Terrible Suffering

I’ve been awake since 3:00 AM. The mental suffering is horrible. I don’t know what to say. It does not seem possible I will ever get better. I feel trapped and hopeless.

 

Is there any way out?

Have these symptoms been increasing?

 

Do you think it may be possible that reductions are catching up with you, and that an extra week or two of holding may possibly smooth out your taper slightly?

If it seems to fast then stop! Listen to your body. If you need to updose to stabilize? Updose, stabilize, hold then maybe cut 10%, hold 3 weeks until you feel strong, try again.

You don’t need to suffer so much as there are options, like updosing to where you are symptom free.

This isn’t a race, there is no goal line.

The very most important thing is your quality of life. So make THAT your goal, your only goal.

So-a year, 2? To taper? If you have a good quality of life, WHO CARES!

Please focus on stabilizing the you’ll have a clearer head moving forward 🙏

Or hold/updose till you feel better. I was never symptom free on this.

I'm tapering directly off of Ativan, which most seem to say is impossible. I tried trans to valium but that was the worse hell of my life. I lost 45 lbs, had horrific diarrhea, NEVER slept and had akithisia. During the Winter I ran up and down my driveway (1/4 mile round trip) from 11 to 5 am every night because of akithisia brought on by valium. Valium is pure evil. If there is any alternative please consider it. Getting off of valium gave me a new lease on life. Things will get better for you, too. I'm at .35 mg and I'm doing better. Hang in there!

I’ve been awake since 3:00 AM. The mental suffering is horrible. I don’t know what to say. It does not seem possible I will ever get better. I feel trapped and hopeless.

 

Is there any way out?

 

I wish I could offer you the perfect way out, Perseverance, but unfortunately I just don’t have it. All I can encourage you to do is try your very best to avoid spending 100% of your time focussing all your conscious attention on your symptoms and how you are feeling. It shouldn’t be underestimated just how profound the effect it has on the CNS, and increase in your symptoms, mental, emotional, and physical. It becomes a cycle  :hug:where the constantly accumulating stress feeds back in to the CNS as a result of a constant release of stress hormones. I know it feels impossible to separate your mind from the suffering, but if you can just find it within yourself to just allow your mind to let go (now and then) of that constant focus on your suffering, even for the briefest of periods, it may make it slightly more tolerable, at least for those brief periods. I know this doesn’t sound like much help to you, considering what you’re going through right now, but unfortunately it was the only technique I found slightly helpful when I was at my worst, and you do get better at it the more you practice. Allow yourself to feel the emotions fully that are arising, knowing that they are only emotions (fearful energy) that can’t really hurt you. Allow them to be there, don’t fight them. What we resist, persists. I really wish I could offer a quick fix, Perseverance, but there just doesn’t seem to be one. The only other thing I can suggest, depending on when you last reduced, is to hold a little longer this time and then maybe decrease the size of your reductions to see if it makes it more tolerable. I know you are already tapering at a low and slow rate, but maybe you are more sensitive to reduction than many others, at least at the moment. I know there are members that feel they have to taper lower and slower than what you are presently.

 

Wishing you much relief and healing