Creepy Nostalgia

Hi All,

 

I have brought this up before in one of my posts.  However, for many of us, I think this is something worth discussing again.

 

Now, what I have learned is that it is NOT only we Benzo WD sufferers who experience this.  There are many, many people who experience this without it being induced by BW.  And, this was news to me.  I was shocked.  There are so many suffering in silence out there.  There are many people who go through life experiencing highly sensitized nervous systems for a multitude of different reasons.  So many things can trigger the NS to go into what is called allostatic overload.  It can be a trauma, it can be from a reaction to a drug...not even a benzo.  It can be just one too many things, and one day the NS says 'I'm done...I've reached my limit'.  The body keeps the score.  This has fascinated me to the point that I am so interested in learning more.  The reason is, the tools that are taught to these folks are equally as useful to us.  Now, in my opinion, we may consider what we are experiencing as a chemical experience versus an experience born organically.  Another difference can be that we can seem to go through anxiety/panic attacks for endless hours rather than having a start, middle and finish as many videos on anxiety and panic discuss.  Ya...not in my experience.  Our cortisol, adrenaline, etc., seems to have a never ending source.  However, the approach is still very much applicable to BW.  These folks express and experience all of these feelings without having put a drug in their body.

 

I am attaching a video that discusses this exactly.  But, here are the key symptoms and how they manifest.  And, this fella uses the exact same words I have used to describe what I experience daily...each minute of my day.

 

Creepy nostalgia is when all of life takes on a distorted slant.  For me, this feeling gets triggered by music, pictures, movies, memories, my beloved pets, my daughters, my environment, my jewelry, my computer, my phone, my car, a tree...nothing is left untouched for me.  I am always in a place of having to reframe how I look at things, and it is very challenging and exhausting.

 

So, all I have listed can bring a swoosh of yucky emotions/thoughts/a visceral experience felt in my bones...in my soul.  It takes all things, whether they have/had a place in your life in your past that brought you joy and happiness or not, and it overlays a creepy 'narrative' or story attached to it.  It takes much of what we have held dear to our hearts, or much of what has once brought us a feeling of peace and calm, and it twists/distorts it into something that now has an attached feeling of sadness, fear, regret, and equally importantly, a feeling that what we had believed about these things must have somehow been incorrect or flawed in some way.  And, then the obsessive thoughts can start and the rumination begins as we try to solve the puzzle of why we are feeling as we are.  The outcome?  We feel as though our life has been quite literally stolen from our beingness.  It is definitely a psycho-spiritual experience.

 

This is one of my top symptoms.  And, it is a scary one because of how it envelopes your whole life.  I have called it like living in the upside down from Stranger Things.  Nothing externally has changed, but our perception has been altered.  But, man...does life look and feel totally different and non-relatable any longer.  Sometimes I find that DP/DR can come from this as well due to having the foundation of what made you You become questioned.  It's a slippery slope.

 

This channel called Vacate Fear is geared for those suffering with highly sensitized nervous systems experiencing acute anxiety and panic.  But, that is what we are experiencing in WD.  And, he does a great job of explaining this very simply.  And, simplicity is what we need during this because all symptoms come from the same source...they just manifest in a multitude of ways.  Regardless of your symptom, it is being created by the same thing...a highly sensitized nervous system.  In our case, brought about by an injury from benzos. 

 

So, I share this hoping that this can be of help.

 

Warmly,

F

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting, the other day I was wondering if, having the severe symptoms, we can be helped by brain retraining. However, having severe symptoms makes it impossible for me not to focus on them and not to panic about them.

Thank you Faith!!!! And thank you so much for last night!! I'm still the same today. It was 6am by the time I got courage to lay down. I slept 90 minutes!!  I sat up, observed how I was feeling and it hit me again like a tonne of bricks! I did manage to lay back down and sleep another 2 hours though.. I'm shattered, I am mentally and physically drained. I'm trying to work on my fear response. I'm really trying. 

Thank you Faith!!!! And thank you so much for last night!! I'm still the same today. It was 6am by the time I got courage to lay down. I slept 90 minutes!!  I sat up, observed how I was feeling and it hit me again like a tonne of bricks! I did manage to lay back down and sleep another 2 hours though.. I'm shattered, I am mentally and physically drained. I'm trying to work on my fear response. I'm really trying. 

 

Dido, I feel the same. Absolutely terrified. I was trying to use a kind of mindfulness method, but with my symptoms and fear of them it would involve actually doing this exercise all around the clock.

Willhealsoon. I'm the same, I feel so bad that I can't not think about it. Then I start thinking fearful thoughts and my anxiety escalates to panic 

Thank you for sharing this information and resource with us, Faith25624. I agree with you that much of the Vacate Fear content is relevant and helpful to individuals who are withdrawing and/or recovering from benzodiazepine use.

 

The host of the Vacate Fear YouTube channel draws heavily on the work of Dr. Claire Weekes, a pioneer in the study of what she referred to as ‘nervous illness’ and anxiety.

 

For example, in this video, he explains Weekes’ concepts of sensitization and ‘second fear’ (when fear of symptoms coupled with obsession and rumination about them makes symptoms worse):

 

What Is Sensitization?

 

Many members seem to be trapped in a first fear-second fear downward spiral with respect to their withdrawal symptoms.  Weekes’ developed a 4-step method to address this that might be of interest. The four steps are:

 

Face – Accept – Float – Let time pass

 

To learn more:

 

Hope and Help for Your Nerves: End Anxiety Now

Dr. Claire Weekes

https://a.co/d/dkPQqMb

 

Hi Libertas, I did read a lot of Dr. Claire Weekes tips etc when I previously became benzo free. There is also a podcast channel on YouTube called '' The Anxious Truth'' which is very good!! I think everyone should watch his podcasts!

Hello, dido2806uk.  Good for you for tapping Dr. Claire Weekes’ work!  Thank you for sharing another helpful resource (The Anxious Truth) that also draws on her work.

 

The host of Anxious Truth produced a chapter-by-chapter overview of Dr. Weekes’ book several years ago.  Here’s a link to Chapter 1:

 

Hope And Help For Your Nerves - Ch 1

The Power Within You - TAG 020

Thanks Libertas!! Yes he's really good! I'm getting where it's difficult for me to even look at a screen as my eyes seem so sensitive to light and colours/movement.  Could a link to his channel be put as a sticky Libertas??

I'm so happy that all of this is being shared because it is so very relevant in what we are all moving through.

 

Thank you, Libertas, for your reply and additional resources.  I get stuck in the 'flow'...

 

Dido...these are all great things for you as you move through these intense waves of panic through your rapid withdrawal schedule.  Building your tool kit!  You've got this!

 

I have listened to the Anxious Truth.  I think I have listened to everything that I can get my hands on because reading is just not something I can do right now.  I can write...I can read posts...but, I can't focus on a book.  And, I have several that are very deserving of reading in cue right now.  But, they will have to wait.  For now, it's audio for me in terms of my learning.

 

Warmly,

F

Faith25624: Thank you for kicking off a helpful and productive discussion.

 

I’m so sorry you are unable to read at this time. Other members have reported difficulty with processing large amounts of text as well so please know you are not alone in this.

 

dido2806uk: Your suggestion about building a sticky of helpful resources such as The Anxious Truth is a good one.  I’ll raise it to the team for discussion. 

 

Edit: corrected miskey in member username to ensure proper redaction

I can't believe someone else has felt this! I felt it yesterday after playing a video game. The entire world took on this strange new "color". Everything was gloomy and felt so dark to me. It felt like a feeling I experienced a long time ago but pushed it deep down into the recesses of my mind, and the benzo w/d simply brought it back to the surface. It really is a psycho-spiritual experience. I have OCD, and in the midst of it started to get an intrusive thought that I was simply going crazy and that I was about to lose my mind at any second.

 

Maybe the best way to explain it is that it felt like "intrusive depressing nostalgia". Such a strange sensation. It is helpful to know that someone else has also experienced it though.

Thank you for sharing this information and resource with us, Faith25624. I agree with you that much of the Vacate Fear content is relevant and helpful to individuals who are withdrawing and/or recovering from benzodiazepine use.

 

The host of the Vacate Fear YouTube channel draws heavily on the work of Dr. Claire Weekes, a pioneer in the study of what she referred to as ‘nervous illness’ and anxiety.

 

For example, in this video, he explains Weekes’ concepts of sensitization and ‘second fear’ (when fear of symptoms coupled with obsession and rumination about them makes symptoms worse):

 

What Is Sensitization?

 

Many members seem to be trapped in a first fear-second fear downward spiral with respect to their withdrawal symptoms.  Weekes’ developed a 4-step method to address this that might be of interest. The four steps are:

 

Face – Accept – Float – Let time pass

 

To learn more:

 

Hope and Help for Your Nerves: End Anxiety Now

Dr. Claire Weekes

https://a.co/d/dkPQqMb

 

Absolutely true!

 

“When symptoms coupled with obsession and rumination about them makes symptoms worse.”

 

Try this - Instead of trying to pull yourself out of the fearful thought patterns, try just focussing your conscious energy on the heavy fearful emotion in your gut, feel it fully, welcome it and allow the emotion to just be there. Allow it to manifest fully and flood your entire body. Do not fight or push it away. It cannot hurt you. It is only emotion “energy in motion.” It is the fearful thought patterns that are causing the intense suffering (mental suffering) and creating an ever increasing cycle of over activity in the body. The fear based emotion wants you to accept it, to welcome it, to allow it to be there and feel it fully. The fearful thought patterns are connected to the fear based emotion and therefore persist because of our unwillingness to allow the emotion to fully manifest and flood the body. The emotion just wants to be accepted, and acceptance means allowing the emotion to flood the body, peak, and then roll out like a wave onto a beach. As you focus on the emotion, it pulls your consciousness from your mind directly into your body which severs the fearful thought pattern, and as you allow the emotion to manifest fully and flood your entire body, you are actually healing the core of the fearful thoughts through the practice of acceptance... acceptance of your emotions. This is the practice by which all fear based emotions and emotional trauma are healed.

 

“Nothing will ever leave you unless you love it first” - Unknown

 

Acceptance and Love mean the same thing.

 

When symptoms aren’t too severe, I recommend this -

Thank you for sharing this information and resource with us, Faith25624. I agree with you that much of the Vacate Fear content is relevant and helpful to individuals who are withdrawing and/or recovering from benzodiazepine use.

 

The host of the Vacate Fear YouTube channel draws heavily on the work of Dr. Claire Weekes, a pioneer in the study of what she referred to as ‘nervous illness’ and anxiety.

 

For example, in this video, he explains Weekes’ concepts of sensitization and ‘second fear’ (when fear of symptoms coupled with obsession and rumination about them makes symptoms worse):

 

What Is Sensitization?

 

Many members seem to be trapped in a first fear-second fear downward spiral with respect to their withdrawal symptoms.  Weekes’ developed a 4-step method to address this that might be of interest. The four steps are:

 

Face – Accept – Float – Let time pass

 

To learn more:

 

Hope and Help for Your Nerves: End Anxiety Now

Dr. Claire Weekes

https://a.co/d/dkPQqMb

 

Absolutely true!

 

“When symptoms coupled with obsession and rumination about them makes symptoms worse.”

 

Try this - Instead of trying to pull yourself out of the fearful thought patterns, try just focussing your conscious energy on the heavy fearful emotion in your gut, feel it fully, welcome it and allow the emotion to just be there. Allow it to manifest fully and flood your entire body. Do not fight or push it away. It cannot hurt you. It is only emotion “energy in motion.” It is the fearful thought patterns that are causing the intense suffering (mental suffering) and creating an ever increasing cycle of over activity in the body. The fear based emotion wants you to accept it, to welcome it, to allow it to be there and feel it fully. The fearful thought patterns are connected to the fear based emotion and therefore persist because of our unwillingness to allow the emotion to fully manifest and flood the body. The emotion just wants to be accepted, and acceptance means allowing the emotion to flood the body, peak, and then roll out like a wave onto a beach. As you focus on the emotion, it pulls your consciousness from your mind directly into your body which severs the fearful thought pattern, and as you allow the emotion to manifest fully and flood your entire body, you are actually healing the core of the fearful thoughts through the practice of acceptance... acceptance of your emotions. This is the practice by which all fear based emotions and emotional trauma are healed.

 

“Nothing will ever leave you unless you love it first” - Unknown

 

Acceptance and Love mean the same thing.

 

Beautifully written and explained, WS.  Thank you.  Very touching.

 

Warmly,

F

 

 

This is only my own personal experience of Creepy Nostalgia

 

In my experience, this intensely magnified state is the absolute peak of mental/emotional pain.

 

A little over 5 years ago, prior to the introduction of benzo’s on to the scene as a result of the exact experience we are talking about, I found myself having to visit a dentist to have a molar extracted. During the procedure, things went awry when the tooth snapped off at the gum and the dentist found it necessary to cut the remaining part of the tooth out taking a piece of the bone with it. I was put on a course of broad spectrum antibiotics and 2 weeks supply of Endone (opioid) for the pain. Over the course of the following week, things seemed to go reasonably smoothly until one morning I woke up in this unbearable state of what we are now calling “Creepy Nostalgia” along with endless other symptoms, both mental/emotional and physical. It was the worst experience of my life, and I had no idea what the hell was going on. Before long, I could no longer function in life, the agoraphobia and intense fear which seemed to permeate absolutely ‘everything’ (as Faith described), became too much to bear, so I made arrangements, packed my things, and left my home in Byron Bay NSW and drove 2,400 km back to my hometown where I felt I would have at least some degree of support. Before I left Byron Bay though, at the insistence of a close friend, I visited a functional integrative medical practitioner to seek out the source of my mental/emotional and physical symptoms, which had been (to a lesser degree) plaguing me for years, gradually, but consistently becoming worse over the course of time. From this FIMP, and after all necessary tests, I finally discovered (after thousands of dollars of tests, scans, procedures and endless visits to doctors and specialists over months who all dismissed it as being all in my head) that I actually had SIBO and a severe case of intestinal permeability (leaky gut) which had been worsening over years until the Endone finally ripped it to pieces and turned my world to black in an instant. That first couple of weeks after taking the pain medication were probably the worst, as I imagine I was also going through a degree of withdrawal from the opioid medication, but the Creepy Nostalgia and endless other symptoms continued on. Once I arrived in my hometown, 3 months after the diagnosis, I decided to treat the Sibo with a course of gentle antimicrobials and restricted diet, however, because of severe intestinal permeability, and what I believed to be a severely compromised CNS from the intense fear I had been experiencing consistently over such an extended period of time, I simply couldn’t tolerate the antimicrobials, and they would trigger a reaction and only intensify the Creepy Nostalgia and many other seemingly unbearable symptoms. Over the course of a few years, I gradually began to change many of the habits which had been keeping me from returning my system to a state where symptoms had decreased and my internal system seemed to be functioning well enough to tolerate the antimicrobials to have a shot at eradicating the SIBO, after which, the leaky gut could then finally heal, as leaky gut won’t heal until the SIBO has been eradicated. Unfortunately, just as I had nearly eradicated the SIBO, as evidenced by follow up breath tests, I fell off the wagon, returned to some old habits relating to poor food choices (feeding the SIBO) and smoking cigarettes both of which quickly inflamed my gut, allowed the inflammatory toxins through the leaky gut, which spread inflammation through my entire body (causing all sorts of physical symptoms), including crossing the blood brain barrier, inflaming the brain, and causing all sorts of neurological symptoms. Once you reach this level of breakdown in the body, the intense level of unwell-ness and the disrupted chemical production and balance in the brain allows your deepest emotional trauma to the surface, as there is nothing to buffer these emotions or keep them at bay. You feel terribly unwell both physically and mentally because your entire system is down regulated, much like your Gabba receptors are when in benzodiazepine withdrawal, only it’s your entire system partially down regulated. As I mentioned… there is no buffer to keep your deepest emotional trauma suppressed. You feel so unwell, and all your chemistry is so messed up from the inflammation on the brain that all of your traumatic emotional baggage is free to surface without the buffer of having your chemistry balanced and your overall system in a healthy operational state. As your emotions now have free rein, it brings to the surface magnified fearful expressions of the past, present and the future because you are experiencing everything from the point of NOW, the lens through which you are experiencing everything right NOW, through this intensely unwell, down regulated, chemically unbalanced state of the NOW. There will be fear in all your of your happy memories, which I often experienced as sadness, a sadness that often appears to be my heart pining for times past, but if I look deeper, I can see that I have grown so much through my life that when I look through this murky lens, I appear to be sad that I didn’t truly appreciate my experiences to the fullest, the way I do, or the way would now if I were well. There is a saying - “youth is wasted on the young” and this seems to be the core of the sadness reflecting back to myself through this murky lens. I can see that there is truth in what I see, but it is intensely over magnified because my life force is low, my chemistry is so messed up, and the emotions cannot be suppressed when in this state of down regulation. I no longer experience these Creepy Nostalgic heightened states like I once did, and I believe this is because the states are not as intense anymore since I’ve learned to avoid judging what I see, and my first point of exit is to go directly to the emotion, not the mind, and allow myself to process the emotions on an energetic level. I can still be in that state and highly symptomatic, but I allow myself to ‘feel’ everything, rather than ‘think’ everything. It allows me to process the core emotion behind the fearful thought, rather than locking horns, staring like a deer into the headlights through a mind (thought based self) that wants to control the narrative based on an overly magnified, distorted view of the surfacing emotional content. Sure, I see where the mind (thought based self) wants to go when the emotions surface, but I sever the pull of consciousness into the mind and focus my consciousness on the emotion itself. I allow it to just be there and feel what it wants me to feel without the mental battle that wants to take hold parallel to the emotion which would otherwise take me on a downward spiral. When you focus only on accepting the emotion behind what would be the fearful thought patterns, you are actually dealing with the root cause at the core energetic level, so although you still feel extremely unwell and symptomatic, you don’t actually have the narrative running in your mind, and the combination of the absence of this narrative and your willingness to allow yourself to truly feel into and offer acceptance to the fearful emotion, not only decreases the hormonal stress response in the body, thereby keeping the CNS from further destabilising and symptoms from intensifying, giving you the opportunity to stabilise, but it also allows you to process the emotion by transmuting the fear (energy you want to reject and push away) into love (energy you now fully accept), which in terms of an energetic shift, is simply the transmutation of a low vibrational frequency (fear) into a higher vibrational frequency (love) through the process of acceptance. When you truly accept, you truly love, because acceptance and love share the same meaning and the very same vibrational frequency. When you truly accept an emotion, it’s like you are bringing home a lost, frightened, unwanted child that you once cast into the darkness because you couldn’t accept its presence. The child (emotion) just wants you to open your heart and offer it your unconditional love. When we push away these fear based emotions and traumas, we become fragmented, and the only way to become whole again (free) is to bring them home under the shelter of your own love and acceptance, which you do by allowing yourself to feel all emotions fully, free of judgement.

 

This process takes time and practice and it’s something you gradually learn to become comfortable with over time.

 

From the time we are birthed into this world, we are conditioned into fear and taught to push it away. We push our traumatic emotional baggage as deep down, out of reach, into the darkest corners as to avoid it, but it can’t stay there, it will always be triggered until we finally face it head on and develop techniques to heal our fear based emotions and trauma.

 

What I describe above (hopefully with some degree of success) is the technique by which we all learn to heal our fear based emotional wounds and traumas.

 

For those of us going through the hell of benzodiazepine withdrawal, gradually familiarising yourself with this healing process will not only help ease your mental suffering, but also put you on the deepest of healing journeys. 

 

Just to round up… my early experience with Creepy Nostalgia first appeared as the direct result of gut related issues, not benzodiazepines, which funnily enough I ended up on to treat the consistent reactions to foods which actually triggered the god awful experience of Creepy Nostalgia (among other symptoms) which eventually prompted me to admit myself to a stay psychiatric ward when the benzo journey pretty much began. Since then, I have experienced Creepy Nostalgia for periods of time as a direct result of the benzodiazepines, most notably through c/t and a subsequent long period of adjustment after switching to Valium. So in support of Faith’s post, this was my account of having personally experienced Creepy Nostalgia as a direct result of benzodiazepine medication, and separately, as a direct result of gut related issues completely free of benzodiazepines or any other medication.

 

 

Hi WS and Community,

 

Thank you so much for sharing this very personal account of your experience with us all which clearly shows that this phenomenon we are terming 'Creepy Nostalgia' is not unique to only the BW community.  I believe many will benefit from it.  So, much gratitude for this.

 

Your post has so much valuable information within it.  And, it deals with not just the physical/mental/emotional bodies, but with the energetic/spiritual body which is simply not taken into consideration while we go through this whether just initially or until we are quite literally knocked over the head with a 2 x 4 and we finally see this as a very multi-dimensional process in terms of the healing process that is set into motion. Very multi-layered in simpler terms.  I don't think anyone on this site would disagree that this process is not just a physical one.

 

I have heard this said many times...that if you begin this journey of WD without a sense of something larger than yourself existing, you will most definitely come out the other side with a 'new found' respect for something larger than yourself.  I will bet, and I'm not a betting type of gal, if you've never prayed in your life, you've had a least one direct line convo to God/Jesus/The Universe/Buddha/Creator/Spirit...take your pick...when things started to really become intense and you felt as though you were losing yourself .  And, it is why I have likened it to not just BW, but an awakening that takes place whether one feels ready for it or not.

 

We are certainly brought to our knees through this horrific process.  Another quote I would like to share regarding being brought to our knees during this within our suffering is that while you are down there, don't be in such a hurry to get up.  There is a value it in as painful as it is...as much as we want to just be done with this and return to our 'normal life'.  We won't return to our 'normal life'...not as we once were.  How can we?  This process is transformational.  And, while I could go into more and more detail with respect to this, it's not really the proper place.  But, I do believe that this experience is far greater than just 'getting through BW'...or any other affliction that has brought people to a place of housing a highly sensitized nervous system.

 

In this way, the community is moving through a multi-layered healing process, and it is so apparent when you read many posts.  We begin to express from the core of ourselves...expressing things we never thought we would share with 'strangers'.  I've heard the term 'bentimacy' before.  This is so true.  We share things that in our day-to-day lives, we would not feel able to.  But, in these types of groups, and behind a concealed identity, we begin to share ourselves as we truly are, being very vulnerable.  Right now we are living in a place of fear so often that we just need to reach out to others and express ourselves in a safe spot...being our true selves within a feeling of protected privacy.  We begin to connect as simply human beings stripped of our external identities.  It is quite beautiful, really, in a very, very bittersweet way.  At least, I feel that way.

 

Jeff Foxworthy, the comedian, who went through BW, wrote a skit on the the ways to tell that you have been 'benzo'd'.  I will continue to refer to this as BW for the purposes of this site being specific to this, but it does apply to anyone with a highly sensitized nervous system who join support groups within a concealed identity.  One of his ways to know that you have been benzo'd is:

 

'If you take the word of some person in New Mexico, who you've never met, and goes by the name of 'Chilli' over the word of your doctor, you've been benzo'd!'

 

Here is to allowing ourselves to feel the deep and painful emotions as they arise.  Here's to not trying to avoid and escape them.  Here's to accepting that if they show up, there is a reason.  Here's to holding space for yourself as you move through these emotions.  Here's to showing yourself an insane amount of compassion.  Here's to acknowledging that inner child and embracing him/her with love and acceptance.

 

Here is to facing this Hurricane, and resurfacing whole, complete and healed.

 

Most of all...Here is to Love.

 

Sending Love to All,

 

Warmly

F

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m lost for words… just beautiful 

WS and Faith, your words really touched me.

 

There is something transcendent in great suffering.

 

I am just at the beginning of my pilgrimage, and have felt that the more I push, the stronger the panic becomes.

 

It's as if it wants me to face it and accept it.

 

Sometimes I think that the thing we are looking for, and the thing that we need the most, is hidden within the darkness and the fear and the unknown.

 

The place we least want to look.

Absolutely, chunkibumpi.

 

If we are not willing to truly FEEL into the darkness without judgement, then we cannot wrap acceptance (love) around those fearful, traumatised parts of ourselves.