Taper or Withdrawal?

Which is harder- the taper or the withdrawal? I’m 60% off 1.5 mg clonazepam. That took over a year and was brutal. Still have the rest to taper and then so scared about the withdrawal part.

You're already in the withdrawal part. Have some symptoms settled or gone away for you? That would be a good sign.

Isn’t the withdrawal after the taper is done?

Nono, you already withdraw from the drug while tapering. The taper is the method, slowly reducing instead of a cole turkey. The withdrawal is the adjustmentnof of the body to living with less or without the drug.

Yeah, you're already doing the hard work. Some people say recovery and healing begin when the drug is out of your system but I also believe your body is recovering and healing right now. You have 60% less benzo in your system today than you did before you started your taper and your brain has been working with your body to reach a stable baseline after each cut. No one can say for sure how you'll handle things post-jump but I agree with Cocodot. If you have symptoms settling, it's a good sign. Congrats on making it this far. Keep going!

I can’t say my symptoms are settling.

 

On the success stories, it seems when they talk about how long healing took, they are talking about since the jump date. Quite often, that is a long time, which I find scary.

You and I are at about the same place with Klonopin except you are much braver than I am.  I started way back in March 2021

I'm like you and afraid of what's ahead.  The lack of sleep if what scares me the most.

I can’t say my symptoms are settling.

 

On the success stories, it seems when they talk about how long healing took, they are talking about since the jump date. Quite often, that is a long time, which I find scary.

 

Me too, Perseverance, me too.

It all depends. Some healing obviously occurs as you taper as you're able to endure drops in dose and can stabilize to a degree, but the real healing takes place after jumping off. For me, things have not really gotten worse after jumping a bit over a month ago, but things are a bit different. My symptoms don't always follow their typical time-based pattern and are perhaps a bit more random with their onset and duration, but I wouldn't say things are worse. I don't feel much better yet, but knowing I no longer have the drug in my body and not having to deal with taking pills, making doses, and schedules is a huge weight that is now gone. If you're doing a reasonably slow taper and trying to go off your symptoms and not push it too fast, you shouldn't be much different after jumping than you were tapering.

 

Wishing you the best,  Perseverance!