, which is what I needed then as a young adult/late teen, hell when I was 15 years old I'd sleep 14-15 hours the weekends because of how messed up I'd feel from school (and working 2 runs of newspapers on my bike at 5am). Then my doc used Placidyl(ethchlorvynol) for the same purpose, it was removed in 2006...so then I had that DOB hit and needed clonazepam everyday to kill the HPPD, which takes time, a long time, he scripted me .5mg twice a day for a year, only by month 8 did I start having my vision be clear, the last remnants was when looking at the sky and having static in my vision. Then I saw a psychiatrist and he had the bright idea of changing my script to 2mg a day (would kill my insomnia, so I was all for it, .5mg twice a day didn't help much other than yes, sleeping, but 5 hours and often feeling hungover until I got used to it).
So yeah, they can be very useful, and that goes for all downers, including barbs that shouldn't have been removed. It's true they were dangerous to the clueless (1 pill, you sleep, 2 pills, you die, in some cases, I know the one time I had 2 Seconals at once (the red gelcaps), I would feel like I was extremely hungover when waking up except without the nausea and headache, it wasn't pleasant at all. They're tools, like opiates, where using them correctly is difficult and often a subjective thing, especially since it a person vs the doctor who can't feel what you're feeling even if he knows about the symptoms of withdrawal, he/she can't really get it unless they have been there. My doc said he was an alcoholic for 5 years of his university time, my psychiatrist, it took a long time for him to admit it, but when I said "You cannot even begin to imagine how I feel" and he said "Oh you'd be surprised, I drank a 26 oz every night for 5 years, a now-colleague in another field tapered me with Librium, I didn't take it for long, you only need to take it a couple weeks and then the spasms go away and if you really wanna quit drinking it helps you sleep away your misery, but I also had a wife that would cook for me as I lied in bed" knowing I only had a series of medium term girlfriends in my life, that was kinda a "ah-ha" from him, but I don't care, psychiatrists and psychologists alike like to be pricks to see if you're easily disturbed by what others think. Anyway, he's compassionate enough to taper me at a normal pace.
OP's issue is a neurological one. I'm serious when saying clobazam would stop the craziness he's experiencing, it sounds like his temporal lobes are going mad with seizures, temporal lobe seizures do not make one pass out. Clobazam, clonazepam and nitrazepam are benzos used in neurology, sometimes valium too, but not so much anymore. Clobazam is the strongest anti-convulsant amongst them and is also slightly anxiolytic, apparently it can be scripted for anxiety but I'd laugh if I knew anyone was scripted clobazam for such a reason. But in his case it would hit 2 birds with one stone, and it's even weaker than the benzos he says messed him up (ativan and clonazepam if I remember right).
I think it could/should be used for tapering, when one is almost done but still struggles (someone at 5mg of valium, who's determined to stop, a 10mg Frisium regime on top wouldn't raise tolerance at all and promote an anti-seizure brain environment (heh, brain environment, one could say that OP's brain weather is having one hell of an electric storm hardy har har) and the Frisium could be removed at all times later when the person's okay, maybe use the score line on them to take 5mg at once instead of 10 (there's only 10mg pills).
I'm also curious at the fact that Dalmane (Flurazepam) would be the perfect case of a Bupe for Benzos. It's a partial BZD agonist, and lasts the longest of all commercial benzos, even the grey market ones never came close, except for phenazepam I guess.
