Mental Health Finally getting treated for anxiety, some questions?

[buvisnbeatthead]

Finally getting treated for anxiety, need advice!

all my life I've felt out of place, always quiet and when I would have to speak my brain would freeze up and id get nervous, sweaty couldn't think, etc. this went untreated for years because I would tell myself it was normal to feel like this and everyone is 'shy' tomorrow it'll be better.

then I go off to college and now I'm living on my own and realize I don't have the social skills to cope with life. I can't get help on the assignments I need because I'm too embarrassed to ask, so I spend hours trying to teach myself (this is an engineering school) and still get poor grades. so naturally I start feeling like a failure and start drinking more and more and doing various drugs. until I find etizolam. I never thought there was a pill that could make me feel 'normal' so I began heavily abusing etizolam (binges of like 12 + mg a night ontop of alcohol on top of other stuff) and it got to the point that life got so bleak I had to take a semester off from school and get help.

I beat the benzo addiction myself cold turkey just only drinking on really rough nights and smoking a lot of weed and I had been off the stuff for about 4 months when I had a nervous breakdown in my gps office and he wrote me a script for Xanax to hold me over until I see a therapist/shrink whatever.


.5 mg twice a day as needed no refills. so unfortunately the benzo addict in me hears Xanax script and the first night I blow through about half my prescription. then I wake up the next morning and I'm like you're a fucking idiot stop so I hand the bottle to my parents and said don't ever tell me where these are just give me my allotted amount for the day and that is it. I have about 16 left and I'm going to see my psychiatrist for the first time in 20 days. I had already spoken to my therapist about the dosage not being enough (this is true as I am starting a very stressful job working with cars worth more than I'll see in my life and .5 mg is likely not going to be a high enough dose when I'm working especially long shifts)


I suppose this brings me to the question of what do you advise I do? I am aware of Tagamet and have been using it extensively to try and make these doses work and to a degree I believe it has helped. it should be noted that I have yet to tell my therapist about my past benzo abuse because I am afraid if I do I will not get what I need to function in society (at least until I learn to cope without the drugs). I have also told my therapist I wanted to be switched to klonopin because my stepdad is on it and I feel it would be less addictive (left that out) and also more beneficial as it would last a full work day and I wouldn't have to keep popping Xanax every 4 hours when the anxiety comes back twice as bad. I am not sure how to go about handling this situation and any advice would be appreciated. I see my therapist again for the second time Monday.


Thank you for any advice you may have! hopefully this is the right subform long time lurker first time poster anyway.

 

[Ligaturd]

Benzo habits should not be quit cold turkey, ever. This can cause long term anxiety problems from excitotoxicity. You are likely experiencing rebound anxiety once your dose wears off as well since your receptors are conditioned to benzodiazepines now. I believe Klonopin is a much better choice given your situation and also that benzos may be a long term thing for you but if you ever do come off of them, make damn sure you taper off nice and slowly.

You should not tell them about your past benzodiazepine abuse if what you want is to stay on them but you also need to weigh the pros and cons of having a script, can you always have someone there to dole them out to you? If you stay on them long term and one month you slip and use the whole thing really fast you are going to be in hell and unable to do much of anything until you get your script. You know you better than I do, I hope it works well for you.

 

[buvisnbeatthead]

Benzo habits should not be quit cold turkey, ever. This can cause long term anxiety problems from excitotoxicity. You are likely experiencing rebound anxiety once your dose wears off as well since your receptors are conditioned to benzodiazepines now. I believe Klonopin is a much better choice given your situation and also that benzos may be a long term thing for you but if you ever do come off of them, make damn sure you taper off nice and slowly.

You should not tell them about your past benzodiazepine abuse if what you want is to stay on them but you also need to weigh the pros and cons of having a script, can you always have someone there to dole them out to you? If you stay on them long term and one month you slip and use the whole thing really fast you are going to be in hell and unable to do much of anything until you get your script. You know you better than I do, I hope it works well for you.

Thank you for the advice and information! This is why bluelight is such a great place, I've done so much research on benzodiazepines in general withdrawal and all of it but not once did I ever stumble upon that term and honestly (and scarily) that seems like it could account for a lot of what has been going on with me lately.
I am supposed to see my gp in a week for a physical I am thinking and hoping that if I tell him that the dose was too low and explain my home and job situation he will possibly give me another script and hopefully for klonopin but I suppose I can only hope :/

 

[Ligaturd]

Just say it isn't lasting long enough, that should be sufficient to get a switch.

 

[llama112]

Etizolam is my weakness. It just makes you feel normal - less anxious but also motivated to do "normal" things.
It's very important to wean yourself slowly off benzos. Going off completely is dangerous. Both physically and mentally.