Finally off Clonazepam for the last 6+ months

Hi all,

 

I wanted to take the time out to share a success story of me getting off benzo's, as I don't share much on this board. I don't care to do things that require too much mental energy, like write out my thoughts. I'll try to keep this short and simple as I'm still mentally weak from the meds, and just genetically as well. I expound more about my story in the future, when I have more mental clarity and energy.

 

Anyway, I am now about 6 and a half months off. My last dose was on December 30, 2015. I was first put on the Clonazepam in 2001. What a nightmare that this has been. I'm still fighting for a normal life, something I only remember having when I was a child. However, there has been major progress in the last few years and especially the last number of months.

 

It took me years to come off the benzo. I was on other meds that I was getting off at the time, and my life was so chaotic that it took me up until 2-3 years ago to realize that most of the crazy symptoms that I was experiencing were from the benzo withdrawal that I was going through. I first started trying to get off my meds in 2007.

 

I looked very sickly for years. I'm about 6'1" in height and in and after high school I was in the  healthy weight range of 180-200ish, even going over 200 because of weight lifting. Then I got very big and fat due to the Olanzapine that I was taking, plus the unhealthy obsession I had for working out and trying to get bigger. I got up to over 300lbs in a short amount of time.

 

In 2007 when I got off the Olanzapine and tried to get off the Clonazepam, I lost about 120lbs in half a year to 8 months. I then lost weight even further going as low as 145lbs. All this weight loss was not intentional. I didn't really plan to go any lower than 220lbs and didn't want to lose the weight as fast as I did.

 

I used to love to work out when I was feeling healthy enough to do so in the early 2000's but then by the mid 2000's I could barely do anything as I had no energy to do so.

 

Beside the low energy, I have had crazy amounts of heart symptoms and shortness of breath. Insane, crippling headaches, all sorts of body pain, etc. Even when I started to have periods of okay energy, I would try to work out with low weight and would get insane pains in my body. My shoulders especially. I would go to doctor's as the pain would make me cry at times and was so restrictive in life. They looked it over, took x-rays, MRI, and said that it looked okay and just needed some  rehab work to strengthen them more. The light rehab exercises were way too much for my shoulder as well, and would bring on the crazy pain again. At other times my heart would freak out from doing hardly anything, working out wise.

 

The same type of stuff went on with my heart. I went to the hospital so many times because of my heart problems, went to the cardiologist who said that my heart looked strong as he did an ekg and stress test. I didn't believe him as I lost trust in most doctor's and the medical system, plus there was no explanation for why I was having those symptoms at the time.

 

I tried to do minor amounts of volunteer work during this time, and always failed. Either my lack of sleep or the crazy heart racing/pain would prevent me from fulfilling my obligations.

 

When I finally found out about benzo withdrawal and why I was experiencing all these symptoms, this was almost 3 years ago now, and I now had a knowledge of why this was happening and how I could now go about getting off and it was a comfort to know that my symptoms were not life threatening but just the withdrawal playing tricks on me. Although at times, it still felt too real.

 

Around that time, I started to take on volunteer work again and was much more stable than in the past. During the last half a year of me getting of the Clonazepam, [glow=red,2,300]I started a full time job, which I'm still at for the last 10 months now[/glow]. I have never kept a job for this amount of time before. My resume is atrocious I worked one job since 2001 which I lasted for about 3 weeks at best, and it wasn't even full time. I very thankful for this, as it is major progress.

 

My weight for years (7 or so) was at 150-160lbs, and I looked very sickly at this weight. No matter how many calories I ate, I could not put any weight on. About 2-3 months before my last dose I started to put on weight (weighting 175-180lbs) and my female friends were complimenting me on my appearance. My friend is a amateur photographer and even asked me to do a modeling shoot for him with a girl from a modeling agency, I was still under weight somewhat at the time, but I was looking healthier.

 

[glow=red,2,300]Because of the success of the weight gain, I started slowly to try and work out again. This was in the last month of my last dose. My body is reacting very well to it, no shoulder or back pain, heart has been stable for the most part, and I am now about 190-195lbs and am starting to look quite muscular.[/glow] I'm still feel weaker than I should be, but it's progress, as I'm leaps and bounds stronger than the past 7-10 or so years.

 

[glow=red,2,300]I'm becoming much more social now[/glow], something I refrained from due to my conversations becoming very awkward as I never wanted to talk about myself as my life was so depressing and there was nothing going on in my life. Also, my brain was such a mess, that I would not remember things to say to participate in the conversation. My confidence was also shot, which is now starting to come back.

 

I still have some issues from the withdrawal and some symptoms that I hope will get better with time. [glow=red,2,300]I'm shocked at how well the last months of my withdrawal, and the last 6+ months of being completely off the meds have been.[/glow] I'm pleasantly shocked at well my body is tolerating it, compared to the last 7 years of hell and torture.

 

Hopefully this is encouraging to some of you, and actually after typing this out, I'm encouraged myself, seeing the progress that has been made.

 

Sorry for the essay

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to post!  It is very encouraging 

Thank you for sharing your story! I am so glad that you are finally feeling better. I, too, started taking clonazepam in 2001 and got off of it last July. Going through withdrawal was by far the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life and I have run marathons.

 

I hope that you continue to improve and that your story will encourage other benzo buddies as well.

 

Congratulations, Conqueror - so glad you got off successfully, especially after the years of torture! 

Thhanks for shaming this great post!! Loved to read it!

 

Simone.

Thx guys - for reading and replying   

You're amazing. so so so much thank you for posting this. I've heard that getting of Clonazepam (I'm currently on) is the hardest because it is having the longest half life... I congratulate you and I hope that I will have the same story

You  are the Conqueror and finally befitting of your username. Way to go!!! You did it and you should be really proud of yourself!  :smitten: