benzo recovery

[Madcap86]

Hi everyone i am new to this site but i need some help feeling very lonely dealing with this hole thing was woundering if anyone could point me in the right direction. Ill give you some of my story. So this has been the longest 8 months of my life. I never was prescribed benzos but i did take them for about a year. Only a couple months spans where i took them everyday but it was heavy use during the months i used everyday. I used other drugs during my life mostly pot. Did acid and ecstasy i bit much, but never really suffered from any side effect from that or the pot. But the Benzos Valiums is what i was taking later in my drug used seemed after a while of use made me more anxious and caused me to have a panic attack when i did used them. Didn't find out about that till one week i decided i was becoming to lazy and tired from these pill so i didn't take them. This was after about a half a year of using benzos maybe a four month span of everyday and heavy use when along with that too. About 2 days later i came home from my job rolled up a joint got half way through it when i realized holy hell i am really high and this is only some mids. Then i had the first panic attack of my life. It was the most scariest thing every i didn't no what to do. I just felt like i was dieing. I couldn't stop shaking and thinking about the most insane things. At first i thought maybe i was having an acid flash back but it was so evil, and i never had a bad trip from acid. After the attack was over i still wasn't totally sure about what it was i thought maybe i was doing to many drugs and my brain needed a rest. I gave it a brake with every. Still smoked pot but that was it. I seemed to be fine had about 2 week of on off crazy panic attacks but they went away. After that i was just anxious all the time ready to snap at anytime. After a month or so i ended up using the Valiums again and more often. Also got back into taking acid on the weekends but i had to take a Valium before i was starting to notice the reason for my anxiety now. One morning i woke i did not feel normal this continued on and on. Till weeks later i realized when i took a Valium i felt better. Well i always stayed away from a addictive drugs. Would touch opiates, coke, heroin. Nothing like that i liked my pot and the occasional acid trip. Now i realized i was a addicted to these pills. I stopped doing all drugs, drink and smoking pot. I didn't no to the extent as to how bad these pills were. I never tapered off I never read up on anything, and from that point on (January 2011)to now i have not been myself. From January till mid April it was like one big panic attack that i thought would never end. I could even get out of bed. I thought i was dead. I would wake from sleeping out of breath thinking i was still dreaming. The list of things goes on and on and on. Finally after April the panic attack became more under control, but my anxiety was through the roof. My mind was constantly going thinking of the most crazy stuff. The doctor put my on Zoloft an anti-depressant witch made things worse i started hallucinating, constant tunnel vision. I felt like i was stuck in the acid trip from hell, and every time i went to the doctor they just increased the Zoloft. I was up to 200mg. Finally i said that enough. I tapered off on the Zoloft still dealing with the crazy withdrawals from the Valium witch made life even more hell, because now i was i was very depressed. I thought about killing myself everyday. every second of the day, but still i waited. Just like when your having a bad trip on psychedelics you wait and it will pass. Well that even drove me nuts. So basically i learned to live with this terrible thing that was going on inside my brain. Now things are calming down i got my anxiety under control only as of a month or so ago. The panic attacks stopped i just get these crazy anxiety attacks. Maybe they are panic attacks I'm not sure maybe i have just learned to live with them, but the first few months when i would have panic attacks that lasted weeks i would have to sit next to someone and have them tell me I'm ok, I'm alive and here. I ended up moving back in with my parents. Ended up sitting next to my mother for 3 months scared out of my mind thinking the hole i time i am dead reliving memory's even tho they never happened before, but at the same time i was having so much Dazavoo (not sure how to spell that) the everything felt like i had lived it before and my life was running backwards. Sometimes even now this happens to me, and i keep going back and fourth in my mind say it is the benzos withdrawal relax, but then also i say no you fucked yourself doing acid your screwed for life, but then remember i came down from my acid trip. The problem i think is that i did alot of Valiums and Acid at the same time. that part of my life is very chaotic.when i got back into the benzos the last time i would eat like 2 or 3 10mg Valiums and eat like 4 or 5 hits of acid. I never used to do that. When i started using Valiums i ate it with every drug i did during and even after i did what ever. I only used benzos for about a year and maybe a half. Before that trouble i smoked pot everyday and eat acid only occupation. After 3 years of that the Valiums came along and everything changed. I slowly kept losing control.

I started doing research on these pills later during my withdrawals and wow they are so bad. If i would have none i wouldn't of gotten myself into this. I am pretty sure as of now i am suffering tremulously from what they call depersonalization. I live in this foggy dream state now, and i forget who i am and what i am doing all the time. I think things are coming back but very slow, and at the same time i am not that sure. One of my question is if i didn't taper off on the Valium will i ever feel the same again will those parts of my brain turn back on. I feel like this will never end i am going to be stuck like this and its so frustrating. I have been dealing with this for 8 months. I haven't relapsed at all on benzos during this hole time. I don't even want to. Ill admit i do think about it, but i don't want to start this hole process over. It was too much hell to have to go through it again. This story is really only some of what i am going through. its some of the stuff that on the top of my head. There is so much more its just been so much going on i can't get it all out at once. If anyone can give me some advise please do.

 

[RobotRipping]

yes those feelings will go away with time. It can take up to a year but usually 6 months and you will be back to normal, each day will get better however. The derealisation and depersonalization are common withdrawal effects; i still have them daily and it's exactly as you describe. Benzo withdrawal causes some of the weirdest side effects.

I completely relate to how you have felt and are feeling. I've been through it and recovered, yet still am back and forth on benzos even now. It's incredibly difficult, the withdrawal lasts so long but i can tell you for sure that you will feel normal again, you will start to feel more grounded. If your head feels like it's in the clouds, it will slowly come back down to your body. As well, things will lose their dreamy feeling.

My advice is to wait it out. Some things that may help: valerian root for anxiety (works similar to a benzo without the issues), doxylamine or dihpenhydramine (benadryl) for sleep. Avoid smoking pot (unless you have access to strains that do not cause anxiety) and especially avoid psychedelics while you're in withdrawal, it will make you panic and/or manic. Eventually you'll be able to smoke and trip again without issues. I know you're probably dealing with a ton of other strange effects, but I promise it will get better progressively.

 

[Madcap86]

Thank you much i appreciate your words. I been so lost hearing it from some who is going through it make feel have hope. All my friends are addicted to opiates. So its not the same. I try talking to them but they all think I'm nuts ha.
I been staying away from the pot because its something i really used to enjoy before this happened. I want to wait till im much better, and as for other drugs and drinking after this experience i don't ever want to do anything but smoke pot. its the safest thing it seems to me.

 

[S.M.F.G]

I'm stuck in Benzo hell atm... can relate to some of what u sayin, i had come off a smaller dose before but was stupid enough to get back on them when my high anxiety, panic attacks and agrophobia set in again nearly 2 yrs ago. Now im nowhere near being able to stop, and know of the hell that awaits me, Hats off to you for trying to live ur life without the benzos, as i said i couldnt do without my current medication regiment. i can vouch for the valerian root, also doxcylimine, another good one was malatonin. I got alot on my plate right now and am trying to get to the point where i can ween down enough to an as needed basis. Give the naturals a try n all i can offer you other than that is luck
It's well worth geting over though so u doin good even though it seems u may not, i think its a common headfuck associated with benzo WD &even just anxiety in genral.