Hi [...],
Congrats on your success and wonderful new life! Wish you all the best!
I'm very new here and currently almost 5.5 months off CT but the benzo I used was a GABAB agonist (and I only used it about 10x or so in total in my whole life!) and I don't see a lot of folks here with success coming off of those. I am suffering life ruining, crippling cog-fog and depersonalization/derealization... which is hard because I work 9 hr days and I am desperately, desperately hanging on. I was an avid reader with a library near 1,000 titles. Now I cannot read or learn, nearly at all. And I am not exaggerating.
I'm feeling especially sad tonight about this whole ordeal since it started almost 5.5 months ago. Just been sitting here crying most of the evening, worried I've ruined my life. Terrified.I can't interact with people. Lost in utter and complete cog fog, depersonalization and derealization. Worried that the GABAB agonist I abused works by a different mechanism of action than GABAA agonists and the cascade of neurological activity triggered by GABAB agonist withdrawal- which in turn generates the protracted symptoms- are here to stay.
Do you mind if I ask what benzo you were on and whether or not you experienced cog-fog as a primary protracted symptom? Or only anxiety and depression type symptoms?
All the best,
Hi [...]. I am so sorry for your suffering. 
We ALL know exactly how you feel. I do not know anything about the benzo you were taking. Mine was Ativan. I can say though, yes, I had ALL the sx you describe for a very, very long time and it just takes a really long time to heal from this. My best advise is give everything 1 year, meaning, be patient and wiling to commit to the process for a solid year, before really seeing big changes. Some things may go away and come back, (windows~waves), etc in that time, but I found for myself, that during that first year, there was lots of deep healing occuring and it takes looking back sometimes to see it was happening. Its just flat out HELL for a while, so hang in there, it will eventually be a better day for you! 
Thanks so much for the reply [...]!
I haven't been able to come on much in the past week or two. I've been working 9-10hr days, 5x a week and am just really desperately trying to hang on through this cogfog, DP and DR. It is SO bad that it causes my eyes to just fall into what I would describe as a sort of resting, trance-like gaze. Whereby my eyes literally just fall to the position of least resistance (dead center, looking straight ahead) and the fog and DP/DR are so bad that its literally like almost NOTHING is being processed. Visual stimuli is still hitting the retina, getting channeled up the optic nerve to the brainstem but it's almost like when it makes it to the brain very little is happening.
I've come to learn that this is glutamate excitotoxicity and when it's that bad you really need to do SOMETHING to tamp down that glutamate activity or do something to restrict calcium channels at the neurons because the experience of that is literally the symptomatic sequella of excitotoxicity, your brain cells dying. When it gets SO bad that I just get stuck in the trance-ish gaze (with very little processing of any sort going on) I can just TELL that neurons are getting flooded with calcium and dying off by the boat-load. Not good. The intensity of this symptom is very very bad for me. I would imagine you'd be looking at a significant shrinking of the hippocampus if excitotoxicity of this degree goes on for a period of years.
I am glad to come back today and see your reply. Today was another very hard day for me. Believe it or not I just landed my dream career, with my dream company (been working with them this whole time, basically since I started WD, which was just shy of 6 months ago now). I have damn near everything I want in life and I have worked REALLY hard for a long time to be where I am. Only now instead of enjoying my newfound position and status in life, I am desperately, desperately trying to hold on and continue working 45-50hr weeks. I am just desperately clinging on and fighting battles- each and every minute of each and every day- that I wouldn't have even thought possible just a year ago. Hang on. No matter what hang on. Bite down on your mouthpiece. Keep going. You are not physically dying. It is POSSIBLE to continue. I have to repeat this to myself continually, minute by minute, all day everyday. Just keep going. You have to just keep going.
Trouble is I'm completely at my wits end. Another 6 months of this- or quite possibly even LONGER- I just don't know... I am terrified I've ruined my life and completely sad that I may have to throw in the towel and kiss this new position/career (which I've worked my WHOLE life for) goodbye and try to get on disability and just stay at home indoors and lay around trying to pass time and heal.
After all, how can one go to work with a brain that literally cannot think or learn? I have an almost 100% total loss of any ability to learn anything new or remember anything new (what the literature refers to as "anterograde amnesia"), yet my memories from life before this whole mess don't seem to be greatly hampered. I have read your post one line at a time, keep re-reading that line, think about my response to ONLY that line, get my response written, and then do the same thing for the next line of your post. This is the ONLY way I can learn anything. And even that won't stay in my short/long term memory; I can only keep it in my head long enough to complete whatever interaction I am trying to do (i.e. reply to you in a post on BenzoBuddies). So I will have almost ZERO working memory of my interaction with you or what I wrote here as soon as I get up and leave this computer.
And I am not exaggerating. I am actually toning down, not trying to exaggerate.
Your post is such a help for me. I pray this cogfog will go away. I can't live like this.
