Mental Health How I overcame my agoraphobia nightmares.

[nancy145]

So, for a little backstory, I developed agoraphobia when I was 16 after getting home from a residential facility. I think it was always underlying, but I only had trouble on vacations, and it wasn't serious. My condition deteriorated over the next 2 years, I left the house for nothing but doctor appointments, until I was prescribed xanax and started going out as exposure therapy. My condition gradually got better, as i was able to stay out longer and longer, although only on xanax.
Now about the nightmares. I had frequent nightmares of being on vacation with my family and unable to get home, with my parents not understanding despite the fact that they do in real life. Weeks past in these dreams. I don't know whether I experienced weeks going through it or I just skipped through time, but I remember knowing and talking about being there for weeks. I never got home in one of these dreams. They often took place at my aunt's vacation house, I think because it was the most frequent place we went on vacation. I don't have any bad memories associated with it. I had fun going there before the agoraphobia developed. But the dreams were horrible.
Anyway, when I was 19 I decided I was at the point where I thought I'd be able to stay somewhere overnight with 2.5 mg of klonopin (I use klonopin for vacations). I decided I wanted to go up to my aunts vacation house and face my fear. I was prescribed 2.5 mg, but I took an extra 2 mg of xanax the first day and 2 mg of lorazepam the second in addition. I also brought my girlfriend which helped. With all the drugs in my system, I managed not just to stay there but to actually have a fun time.]
After I got home the nightmares immediately stopped. I had a few dreams of being there, far less than before, but they were good or neutral dreams, not nightmares. They didn't go on for weeks, my parents understood that i had agoraphobia, and I'm always on klonopin in the dreams. There was no fear.

 

[Vastness]

Damn, thanks for sharing. Nice to hear of benzos being used to effect long term changes, usually they are a risky option at best. I was going to comment that it seems like you took a risk overmedicating with the extra alprazolam and lorazepam but it seems like you judged things appropriately. Are you prescribed all these benzos if I may ask? Clonazepam, alprazolam and lorazepam?

Do you still take benzos every day? Did you go back to your usual dose after that?

Again, it is good to read this kind of thing because we hear so many stories of people really abusing benzos and getting themselves into all sorts of difficulties, but of course used sensibly, they can be and are very effective medicines, and I'm glad to hear they were/are in your case.

 

[nancy145]

I was prescribed the klonopin at 2.5 per day, the xanax and lorazepam i wasn't prescribed. I've been back to my aunt's vacation house since then and was able to do it on 2mg of klonopin per day without any extra benzos. I used to be addicted to lorazepam a few years back, it was prescribed, but was only taking 2mg per day so it wasn't too severe. That was before i developed agoraphobia, I was prescribed it for "sleep" but really just took it to get high. I got off it after about 8 months. I started xanax a few years later when I started leaving the house again, took 2 mg at first and later on between 1 and 2 depending on the circumstances, but I only took it when I left the house, which was about 2-4 times a week. Never got addicted to it, unless you count one tiny incident where i took 2 mg 6 days in a row and had slight withdrawal for 2 days after. I took a quarter mg on the first day of that to lessen the withdrawal, took nothing the next day, and was fine. Originally I was prescribed the klonopin for vacations (klonopin instead of xanax, not with xanax), but recently I switched from xanax to klonopin completely because I kinda wore the xanax out. I didn't take it often enough to develop any sort of physical tolerance, but I had a sort of psychological tolerance to it. Klonopin still works great for me. Currently I can be out for about 45 minutes with no drugs, if I'm out longer than that i'll take 1-1.5, and 2 for vacations.
I would just like to say to anyone reading this that despite my personal experience, benzos can be VERY addictive, and withdrawal from them is horrible, so if you take them don't go crazy with it.