BZD Withdrawal and Nightmares

[adder]

I've been haunted by nightmares recently, and I'm sure this has to do with quitting benzodiazepines about a month ago after 9 years. My dreams are generally weird, not necessarily nightmares. They're usually very long and when I wake up, I can remember a lot very well, and if I can't, it's also easy for me to recall the events I dreamed about if I focus enough. The dreams feel very realistic as if I really were there, even to the point the reality seems unreal for a few moments after waking up. I can literally dream about the whole day or even a few days, I'm so "awake" in them that I can think dreaming. I mean, the situation may be very dreamy, e.g. adding letters, smelling colours etc. When I wake up, I can remember the whole "thinking" sequence, why it happened and what was the point of me trying to figure something out. The dreams feel weird not because they depict weird events as dreams could be generally seen as weird. They're scented with some existential or religious backgrounds. And they're full of metaphors. Last night I had one of the worst nightmares in my life. The devil literally tried to possess me, there were angel-like figures, and when I woke up I was scared to the point I thought that if I don't calm down, I will go mental. And I'm not a religious person at all, I was just raised as a catholic.

I know this is because of the rebound REM sleep. Everything makes me agitated and anxious, even drugs that used to calm me down. I could never imagine how paranoia after weed feels like, well now I can (and it really was the last thing I could freely use to help myself fall asleep with no side effects or problems with withdrawal). I started craving opioids again, I was quite stable at 2mg of buprenorphine a day, but then I had to ask for increasing it and it still does nothing, I'm walking with my pupils looking like a head of a pin, but I can get no peace. I'm starting to feel exhausted, because not only I have these weird dreams, I also can't fall asleep in the first place, so I try using some medications I was scripted in the past but didn't use them. I used mianserin for the past few days, but it deepens my sleep and even at 15mg I'm so drowsy on the following day that I can hardly get up.

I've got to get back to studying. I thought that I would stop studying IT and start studying chemistry in October again. But my mum will have to pay more tax if I don't study, so although my head is off, my year's sick leave ends, and I still have a lot of exams to pass, I decided to give it a try. I often feel like my brain froze for a moment, my memory doesn't work too well, so when I'm tired everything is even harder.

What can I do to make my mind calm? I thought of meditation earlier, but I'm afraid that it will worsen all these dreamy states, besides I've never been a patient person. Now most of my day is swearing and being mad at everything. The dreams seem like there's something in my life that I feel some great guilt upon something. I've got bad experience with psychotherapy from the past, it's impossible that I talk frankly with another person, because I taught myself that the first thing to do when meeting someone new is to figure out how that person could manipulate me. I've isolated myself from people for years, still keeping some little contact, so when I'm out now I look analytically at everything people do, that prevents me from being spontaneous. When I'm at home or driving a car, I'm thinking of myself as normal, but when I'm among people, everything I do seems weird to me. I'm really a mess and the stress kills me. I'm such a nervous person now that I don't believe I will ever be normal even when my GABA and glutamate systems go back to "normal".

Sorry if it all feels incoherent. In short I'm looking for a way to stabilize rebound REM sleep and make my mind calm without opioids and GABAergics and not losing the rest of my focus. Anyone else experiencing such derealization and/or depersonalization having quit GABAergics? And I don't feel like taking some benzodiazepine at all, I don't crave it at all, just morphine, that's 24/7 on my mind. But I didn't feel like getting some chill pill even when I was a day or 2 without clonazepam and already felt anxious, I've simply got fed up with it.

 

[Allein]

Hi adder, I really feel for you on this one, I go through periods of insomnia and disturbing dreams on what seems to be an endless cycle.

In the past I've used benzos and alcohol partly to try and bring about some peaceful sleep.....as you seem to have concluded chemicals are at best a very short term fix and in the long run are likely to make the problem worse.

I find meditation a little intimidating TBH but I very much doubt it would make things worse for you, I have found it very calming in the past, I've also tried Tai Chi which suited me much better, in many ways it is a form of meditation and my teacher was a very spiritual guy. I havent managed to get back to it after an injury but I may well try.

After a bad night I find a simple walk in the fresh air to be a great help, take some time for yourself and rather then push the negative feeling that are left over away try and look at them for what they are, much like the dreams they can't hurt you. Kinda works for me at least to some extent.

all my best wishes

 

[neversickanymore]

Hey adder, Sorry you are having to deal with this. Lucid dreams can be something else. sometimes they are great sometimes they are awful. Congratulations on getting off the Benzo's!!! I think you a right on in your suspicions of this being a whole bunch of rebound sleep phases. I have had allot of issues with sleep in the past and I have really started to finally develop the correct sleep pattern. There have been many things to contribute to this like good sleep hygiene and trying to stick to a schedule. But I think the thing that has helped the most is the use of a blue therapy light. Its a small light that you place on a desk or other space and it shines the correct spectrum into your eyes. The way the brain knows what time of day and what time of year it is is buy the type and quality of light it detects. The inability to fall asleep at a good time for our lives can play havoc with our systems. The natural inclination for us to feal sleepy and unmotivated at certain times of year can make us depressed. This light tells the brain that its a day in summer in the middle of the day. So the brain them wakes us up and makes us feel great. By utilizing this light to program your brain when to wake up and then using sunglasses after seven PM possibly in conjunction with melatonin you will likely be able to start to fall asleep at the correct time in reference to your life. This allows for you to have a dream cycle that will also match. So this is a possible way to reset the clock to a proper cycle for you.

This is the goLITE by philips that I am talking about and I really can say enough good stuff about it and what it has done for my sleep. >here<

I came off a large decades long benzo habit and my dreams were all over the place.. I didn't sleep almost two weeks and then only slept for like 3-4 hours a night for months and months.. had crazy dreams and was pretty out of whack for a bit.. but Im back to normal now and with the4 addiction of this light I am better than I can ever remember. So it may be something to look into.

 

[jaideep]

hi bro.yups i cn very wel imagine hw u wud b bcauz i m also goin thru d same phase.i m also hvng clonazepam frm a long tym nd i m on taperring it nw.its very tough to get off it.i hv cm on a dose of 0.25 nw bt d wd r bad.evn i hardly cn sleep nd weird things hapn.i cn only gv u an advise.forget everything and jst try to go to a church nd spend sm tym vid god nd also read bible daily.i m sure u vil b fyn.talk to jesus abt ur problem nd i m sure he vil get u out.i wud hv nvr taprd d dose vidout dis....god bless u bro

 

[adder]

Thanks for the replies. I will read more about blue light as I've always been prone to insomnia, even before I was addicted to benzodiazepines. I'm sure that Winter's short days are adding to this, because I'm much better on sunny days. So I'm hopeful as Spring is closer and closer. In the past I used to cycle a lot, even in the morning before going to school, so I'm going to save some money and buy myself a new bike. I'm sure I will have some more energy now to start cycling again. I remember how as a kid I could easily do 40-50 km in one day. When I tried going for a short trip a year ago, I couldn't make a single km.

I was also on a too high dose of levothyroxine, so it made me even more nervous during the day and I was too "full" of emotions before going to sleep. My hands were shaking as if I jumped off a high benzodiazepines dose just yesterday, so it made me thinking. I got TSH, FT3, and FT4 blood levels tested and I'm waiting for the results. Sure there are quite severe mood changes after getting off benzodiazepines and there really are phases of feeling good and bad. Luckily I'm much better now, definitely calmer and my dreams are less nightmarish.

jaideep, I didn't understand everything because of your spelling. But before I got off clonazepam I was on 0.25-0.5mg of clonazepam a day, and when I ran out of it and couldn't get prescribed it any more, I got on 10mg of clorazepate a day for a week or two. I jumped off then or rather I didn't have strength to go out and look for a benzodiazepine. Really, at such a low dose it makes little difference in my experience, I was feeling almost the same at 10mg of clorazepate and taking nothing. This would be too much suffering for me tapering these low doses. It's been ~6 weeks since I quit, and it was really bad for like 2 weeks. My mood is already much better, since I stopped taking levothyroxine, my hands are much less shaky, so a lot of that terrible clumsiness must have been because of that, I started feeling like doing something for real for the first time in like 5 years. So I think the tapering is not worth the suffering. Just as I wanted to avoid being involved in a lot of stuff in the past and took pills instead, I think people addicted to benzodiazepines or barbiturates for years are exaggerating their withdrawal symptoms, because they're afraid of their life without a chill pill. They taper down diazepam to a very low dose and they're in for a long suffering, and they could be done with it faster suffering a little bit more. I know sometimes it's impossible to take a month off just like that, but still you have around 3 weeks of holiday every year if you work. It's really a lot less suffering and the energy coming back is just priceless. Now I don't believe if someone says they can't do that any more, anyone really can.

 

[floatingaround]

I didn't read your whole initial first post OP but I've been through those nightmares during benzo withdrawal and let me say they where the scariest moments of my life. I would dream about seeing my mother getting killed, me hanging out with gangsters and well known rappers and hip hop stars.. Using drugs, killing other people, The list went on and the worst thing was when I woke up from these dreams I thought it was all real. I couldn't see what was a dream and what was reality as I hadn't dreamt in so long.

I had one dream where this guy on Facebook started messaging me saying he was coming up to my house at 1 pm with a knife to stab me. I woke up from the dream at 12.30 pm and believed it was going down. Even after I searched thru my fb and found no actual conversation, in my mind it happend as it felt so real and you couldn't tell me other wise. So anyway I went up stairs to get the axe and held onto that for a couple hours then my mum got home and she was wondering what was going on... Prior to this dream I had another dream where a group of people broke into my laundry and lite it on fire. I called my mum as she wasn't home and I asked if people had tried to break in and were the fire brigade here and she said no.. I thought I was going through psychosis and became completely mental.

Anyway eventually I had to write down what I was doing during my days so I knew what was day and what was night. This lasted a week before things returned to normality.

I never tapered from benzos and this was extremely dangerous. I was eating Xanax bars Dailey for months and months. I never knew of the risks of going cold turkey.

 

[RobotRipping]

it's rough i screamed out in my sleep for so many months


mxe fixed it i guess but it goes away with time it hurts so fucking bad no one will understand but i do and i got through it and so will you. just hang in there bro. I know they're coming back again but they will go away again too.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Rebound REM sleep has been irritating me as well.

Stay brave; we can get through this.

 

[adder]

Yeah, I know it will bounce me for a long time. One day I may be fine and then on another day I'm again all shaky as if I was to get an attack. I too have dreams about getting killed or framed. Last night it was nightmare after nightmare, I fell asleep for good at 7 AM, when I couldn't keep myself awake any more. The depersonalization thing is horrible, when I remember myself during some event, I get a feeling I'm a stranger to myself, a different person like other people, it scares the shit out of me. I didn't tell anyone about my benzodiazepine addiction who hadn't known earlier, and most people think I'm a tweaker. I don't keep in touch with people I knew when I was an "active" opioid user, nobody calls me, and I feel stupid to call anyone, and people addicted to opioids or downers like benzodiazepine are generally considered inferior, so I keep it all secret being all alone in this shit.

I know it will get better with time, but sometimes I feel like I'm going to run myself into the ground. The weirdest thing is that I don't really feel cravings for benzos, I know taking a pill would kill the anxiety, but I don't want to be in that shit any more, so I don't want to take benzos. It's completely different with opioids, sometimes I feel sick, because I take too much Suboxone believing buprenorphine will help me. I'm sick of it.

Good luck to everyone fighting GABAergics withdrawal.

 

[herbavore]

The dreams seem like there's something in my life that I feel some great guilt upon something.

Dreams are there for a reason. What is your subconscious trying to say that your conscious mind needs to hear? Without judging yourself, can you access what the guilt might be about?

I've got bad experience with psychotherapy from the past, it's impossible that I talk frankly with another person, because I taught myself that the first thing to do when meeting someone new is to figure out how that person could manipulate me. I've isolated myself from people for years, still keeping some little contact, so when I'm out now I look analytically at everything people do, that prevents me from being spontaneous. When I'm at home or driving a car, I'm thinking of myself as normal, but when I'm among people, everything I do seems weird to me. I'm really a mess and the stress kills me. I'm such a nervous person now that I don't believe I will ever be normal even when my GABA and glutamate systems go back to "normal".

Trusting other people can't happen when you don't trust yourself. Sounds like that could be a helpful thing to work on. I don't think you are a mess--just questioning?

And I don't feel like taking some benzodiazepine at all, I don't crave it at all, just morphine, that's 24/7 on my mind. But I didn't feel like getting some chill pill even when I was a day or 2 without clonazepam and already felt anxious, I've simply got fed up with it.

Trust your instincts on this one. Congratulations on facing what is troubling you and wanting to do it without replacement drugs. It is a process that can feel incredibly slow and stagnant but while it may be a slow journey of incremental steps, it is never stagnant.

 

[adder]

Trusting other people can't happen when you don't trust yourself. Sounds like that could be a helpful thing to work on. I don't think you are a mess--just questioning?

Spot on! I don't trust myself on much stuff. And I was definitely more messed up when I was stuck on clonazepam. When the bad wave is gone, my thinking is as clear as when I was a child. A lot of my fears disappeared almost in a snap of fingers and I've become more social. I may be longing for a human contact as much as I used to avoid it, but all my friends were gone one by one as I was stuck on BZDs. And when I lost contact with a few people I've known for a long time, I lost contact with everyone I knew through them. But you're right that it's a journey, and no matter how slow it is, finally I notice I've made some steps forward. Thanks a lot for your post.