One day of acute despair/depression and severe stomach pain 3 mos. post taper?

I haven't posted in a while but I am about 3 months done after tapering off of a low dose of Valium taken vaginally.

I was a little depressed before I started tapering probably largely due to the medical issues that made me start Valium in the first place, but as soon as I started tapering my mood went crazy in a bad way, with increasing depression and irrational anxiety. For about two months I had a lot of bloating, constipation, abdominal pain and nausea, though I had been somewhat prone to nausea and constipation before. The bloating and constipation are mostly gone but I still have near-constant abdominal pain and nausea which makes me never want to eat and a couple other unrelated medical issues. I am being evaluated by an allergist and GI to see if any of that could be an allergy or something else, and I'm working with a psychiatrist to try to treat the anxiety and depression (depression is still bad but anxiety is improved).

Anyway, two days ago I woke up and my abdominal pain was much worse than usual, and I immediately realized I was also feeling an apocalyptic level of depression and despair. I spent the entire day crying over and over for hours at a time, feeling like I had no interest in anything anymore, that I was completely unable to want anything, that I didn't love any of the important people in my life, that I wanted to quit my job, that I didn't feel like there was anything else I wanted to do, that I was so tired of feeling physically bad, basically that I was as desperate to get out of my body and my life as I could be short of wanting to kill myself. At times I was crying so hard I couldn't even stand.

I went to sleep and when I woke up the next day I was somehow back at my "moderately depressed" baseline, my stomach pain was not as bad and I couldn't believe what had happened the day before.

From the perspective of a normal (albeit shitty) day, what happened that day feels bizarre, and like some sort of malfunction. I've had something similar happen a few times since my taper-- a short interval (1/2 to 2 days) of greatly increased physical pain combined with extremely intensified depression and hopelessness.

I'm going to ask my psychiatrist about it, but as fellow benzo recoverers, do any of you know if there is something that could explain this (something about the gut-brain axis)? Has anyone had similar experiences? Is there more to it than my increased pain making my mood worse and feeding my despair? Happy to hear anecdotal reports but also interested if anyone might have any more scientific explanations or resources. I just want to understand, was that really me?

Oh my, you've been dealing with some pretty serious benzo belly, (yes we have a name for it) and its miserable.  There are so many GABBA receptors in the gut that its heavily involved in our misery. 

I probably don't need to remind you that our symptoms will wax and wane even after we're off the drug, we never know how we're going to feel from one day to the next.  Your anxiety and depression are very common, many will turn to other medications but they can be tricky since our central nervous system is so sensitive.  Do you suffer from chronic depression or is this new for you?  If it's new then it will most likely leave when you heal, mine did.

We lose our connection to ourselves, we can't feel love or joy, none of the emotions that define us, we can only feel pain and despair, this is also very common.  I can assure you that when you recover, all of your good feelings will come back, but the joy and gratitude you'll feel to be free can be euphoric, I certainly was.

Thanks so much for your reply. It helps to be validated in thinking that this could be Valium-withdrawal related.

I do have chronic depression that I have dealt with on and off for almost 20 years, sometimes taking medication for it for years at a time. In many ways, the depression aspect of what I've been experiencing the last few months feels similar to how it often has before, but there are also other less familar aspects to it and what happened the other day was a prime example.

By the way, do you (or does anyone else who might read this) know of any resources about "benzo belly" that are more substantial than all of the pages on rehab center websites that dominate the search results when you try to google it? One of the things that helps me feel less overhwelmed is feeling like I "understand" things a little more.

I firmly believe the more we understand about this process, the less we fear so I'm glad you're doing your research.

I would try searching GABA receptors in the gut if you're looking for more substantial information, benzo belly is our catch all term for just about anything digestion related.  You may not find a study that's specifically related to benzo's and GABA in the gut but you'll come to understand their importance.  Not enough scientists care about our plight to study a direct link so we're left to ascertain the connection for ourselves.

There have been a number of studies published in Benzos In The News and you may have better luck searching for them if you use these search tools.  http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=251991.0