I've been on Suboxone maintenance for almost a year now and I've been struggling with the same problem a lot of Suboxone patients struggle, I guess, for a few months now. At the beginning it really was a godsend. I went through an over 2-month withdrawal after tapering down methadone (which I had used for ~2.5 years). The withdrawal lasted and lasted, long story short I eventually landed on Suboxone, so I don't relapse on full agonists.
The problem with methadone was it'd been making me feel kind of empty, devoid of emotions, feelings, they were blunt, and I felt as if my head was in the fog / cloudy. It'd been making me depressed more and more, and somehow when I probably couldn't go deeper into that apathy, I decided to get off. Once I got on Suboxone, it again proved to be a useful tool for low mood and lack of motivation (I previously used buprenorphine with no naloxone on my own). And it really made me not think about shooting up morphine unlike methadone. For like 2 months... In the past I didn't really know why it stopped working, I didn't really know what was happening. But now I can see that after 10 months on Suboxone I'm progressing into a phase similar to that of methadone. It's definitely milder, I don't feel like a mentally handicapped moron, because I've got plenty of ideas, yet they're all sick and paranoid at times. At times I do have energy, but it's some negative energy as if it were meant for me to eventually destroy myself with all the hatred that has grown inside me. I'm again feeling empty and I can see where this is going.
Methadone-like stagnation, but with buprenorphine I can't even sedate myself, taking more Suboxone does end with some kind of a "nod", I once accidentally took a high unknown amount of this shit throughout 48 hours, and I ended up falling asleep while taking a shower. After an hour my mum knocked on the door, I woke up, started vomiting... I don't even want to imagine fatally overdosing on this. With methadone I could drink more syrup, maybe take more benzodiazepines, and maybe smoke some weed, and it did something, it chilled me out, spaced out if I needed that. Now I'm at 2-4mg of bupe as Suboxone (s.l. with alcohol) and I still can get terrible headaches and boneaches, and nothing helps. I often get nauseous, I can't sleep, I can go for 2-3 days with no sleep and I take no stimulants. I even fooled around with melatonin and lemon balm to get no results, of course. But that's nothing compared to the inner uneasiness, anxiety mixed with some undefined fear, and flying into rages all the time right after getting up when I eventually get some unsatisfying sleep. When I was in England this Summer, I once took some dihydrocodeine to help myself with these boneaches. And guess what, two regular pills added to 2mg Suboxone worked much better than taking enormous doses of this shit. I hate it and you can't imagine how much I hate it, you can't imagine how I hate almost everything about my life right now. I hate this artificial feeling Suboxone now produces for me. I'm tired of feeling cold, getting goosebumps all the time, shivers, and pain of course.
And the scariest part for me is I have no idea how to get off this thing. I just can't taper it down. I stop at 2mg all the time. When I make it at 1mg for one day, on the second day I know this is too heavy and there is nothing to help myself. Aspirin, ketoprofen, you may laugh - nothing works but marijuana which I don't have money for at the moment here in Poland accidentally. But it miraculously works for it all - pain, nausea, insomnia. Anyway, this is not how I'm imagining dealing with life for the rest of my life, for God's sake. I can't sort anything out in my life now and soon it may be again too late to do anything, and I might get kicked out of the uni again, especially when I have no faith in what I do. I even thought of getting back to the roots, dissociatives. I mean going really deep with ketamine or something stronger to find "true" myself, but it rather seems more desperate than reasonable thinking to me. But I can't imagine doing through a hell similar to that from a year ago after quitting methadone. The only way of getting off buprenorphine is now for me obviously a full agonist opioid, no second thoughts, straight into my bloodstream, so I can be cured again, so I can feel my body is warm again, so I can get rid of constant headaches and paranoias.
I guess this is not how Suboxone maintenance brings you back to life. :/ I don't expect anyone to go deep with thoughts with my ranting. I just needed to make it all material, at least on my computer screen. Just so you all future Suboxone/Subutex miraculous survivors know that this leads to the apathy composed the same as methadone's if you're not lucky with your philosophy or whatever drives your will and power to live successfully.
PS. I know it may all be nonsense, but I haven't slept for some time now.
