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Living with anxiety?s

sonicwhite

sonicwhite

Bluelighter
Joined
Aug 8, 2012
Messages
2,433
How do you live the rest of your life with anxiety. Life is too short to be missing out on everything because you can?t leave your bed because you?re so anxious all the time. I really don?t want to live if it?s reduced to this.
 
Sonic, I think this is temporarily magnified by what you are going through with WDs and even perhaps PAWS. But if anxiety is your natural inclination is was mine, I can give you some hope. I have been anxious all my life until the last decade or so. It took work (not meds) and lots of uncomfortable and even silly sounding retraining of my own thought processes but over time it worked. I rarely get overly anxious about anything. Sometimes I can still spin out in my head about my living son but I chalk that up to the fallout of having lost my other son which puts it in the range of a normal response. Still, even with that I use the same method of self-questioning to calm myself down.

If you cannot leave your bed for instance you can ask yourself to be specific about what makes you afraid to do so? Then you can start to dismantle the fears.
 
Well before I got on klonopin I had a sever case of Pure o ocd where I thought I was standing at Gods judgment. I would obsesse what if I am dead? I really regret ever getting on a benzo because yes they took away the anxiety and obsession but you can?t expect every doctor to be on board with giving you a benzo. I wish I could see past a year from now God willingly I live that long. It?s just very doubtful that I will have any sort of normal life without a benzo but I also know that in the future I will have to stop kicking the can down the road if I do have to stop that?s if a doc writes a script.
 
Hebavore. I?m so sorry you lost a son.

I can?t imagine that type of pain. I?m here for you if you need to talk.
 
This is a question i ask myself every day. But you just have to deal with it. Me, i just take my meds and try to make the best of my day. Even though every time I eat a pill and it makes me feel like im an invalid compared to everyone else, its the only way for me to 'deal' with things, at least for now.
 
You?re fine chompy. I know how it is. I?m in and have been in your shoes.
 
It's just a fact of life for me that I will probably be on benzos long term. It's not necessarily what I want, but the reality is that some of us have such crippling anxiety that other drugs just aren't effective. The rehab doctor had me try Buspar, which did absolutely nothing and Vistaril, which only made me groggy and still anxious. He finally caved when I started talking about leaving AMA because I was so anxiety ridden that I couldn't sleep or focus on what I was in rehab to do. I'm on Ativan now instead of Xanax and with Ativan's longer half life usually 2mg a day will do it but I try to take only 1mg to keep my tolerance low. I'm finally getting meaningful dual diagnosis psychological help, and talking to people in recovery support groups is valuable, too. I go to a Refuge Recovery meeting every Monday evening and each meeting begins with a 20 minute meditation. At first I really struggled with it, but it has now become a welcome break from life where I just get to sit quietly with my eyes closed and not think about anything.
 
I too will probably be on them long term since I was put on them when I was a teenager. I can't afford going thru years of wd's again only to be put on them for legit reasons. I probably even got some gray hairs going thru benzo wd/s.

When I have things to get done I'll do them as fast as possible and retreat home. Im only on 20mg valium a day and it seems to help me just barely. Doesn't do enough for certain phobias but I manage to get around them (barely).

Anyways, hope everyone has an anxiety free day. Its raining here and my favorite thing to do is to smoke some herb in the rain.
 
Well I just push through all the anxiety. I choose this way because I won?t be controlled by a drug.

Also not every doctor you meet is going to be on board with giving you a benzo.

I see now that it?s only temporary and that if your lucky you?ll not be on them forever. Plus you never know what the future holds .

What if the nation collapsed. What would you do other than have to go thru withdrawals in a dire time of need?
 
^

That's the exact type of overthinking that would qualify you as seemingly having an 'anxiety disorder', but I thought the same way when I was prescribed clonazepam 1 mg x 2 daily. I was constantly worried about my script getting pulled or a drug shortage happening and sure enough my script did get pulled when my Dr. was investigated for over prescribing controlled substances. I had a seizure going through withdrawal the first time and have been through a second withdrawal that was almost as brutal but not physically dangerous.

I legitimately can't function in certain situations without taking a benzo or sometimes a little kratom will suffice, but I have such severe social and generalized anxiety that if I want to even keep my job I have to be on something to even show up. I'm way more cautious about my use of tranquilizers now that I have to get them without a Dr. so I don't use them everyday and am not physically addicted, but there's been some bad judgement calls where I almost got myself hooked again, but luckily I caught myself every time.

Besides the pills what I do is attend local anxiety meetings, a meditation group and even dabble with some self-hypnosis to try and break out of being in a state of constant flight-or-fight, but so far these alternatives aren't doing much to help. I've also been diagnosed as having ADD and PTSD, so even if it wasn't anxiety I would be struggling to just go at it alone without chemicals. White-knuckling through all the symptoms makes me hate all those people who seem like they're high naturally because they don't have a brain that won't stop spinning and I don't like feeling angry at everyone else all the time because of my faulty wiring.
 
Phew I understand. It?s hard but it?s doable. Man last year at this time I was nuts. I complete wreck.

I was pulled of 3 mg a day of klonopin. The docs said this is the only route and I?m thankful I fired them and moved back to Oklahoma.

My current doc isn?t going to prescribe anything addictive. She says just like they all do that I need therapy. That I have to work at it to get better.

I?m thankful I?m not on them but I would pop one in a heartbeat if I had the chance.

I took them as prescribed also. Unfortunately I have ran into too many doctors shunning me on benzos that I gave up even asking them.
 
So I just WD from Kratom, with my PTSD and all the big bad boy symptoms, one is anxiety, that comes with it. I get where you are coming from, not wanting any drugs I went for the Kratom, it worked until the bitch turned on me. Now I am left with more anxiety than when I started. Fought my whole life not to take klonopin, Ativan, Val, etc. docs r all too eager to hand them out for ptsd patients. I did try Klonopin for two months had to come off because it was making me violent in my sleep.

I watched a close friend of mine, a disabled Vet, on all those meds spiral out of control through his PTSD symptoms until he broke and they threw him in the hospital for a few months. After watching him and others I was like F that bag of cats! I knew when I took the K for the flashbacks and anxiety I knew then my ass needed to be in therapy. I am back in EMDR therapy learning and preparing for emdr to work through the flashbacks. I am not going to lie the ANXIETY IS A BITCH! But I am learning new ways to cope and bring it down for the crisis moments. Everyday I am recognizing triggers, working it, I see improvement and I experience freedom.

But know that you try everything you can to find what works for you! I don?t care if it?s standing on your head reciting dr Seuss if that works then do it!! Learning ourselves is a process. Also I do believe sometimes you have to medicate while doing the work. I?ve seen it done, people so beat down with the fog they needed it lifted in order to do the work. Perhaps getting a different doc, and working on building a support team to help you while you work towards treatment goals is needed. Keep posting~XO
 
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my doctor tells me to smoke weed for the ptsd and to take less pills
 
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