Some benzos, IMO, are more prone to that flatness after-effect than others. If you're seriously in need of help for anxiety (and a lot of people are), it might be worth talking to a GP or someone with the capacity to prescribe. If you can find a half-way open-minded GP, you could tell them you've had diazepam once or twice and while it helped in the immediate term, it left you feeling depressed after, and possibly you can be prescribed something else.
This doesn't help, because I'm going to mention an RC benzo and we cannot recommend that people try looking for or sourcing and importing illegal things, BUT I will mention "pyrazolam", sheerly for the for the fact that of all the benzos I've tried, I found that one to do NOTHING but remove anxiety, and have the least side-effects. Honestly, I don't know why such a benzo hasn't been put into mainstream use as a legitimate medication because it's so non-recreational, yet so effective at what it's supposed to do.
My cynical side thinks that perhaps big pharma don't want anything that's unlikely to keep people coming back for more. See: alprazolam. Now THAT is a benzo that seems tailor-made for creating raging addictions which are extremely hard to escape from. It's benzo crack, IMO.
Also perhaps have a look into mirtazipine, a legally (and fairly commonly prescribed) anti-depressant. It's very different from typical SSRIs/SNRIs in that it is quite sedating and can help with anxiety while supposedly helping with depression also - and those two darlings go hand in hand.
Mirtaz didn't work out much for me, it made me very sleepy but didn't help the depression at all - even stacked on top of 100mg sertraline per day (this was done with the advice and recommendation of a GP, BTW). Still, most GPs will throw any anti-depressant at you way quicker than they'll agree to script you any benzos.
Good luck, floating.
PS. I empathise with your "I never learn" comment. I don't think it's a question of learning entirely, though, so don't beat yourself up too much. If you're anxious and depressed, then obviously you're going to use something that provides respite. Anyone who suffers from severe depression knows that if you have the coice - if there's a pill in front of you - then there's little to no chance that you'll be able to say "Well, perhaps tomorrow I'll take it. I think I'll just go ahead with feeling shit all day today again"... When is it a good time to feel depressed? It's a waste of life.
This doesn't help, because I'm going to mention an RC benzo and we cannot recommend that people try looking for or sourcing and importing illegal things, BUT I will mention "pyrazolam", sheerly for the for the fact that of all the benzos I've tried, I found that one to do NOTHING but remove anxiety, and have the least side-effects. Honestly, I don't know why such a benzo hasn't been put into mainstream use as a legitimate medication because it's so non-recreational, yet so effective at what it's supposed to do.
My cynical side thinks that perhaps big pharma don't want anything that's unlikely to keep people coming back for more. See: alprazolam. Now THAT is a benzo that seems tailor-made for creating raging addictions which are extremely hard to escape from. It's benzo crack, IMO.
Also perhaps have a look into mirtazipine, a legally (and fairly commonly prescribed) anti-depressant. It's very different from typical SSRIs/SNRIs in that it is quite sedating and can help with anxiety while supposedly helping with depression also - and those two darlings go hand in hand.
Mirtaz didn't work out much for me, it made me very sleepy but didn't help the depression at all - even stacked on top of 100mg sertraline per day (this was done with the advice and recommendation of a GP, BTW). Still, most GPs will throw any anti-depressant at you way quicker than they'll agree to script you any benzos.
Good luck, floating.
PS. I empathise with your "I never learn" comment. I don't think it's a question of learning entirely, though, so don't beat yourself up too much. If you're anxious and depressed, then obviously you're going to use something that provides respite. Anyone who suffers from severe depression knows that if you have the coice - if there's a pill in front of you - then there's little to no chance that you'll be able to say "Well, perhaps tomorrow I'll take it. I think I'll just go ahead with feeling shit all day today again"... When is it a good time to feel depressed? It's a waste of life.