Positive The Tapering Supportive/Social Thread

[Squeaky]

Story of my life, I could of wrote your post, it's so similar to mine, I've had to take extra during a taper as I've stuff to do this past couple of days and family today, they will be hear soon, I don't want to entertain I'm in fibro flair and in bed, I don't mind just one or two of my family down but there's going to be 5 of them, and I have social anxiety and they was all meant to meet me down the beach as my dad knows about my anxiety but my sister guilt tripped me into letting them stay for a tea and stuff, 5 extra people in my house all in kne room I'm getting claustrophobic thinking about it, I can't do it, I'm taking another valium the first ones taking to long to kick in and they'll be here soon lol

I had to lay down some rules a few years ago. The idea that I have some responsibility to make everyone else comfortable while I’m suffering is complete bullshit. If they all want to get together, that’s great. But if I’m in pain (goes for emotional pain too), they will have to do it without me. And NOBODY is going to guilt me into pretending everything is OK. They don’t need to know all of the details but they do need to respect that I’m not well and I can’t entertain guests today. I give 110% on my good days, and barely get out of bed on my bad days. The people who count are well aware of this and everyone can go to hell.

We have to take care of ourselves first. If having guests means you need more of the drugs you’re trying to quit, then the guests need to find another place to gather. You have a legitimate medical condition and they are aware of it. Shame on them for pushing you so far. I know I sound angry but if they push you until you break.... you won’t be able to maintain the home that they are pushing themselves into.

I’m sure there are people who count on you. No doubt that’s where some of your stress cones from. By failing to take care of yourself first, you are failing in your responsibility to take care of them. It’s exactly like being on an airplane when the flight attendant demonstrates how to put on the oxygen mask. You have to put yours on first, regardless of who you’re traveling with. If you try to help someone else before your mask is secured you might die first and nobody lives.

 

[Squeaky]

I think in the long run it's not ultimately going to matter when it finally comes to a commitment which I have not made yet until I'm ready to controlled regimented tapering.

Yes. That commitment is the hardest thing in the world. I thought I had made that “commitment” probably a hundred times but I kept leaving the door unlocked and sneaking back in. It wasn’t until I shut it, locked it, destroyed the key, and hired a guard dog.
As time goes on I’m starting to understand that I was never going to be able to taper. It sounds like you have a better handle on it than I did. Looking back on myself though..... I guess I have a difficult life and an addictive personality, on top of legit pain. Perfect combination to get hooked on prescription opiates.

 

[Hippy Flower Fairy]

If they all want to get together, that’s great. But if I’m in pain (goes for emotional pain too), they will have to do it without me. And NOBODY is going to guilt me into pretending everything is OK. They don’t need to know all of the details but they do need to respect that I’m not well and I can’t entertain guests today

They don't know I'm on anything, and it was fine in the end, we all had a cuppa tea in the back carpark type area so it wasn't so confined, and so we didn't wake up my son who works really hard all week and wanted a lay in, then they left to go beach and I've met them down there when all the meds kicked in, they don't live near me so I don't see them that often and I did invite them just didn't expect so many to come lol

Might be different story when they all pile back to mine after the beach but I won't think about that yet lol

 

[Jen X]

I know everyone suffers from RLS going through opioid detox but i recently was prescribed Miraplex and it works great.

 

[AutoTripper]

They don't know I'm on anything, and it was fine in the end, we all had a cuppa tea in the back carpark type area so it wasn't so confined, and so we didn't wake up my son who works really hard all week and wanted a lay in, then they left to go beach and I've met them down there when all the meds kicked in, they don't live near me so I don't see them that often and I did invite them just didn't expect so many to come lol

Might be different story when they all pile back to mine after the beach but I won't think about that yet lol

Pleased to hear time is passing so far, actually "jellifying", meaning I'm already Jell i crave the sea, went to Uni seaside, and activity, ditraction, Spontaneity.

Hope it's easy enough from now on.

Maybe even see if any of it you can enjoy a bit msybe. We all take so much for granted.

I do. Which is exactly the point- The Grass is always Greener.

Hope so for you anyway, good so far.

And my strange strategy these days is like- imagine the worst case. As if, that's reality to be. Accept it. Be okay with it. Not afraid.

Like, it's an imaginary, non traumatic drill procedure, then in situation it's like nothing to lose and more possibility than you realised before.

It has really helped me personally though staying so calm, poised, secure and free in situations, all, any...where other people are present except, hold press.....MY MUM lol who I told you already lol drives my nerves to extremes.

 

[papercuts]

Pleased to hear time is passing so far, actually "jellifying", meaning I'm already Jell i crave the sea, went to Uni seaside, and activity, ditraction, Spontaneity.

Hope it's easy enough from now on.

Maybe even see if any of it you can enjoy a bit msybe. We all take so much for granted.

I do. Which is exactly the point- The Grass is always Greener.

Hope so for you anyway, good so far.

And my strange strategy these days is like- imagine the worst case. As if, that's reality to be. Accept it. Be okay with it. Not afraid.

Like, it's an imaginary, non traumatic drill procedure, then in situation it's like nothing to lose and more possibility than you realised before.

It has really helped me personally though staying so calm, poised, secure and free in situations, all, any...where other people are present except, hold press.....MY MUM lol who I told you already lol drives my nerves to extremes.

Good idea there about thinking, "How bad can it get?" Then it's never going to be as extreme as your thinking.
I concentrate on thinking about after they've all gone, I know I'm going to feel a variety of emotions then, such as relief they're gone, the warm glow after being part of a group, happiness, freedom from meeting that obligation for the rest of the month or however long.
But then I'm a bit strange, lol. I like people, but I like them better when I'm not with them!

 

[Hippy Flower Fairy]

Maybe even see if any of it you can enjoy a bit msybe. We all take so much for granted

I had a good time, I needed meds as it was busy down the beach, but I don't take anything for granted thars for sure

But then I'm a bit strange, lol. I like people, but I like them better when I'm not with them

Hahaha

 

[AutoTripper]

I had a good time, I needed meds as it was busy down the beach, but I don't take anything for granted thars for sure




Hahaha

Yes I wasn't directing that towards you personally, just us useless humans lol.

You strike me as very fair minded with a very reasonable, modest and down to earth outlook and attitude to life and people, you certainly seem very live and let live.

I am pleased it was actually better than you (feared...)- Expected! Lol. And it's only affected your taper's calendar, not it's destination, to get into a major acute state of stress on the other hand by riding it through could really shake things up mentally, and shift your course, so you took the sensible action I think.

I hope you feel satisfied in a week's time to feel right back on track and holding steady. It sounded like you had it, and surely still do, so on with the show I guess and good on you for your absence of cowardice, and bravery to basically expose yourself way outside your comfort zone.

 

[Hippy Flower Fairy]

I am pleased it was actually better than you (feared...)- Expected! Lol

So many times the thought of something is worse than what it is, but sometimes it's not and I want to run away lol, I've one valium left, and some fuck knows what fake ass xanax that I don't want to take anymore of, but might have too along with sominex and cbd till my next lot of vallies arrive, and I get back onto my taper of vallies and cbd

Thankyou fir your kind words

 

[AutoTripper]

So many times the thought of something is worse than what it is, but sometimes it's not and I want to run away lol, I've one valium left, and some fuck knows what fake ass xanax that I don't want to take anymore of, but might have too along with sominex and cbd till my next lot of vallies arrive, and I get back onto my taper of vallies and cbd

Thankyou fir your kind words

You're welcome. I just speak openly too, so there's never superficial flattery just genuine observation, and I naturally try to support people.

I'm not nice to everybody but always polite. Lol, politeness can smuggle a knife through an airport! I don't ever try to or aspire to be nice either, just true and natural. Makes things so easy too. There are no real obligations how I see it. And a lotbof flex to be taken and found.

I have as extreme an anxiety and panic disorder as I can believe a person can physically live with regarding running a body, like keeping a car clean, taxed, fuelled especially, and serviced.

But, strangely, I have no social anxiety. I have no fear of crowds of people, or particular people, outside the longerm conditioned anxiety and fight/flight from such an intense situation living with my amazing but astologically polar opposite mum.

I hope you can get through this week comfortably enough. One thing, okay meds down vs ideal, expected, or aimed for, but a week ago you had the anxiety and dredd, which I can fully relate to and imagine psychologically, of this potentially difficult weekend heavy on your mind. Anxiety can be so debilitating and manifest in many ways.

At least you have that sense of freedom back now, without any regrets and with confidence that you can manage these exposures when necessary, because that mental freedom, not feeling trapped, is vital for this process and you have actually earned it back, not just been given it.

So on with the show hey? I say you are doing very well. I am on a crazy amount of drugs still and not even packing bags yet. Ofc I'm looking to, but it's avery intense situation and really is a day at a time at most, physical stuff is the real problem though.

Honestly, reset my immune and nervous system, stop the world's most insane allergies, make any sort of normal independent living a possibility and my anxiety levels would be minisculed or at least infinitely easier to find ways to manage.

 

[Squeaky]

I'm really in pain my wrist and my shoulder again. left wrist. carpal tunnel and strained right shoulder. terrible pain cant even lift arm. from fa goodness sake working so much. now i really need something more than ever BUT I am still scared of doing too much.
I am freiked out on too much caffeine. I took 6mg of low pain opioid at 5 a.m. now i think a half of a 5mg oxycodone will help. help my agony. if i could just sleep. if i could just sleep. can't stop this right now. i guess i waited long enough but I just want to cry. a 5mg would take me out into tomorrow morning ! But then what. Antybody? No Dr's and Psych's are no help. I have to Muckin HELP MYSELFFFFF. ahhg. I am so addicted to caffeine now what. Besides ouch damn and hurt. so bad. tight brace will have to be on wrist as wellist.
stupid emoti's but i am crying. crying out loud in disgust. Should this have been in the complain about something section. i feel hurt. i have no one. Except my pain relief. Apparently I feel all messed up right now. messed up. so that i can get back up. I think I am nodding. Maybe that can buy me ten more minutes or so. Here I go. ouch. oh.

What you described is basically exactly how I used to feel between servings of oxy. It took about 2 1/2 months AFTER I quit for those pains to disappear. I had pain in so many places, and it all was easily explained with real medical terms like “carpal-tunnel” or “tennis elbow”. It wasn’t until I got past it that I could see exactly how much my life had been rearranged by my prescription.
Not judging or diagnosing you, just saying it out loud so I won’t go back.

 

[papercuts]

And I am doing better. I nodded out standing in front of someone. I didn't know 5mg's could take me out like that. You know. I would die if I took 80 a day for sure NOW. But then again maybe I was just tired. you know.
I try everyday to fight for some strength and I do alright now with some relief from some kooky flower out of the earth.. I made progress. I don't even touch xanax. I CAN'T.
But I would if I ever will want to do so. LIKE IF I EVER NEED TO LEAVE. This is why I wantsome dmt. That would even help too. So there it is. You know. This is me on the wean.
Yeah. So am I mucked or maybe tired. At least I am trying to get my doses lower and lowest. You know I tried and definitely did it ! The less I take the better I was doing. You know. And yes I can quit anytime. 5mg's was more helpful than 80mg's will ever be. I was able to have this opportunity from reading and learning so much too. Thank You ♡
I wiil just have to be a little miserable without my pain medication for a few days. Or I will take an aspirin dose. THAT WILL HELP AS GOOD AS INFINITY. So alright. Okay I'm really going to get better.
But I did real well. Because I can quit anytime. I guess it was a challenge also. I weaned so well that I would get sick if I did too much and excessiveness. AND. I don't want more. Because less IS actually more. NOW that I know better. Life's a daily struggle anyway, so why not try to fix it. Self pun intended. Without all of this good information I could HAVE got addicted.
If the meek and the humble shall inherit the earth, then I am growing poppies. AND also some flower. To go with that daily struggle. I really hope I am in the right section. THANKS.

It's that balance between feeling in control (like you can go without) and getting adequate pain relief.
If I never take anything then I get my worst pains about four times a week.
Opioided away, they come back every day that I don't take an opioid. That will be six days a week if I only take the good stuff one day in the week. So to take anything and spend less time in pain, I'd need to use it at least three times a week, but I can't use it that often without getting hooked again.
I'm not prepared to say never either. It's a tricky conundrum. They teach we should walk away in this situation.

While in withdrawal in July I debated with myself which is worse, opioid withdrawal or childbirth, I've done each of those a few times and I honestly couldn't decide which I would dread more. Both have those elements of, "Don't let me die", shortly followed by, "Kill me now, I can't do it". Both I've chosen to repeat.
So I'm stuck with trying to limit myself to one or two days in a week and suffer on the other days. Except I'm slipping backwards faster than an olympic bobsleigher in space.

I'l help you with your farm if you're taking volunteers

 

[n3ophy7e]

awesome ! buy ALSO how do you explain the giant bump on the top part of my wrist that the doctor wanted to inject with a needle and treatment.

That sounds exactly like a ganglion cyst. Google it and see if it fits the description. I hope it's not too painful! And I hope you're doing okay today

 

[papercuts]

awesome ! buy ALSO how do you explain the giant bump on the top part of my wrist that the doctor wanted to inject with a needle and treatment.

Assuming you'd know if it were floating bone, then it's soft tissue which might respond to draining or antibiotics or steroid injections?
What did the doctor think it is?

 

[Squeaky]

Assuming you'd know if it were floating bone, then it's soft tissue which might respond to draining or antibiotics or steroid injections?
What did the doctor think it is?

There’s a show called “Dr. Pimplepopper” It’s on YouTube and Hulu. She cuts all kinds of growths and permanently removes them under local anesthesia. It’s pretty interesting, maybe more so for someone with a lump of their own.

 

[Squeaky]

4 months now since my last oxy....
It’s becoming more clear every day now how easily it would be to relapse. It feels like I’m out of the woods and there’s no reason why I should have to continue to suffer my aches and pains without my pills. I caught myself yesterday saying “just once”. “If it’s on a Friday, after work, I’ll have the whole weekend to get back to normal”. “I know better now”. “I won’t allow myself to screw it up again”.
It’s like watching a woman who is being abused by her husband. She keeps trying to help him, fix him. She keeps trying to get him help, therapy, trying to be a better wife so he won’t have to drink so much, so he won’t beat her up when he’s drunk. All she can see is that there’s something valuable inside of him and she’ll benefit from it if she can fix him. But the only way to fix that relationship is to end it, forever. And all it takes is going back to him once, and she’s back to being his punching bag.

I guess I technically relapsed dozens of times. Every time I ran out of pills and swore next month would be different. It doesn’t feel like they were relapses because I never tried to quit, but I have all of the memories of how it felt to fail. It’s those memories that are stopping me right now from going back to my pills.

We don’t place enough emphasis on the value of failure. The suffering endured when things go wrong can be a very effective educational tool. And this can only work if it’s a personal decision. Had I allowed someone else to push me into making a change, I probably would have found a way to cheat. If I were giving advice to someone trying to help a person in my position back then..... I’d say to give them MORE, not less. Make it very clear to them in a way that they can’t ignore. Arrange things so that they have only two choices: death or abstinence. And be there to call 911 if they overdose, but maybe they need an overdose to live.

 

[AutoTripper]

It all went sharp south this week keeping control over my benzo intake.

It's already been an insanely intense and stressful situation recently, but Wed noght another very unexoected sudden late night most heated, stressful to high hell row with my mentally unwell mum, which I tried and tried to diffuse, to walk away from, but was not allowed.

Still on a very deep, spectacular 400 mic LSD trip and so much cannabis edibles, vapor and kava.

That night, my nerves were just wrecked and my blood boiled.

I needed urgent calming down. I had already taken about my full daily benzo allowance, but was in such an extreme acute state of emotional distress, I had to keep dosing, up to 25 mg's that day.

Most ever actual tracked Etiz dose in a songle day before. Just to stop going nuts in my head.

Its been same last 2 days. And considering kava effectively doubles the potency of benzos, the effect of 25 mg's Etiz, with kava, is arguably like over 400 mg's Diazepam.

It's double the dosage I had steadied on averaged out weekly.

I need to get back in line again.

 

[Dundermifflin8699]

Hey folks....
Still here... Norco/tram still happening..
Had epidural at VA and relieved sciatic pain a bit...
Looks like blog is still going good..

Middle of month and already have to begin slowing and taper...

 

[Squeaky]

I was on Ativan(lorazepam) for painc attacks for a year or so. Even after I stopped daily use, I was constantly questioning whether right now was an appropriate time to use it to handle my stress. It sort of sucks because I spent too much of my day being stressed and trying to decide how much Ativan was the right amount to get out in front of today’s problem before it became a bigger problem. BUT the fact that I was juggling pills and making those sorts of decisions daily (usually multiple times each day) was a problem and a point of stress all by itself. And some if my problems were legal, lawyers and court, so no amount of meditation was going to make it go any faster.
Fortunately for me, I didn’t run out of Ativan during that time but I always felt like a chemo patient. It just seemed like my whole existence revolved around getting my dosage correct, and it was NEVER correct.
I felt like I had no choice because the stress would kill me for sure, so it didn’t matter how crappy the pills made me feel. Benzo brain was better than suicide.

I basically ran out of benzos. I had quit, so I stopped getting them refilled, and then I just didn’t have any more. Since I didn’t have my magic stress relief pills..... I stopped saying ’yes’ to things I felt I couldn’t handle. Long story short: I am 100x happier now that I don’t have to juggle my pills. I think the stress of playing pharmacist was affecting me a lot more than I realized. My life is still hard but it’s so much better avoiding difficult situations instead of self-prescribing stress-relief medication.

 

[Squeaky]

It all went sharp south this week keeping control over my benzo intake.

It's already been an insanely intense and stressful situation recently, but Wed noght another very unexoected sudden late night most heated, stressful to high hell row with my mentally unwell mum, which I tried and tried to diffuse, to walk away from, but was not allowed.

Still on a very deep, spectacular 400 mic LSD trip and so much cannabis edibles, vapor and kava.

That night, my nerves were just wrecked and my blood boiled.

I needed urgent calming down. I had already taken about my full daily benzo allowance, but was in such an extreme acute state of emotional distress, I had to keep dosing, up to 25 mg's that day.

Most ever actual tracked Etiz dose in a songle day before. Just to stop going nuts in my head.

Its been same last 2 days. And considering kava effectively doubles the potency of benzos, the effect of 25 mg's Etiz, with kava, is arguably like over 400 mg's Diazepam.

It's double the dosage I had steadied on averaged out weekly.

I need to get back in line again.

You’re stuck in hell. Dealing with an older person who is not right in the head is impossible and it can go on for decades. There might be no possible solution other than benzos. But I feel your pain. It’s too bad you might have to wait for your mum to pass in order to get out from under the stress trying to be a good kid.