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29 months off, Now I’m nearly back to normal….Banana Man.


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29 months off, Now I’m nearly back to normal….Banana Man.

 

    Well some of you might not know me because (like all of us few who unfortunately have a extended time of this recovery) we tend to drift away and part of us gives up hope of ever completely recovering. Well we do recover, in fact every damn one of us will eventually recover and all of those new and old in this fight must carry on believing this because it’s very true, you will get better, you will heal and you will recover absolutely. One of benzos cruelest symptoms is the belief that you will be the one that doesn’t recover and it will tell you time and time again.

 

    Let me give you reassurance right from the start because this is one of our first obsessions with benzo withdraw/recovery. You are NOT dying! You do NOT have a fatal disease! You WILL recover! No matter how much you are told this, you can’t quite believe it, call it paranoia or whatever but this is just another symptom, in a nutshell it totally destroys the soul, then it seems to take over your mind. This doesn’t seem to be evident until we stop using them, then the crap hits the fan. As weeks turn into months, the belief that we are dying becomes stronger. This is what causes benzo’s to be so dangerous., it’s the stopping that starts the trouble.

 

    The very first time I took Valium was for severe muscle spasms in my back after an injury which also stopped me from sleeping, one dose of Valium and the spasms disappear within 20 minutes, then I fell asleep for 8 hours solid. The magic pill, what a God sent and the most wonderful pill ever, I couldn’t believe my luck, I thought my prayers were answered. See the trade off, I bet your story was much the same. They work fantastic on the first use for just about most people and you can just take them anytime and there you have it, your soul has been sold!

 

    If you want your life back then you need your soul and you’re going to have to fight for it like hell. After all, you traded your soul in, you had all that anxiety, pain, sleeplessness etc. taken away for months or even years, so the trade off is going to cost you. We’re not talking money now, you’ll have to pay for it with pain, brutal mental and physical torture. I won’t trivialise this, it’s going to hurt, it hurt me and many people before me and it will hurt many after me. But you won’t die! As much as you think you are dying, you will NOT die. You will be fixed just like you were before you ever took a benzo, although you’ll be stronger, fitter, happier and so much the more wiser.

 

    Nobody said it would be easy, well I just jumped, it was only a small dose, although this doesn’t seem to make such a difference. Personally I feel it has a lot to do with how long one has taken them, my use was over many years on and off and a five year continual run, then I jumped and suffered terribly, everyone’s individual experience is the worst, ask fellow sufferers and they will tell you that they felt that they had suffered more than the next person. We all just seem to feel we are going to die, that I’m the one person that ain’t going to make it.

 

"I will never get better " YES you will!

"I will feel like this for the rest of my life" NO you won’t!

"My case is different to everyone else’s " NO it’s not!

"I have something seriously wrong with me" NO you don’t!

"I’m just one of them who won’t get better" YES you will!

 

It will cause you to feel certain that you’re the one who doesn’t make it and you will be totally brainwashed into this way of thinking, it’s really quite strange how it makes one think and feel like this. But you have to be reassured time after time after time and then some more just to make sure. You will heal absolutely and time is your only sure way and also never ever take a benzo again.

 

    Some people don’t even realise they are healing as it is so very gradual and that you don’t even realise you are getting better. You need to look back months, (not days or weeks) yes, months to see improvement. Don’t expect to get better in a few weeks otherwise you’ll be sadly disappointed, after all it probably took you months or years to become sick. Give it at least ten percent of the time you were using, although most people see a definite improvement at the six month mark and most see nearly full recovery six to twelve months, but don’t count it on the calendar, you will fix when it’s fixed and the golden rule to complete healing is "Never ever give up!" It took me over 29 months, but I recovered…fully!

 

    So how did I do it? I’m no special case, I jumped cold turkey and wondered what the hell was happening. My God I thought, what the hell is this all about. I quickly realised, it was so much the same as the amitriptyline I had stopped a couple of years prior, although I did have the sense to taper these, well I was on 120mg at the time. Just 5mg of Valium was doing this to me. I very quickly educated myself, I read everything and anything, every bit of literature I could get my eyes on, I spent six hours a day on the internet, I went to the library, phoned help centres, I did everything I could all day and every day educating myself as to what the hell was happening.

 

    Having gotten pills off the menu I turned my thoughts to food and drink, sleep and recovery. Simple, not for everyone! Thing is you’ve caused some damage along the way, now let me emphasis that "damage" like if you run your car into a brick wall, it’s damage repairable. So it can be fixed just like it was before and the good thing is your body will do all this for you without much help. You’re going to have to eat healthy though, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and meats, in fact the better you eat the better it will fix and the better you will sleep. I choose to eat anything, although keep away from too much raw sugar, that’s in cakes too, but everything in moderation I find for me, but we are all different.

 

    Then there is drink and just to drink water at this point in your life would be cruel. Again, drink whatever you like in moderation except for alcohol, it’s an obvious no no. I drink coffee every day now, it’s all about moderation and not exclusion. If you were to exclude everything then not only does it get very boring but you will not fully recover because you will not have any tolerance to anything, so live life as you mean to carry on but use sense. I would steer clear of coke and sugar loaded drinks, but I do have a non alcoholic beer nowadays. Plenty of water though, again don’t drink gallons of it, just drink when you’re thirsty.

 

    Sleeping is very important as we all know. In the early days I suffered terrible insomnia, 29 months out now and I’m getting 7-8 hours almost every night To ensure my sleep is full as possible I make sure I exercise every day and always get out of bed before 8am. I kept to these rules because it fixes us and also gives me a good appetite, I walk three Miles in the morning and three in the evening at the present, I have always walked six miles a day for many years, but had to reduce it to two miles total in my first weeks of withdraw and I built it up again. It was very hard going in those early days and I was slow, then I started to have a lot of muscle and bone pain, this diminished as is every other symptom I’ve had. I never did think that I would get worse, we all get better if you just keep moving, I know it’s hard at first, just keep fighting.

 

    There is great Excitement of knowing you are about to have a new life, especially as those windows start appearing. As I mentioned previously, the recovery is painfully slow and doesn’t fix in a linear way. You will all get better, you will be back to your old self, you don’t have to do anything special, time is your answer and full recovery will come to all of us. I was the biggest doubter of them all, now I am in the light at the end of that long long dark tunnel. Life is wonderful once again and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.

 

Good luck to all of you and do feel free to ask me any questions and I will get back to you.

 

 

Now I’m back to normal. Banana Man, a Superhero!

 

 

 

……………………………………………………………….

The story of my symptoms "Censored!" 31 months!

Update added to my ss 1.1.2022

 

So what were my symptoms? It’s not something that I’ve ever really spoken about, I kept it all to myself, partly because i live on my own in a remote part of the country. Well in the first few days I felt drunk, just very light headed, dizzy and just drunk and thought well this ain’t too bad, but as the days passed by it started to hit me hard! first of all was the worst hangover feeling I’ve ever felt in my life and this was all day and night, I sweated profusely, terrible shakes, panic, fear, hyperventilating, my heart felt like it was going to explode, it was absolutely terrifying, anxiety and fear was the worst imaginable, I looked into the mirror and I was so pale, my face was twitching and twisted, my lips were dry, cracked and peeling, my tongue was white and trembling, I was absolutely shattered and could hardly stand and look at myself, mostly because my legs were trembling so bad and then I nearly collapsed as I retched into the toilet uncontrollably. My belly was twisted and contorted, I was in complete agony, but worse was to come as I slowly lost sleep night by night. This torcher seems to carry on forever, it was murder!

 

As the weeks turned into months the psychotic, paranoid episodes began, the sleep deprivation played tricks on my mind, I thought I was seeing things and the fear of fits and suicide plagued me, I was an absolute mess up until the 4 month mark with just strange short sleeps and woken by nightmares and sweating, palpitations and anxiety just wore me back to weird naps throughout the days and nights.

I waxed and waned like this for many months but ever so slowly getting a little bit better, I was able to eat ok by six months and began to put weight on, even through all this I managed to drag myself out of the house and up the lane for walks, it was very slow going with many rests but I just needed to walk,  I have always walked and just felt I needed to do this to keep myself alive! And am so glad I live in the middle of nowhere that I rarely see anybody and I can avoid seeing anybody at all at certain times of the day, so I felt safe, but still in fear if that makes any sense. So I felt walking and eating was all I need do and hopefully a little sleep would follow and get me through this insane feeling.

 

Months went by until I reached a year and still it waxed and waned, different symptoms come and went of every nature imaginable and yet still I kept it quiet from any family and friends and the BBs I knew, I always came on BBs and never told anybody else about my suffering, I always talked and wrote positively, it’s easy to hide behind a computer but much more difficult to hide from friends and family, so I’ve been so lucky that since I went ct June 2019 Covid came along and allowed me to hide the worst of my suffering and that’s the only good this dammed virus did, but that’s another story.

 

So even when I was up to the 18 month and then 2 years off I still was suffering with windows and waves and even the windows were never met with normalcy, just better than waves and this has slowly gotten better up until I felt I needed to write my success story at 29+ months.

 

Today is exactly 31 months and even though my ss is wrote I still have just a few niggling symptoms, probably not even to do with recovery, maybe a reminder left by the benzo monster so as I never ever pick up those pills again.

 

Today life is good, I am happy with myself and had an enjoyable new year with my family. I am happy to be me once again.  :)

 

Banana Man …aka…Colin.

………………………………………………………………..

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Over 29 months is great and Congratulations! I've got 16 days left before I can write a success story but am looking forward to doing it.

 

I am glad that you feel healed, that is wonderful!

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And in todays issue of Success Stories, can our yellow crusader vanquish the sinister spectre of benzo withdrawal? Of course he can, for he's...

 

BANANA MAN!

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Hi Banana Man

Thanks for the post! You have good advice and so true. Congrats on 29 months. I’m just off xanax 2 months and feeling the withdrawal but loving it. I refuse to give up. My life has gotten better and like you , I keep a positive yet realistic outlook.

Stay strong and peace.

Old Sal

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Wow Banana man! Congratulations on your new life. Thank you for this success story. I wish you the best. I’m looking forward to writing mine someday soon.  :thumbsup:
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Congratulations...so happy for you....I'm 58 years young

 

Now put those "super powers" you've gained during your recovery to good use and go out and live life to the fullest!

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Banana Man, thank you SO much for this post! It's so very encouraging and clear and honest.  I just may read it again.  I'm just a smidgen older than you but knowing someone in my age group is living a great life now makes me smile! Thank you also for the practical advice.  It's much appreciated.  Congrats to you for being a true thriver.  :yippee:
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I don't need to write a success story - you wrote it for me!!!! Anyone reading this......LIFE IS SO GOOD NOW. Took me about 13 months.  I am now 28 months off Xanax.  Stick with it...

there is a good life to be had!!! I know I am living it. 

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8)

      OMy Goodness,  Kudos2 here yelling across the globe over to your in your precious cottage. I remember you.  So happy about your SS story. We can all gleam a little advice from such a wonderful true life story. So proud like a mama.  Only I’m 67 so maybe a little ahhhh. Well you know. Happy days ahead for you Banana Man.  The best for you. NOW hopefully I will get there soon. Your own podcast?

        Many hugggsss

        Kudos2  ;)

 

       

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    Thanks Kudos2 you’ve always had kindhearted words for me, well so has everyone, especially all the ones who commented, so thank you all.

 

And…

 

    I noticed something else about my recovery today, one of the most bothersome symptoms had left me and I wasn’t even aware! Strange? Read on…

    See I was taking my morning walk with the dogs as I normally do, they were off their leads as my back garden becomes the woods and forests beyond, anyway I was just taking it easy kicking my way through the dense dry autumn leaves that carpeted my path as the dogs hurried on in front of me sniffing out the pheasants. I got to my halfway point which is marked with a big old rounded rock, the perfect sort of sitting rock just right next to the small stream, it’s not a very big stream, I could nearly jump across it, about a foot deep. Well I sat down on the surprisingly comfy rock and noticed the small fish, which I was so oblivious to during my recovery, and listened to the stream, it always gives me a feeling of happiness sat down in my quiet spot a million miles away from the rest of the world. That’s when I noticed the oh so bothersome symptom that had plagued me and just about every other buddy on here, my tinnitus, it was completely gone! not even a tiny ting, nothing! this is certainly proof for me that if it was gone now then even if it returns surely it will go again? and today I still have no tinnitus! I couldn’t even care less if it was there or not because I haven’t really noticed it much for weeks, it’s just ever so gradually faded and slipped away.

 

We all get better, we all heal and so will you!

 

Well I’m off out to my workshop now to carve another bowl. Ding ding.

 

Good luck all…Have a nice day…Banana Man

 

 

If anybody else likes my stories then try some of these links…

 

http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=235804.0

 

http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=235341.0

 

http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=236184.msg3031693#msg3031693

 

 

 

……….

 

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What a wonderfully uplifting post!  Thank you for reassuring your fellow BBs that healing does come for all of us....you made me a Believer!!!!!

 

Hugs,

 

GG

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8). Kudos again,

      Wow!!!!!  I read your stories!  I can’t even begin to tell you how entertaining you definitely are. It’s like a movie on a BIG cinema screen. I write childrens stories, however I bow to your words. It’s like reading a screenplay.  Who are you?  Hidden gems. Thank you Banana.

      I personally have been dealing with “ will I ever get better”  ???    ( mycolonic jerks) crazy sxs. From  rapid K. Plus more. BUT you B. Have made this easier to brave. Thanks  :-*.  Friend.

      Kudos2. 

 

               

 

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Here’s one I wrote way back…

   

 

The Bucking Devil

 

I want all you doubters to keep holding on to your sanity and higher self. You will get better, you just need to hang on just that little bit longer. Keep holding on and ride that bucking horse, don’t you dare let go. I’ve been riding it upside down, being kicked in the head and body all over, it hurts, it hurts like hell, but I’m not letting go, if I can ride it out, you can too. Never ever give in. Stay strong and the bucking will ease a little and eventually you’ll have it under control. It will ease off, you just can’t be sure when, that’s why you must ride it out till the end, if you let go, it could be just before you’ve tamed this mother of a bucking  bronco. Just a little bit longer and you will succeed, you will win, you will get better, you will heal, you will recover, you will eventually be completely fixed and you’ll never have to tame that horse again, cus once she’s broke, that’s it. You can step off and go live your life in absolute peace. Hold on to the reins of hope all of the time, never ever let go or give in.

 

Another Original By...Banana Man the Superhero!

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YAY Banana Man!!!!  First thing I read in the morning. You have the credibility.  You've been through it.  And you are unequivocal.  Thank you!!!
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Banana Man, 

 

I'm LOVING your encouraging posts.  It's giving me a lot of hope and reminding me to stay strong through the good, the bad and the ugly. 

 

THANK YOU!

 

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Hi HelenHMB

 

Thank you ever so much for your kind words Helen. Do bare in mind that my recovery was a lot longer than some, there’s no time schedule for anybody so you could well be better in just weeks or months. It’s just good to know that if you keep at it, eating healthy, exercising and stay off antidepressants, painkillers and especially benzo’s then you’re going to heal all the sooner.

It’s nice to know that I can come back and help everyone with a few encouraging words.

 

Onwards and Upwards…Banana Man.

 

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Congratulations on your healing!  I am 27 months out and still suffering with horrific, fibromyalgia-type pain.  Anytime I move my muscles, or use them at all, I get terribly stiff and painful.  It's unbearable.  Was this also true for you?
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Thank you for this success story - it is very uplifting and a great source of hope.  Although I know cognitively that I have improved, at 16 months off I'm feeling like I could be one of those buddies that will be plagued with lingering annoying symptoms forever.  I appreciate your mention that this is yet just another symptom.  It has been hell and so many of us are still in hell looking up at a hole we can't climb out of.

 

I do remain hopeful for the future, and I know in my heart that time, good nutrition and good sleep is the key.

 

I especially like your comment that if we excluse EVERYTHING, then that leads to intolerance.  I do believe that and have started adding a few sips of caffeinated coffee to my morning decaf.  I'll keep plugging away and boy I  can't wait to write my story...

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