3-6 months support group

Who has jumped 3-6 months ago? Let's support each other!

 

What are your current symptoms?

 

Which symptoms have improved?

 

What helps you?

 

What triggers you?

I jumped 10/8/17. The first two months or so we're filled with extreme chemical anxiety and panic, insomnia, DP/DR, intrusive thoughts, severe cog fog and confusion, blurry vision, muscle tension (neck specifically) and dizziness. Many of the symptoms are still here, but to a much lesser degree. I feel like I have switched a fair amount of the anxiety for anger/Rage feelings.

 

Having a routine seems to help. Avoiding sugar, caffeine and too many carbs also seems to make a difference. I've been doing headspace (the meditation app) twice a day and going to therapy 2-3 times a month. Although acceptance that this could be a long process is important, it's also extremely hard at times to allow, so I've been trying to work on accepting where I am in the healing process.

 

I have a hard time pinpointing triggers, other than current news so I avoid that as much as possible. Some posts here can be definite triggers though, so I avoid spending too much time on this board without reading some success stories.

 

Looking forward to seeing what others post and hope that mine helps someone else. Keep strong, we are doing this one day at a time.

I jumped 10/8/17. The first two months or so we're filled with extreme chemical anxiety and panic, insomnia, DP/DR, intrusive thoughts, severe cog fog and confusion, blurry vision, muscle tension (neck specifically) and dizziness. Many of the symptoms are still here, but to a much lesser degree. I feel like I have switched a fair amount of the anxiety for anger/Rage feelings.

 

Having a routine seems to help. Avoiding sugar, caffeine and too many carbs also seems to make a difference. I've been doing headspace (the meditation app) twice a day and going to therapy 2-3 times a month. Although acceptance that this could be a long process is important, it's also extremely hard at times to allow, so I've been trying to work on accepting where I am in the healing process.

 

I have a hard time pinpointing triggers, other than current news so I avoid that as much as possible. Some posts here can be definite triggers though, so I avoid spending too much time on this board without reading some success stories.

 

Looking forward to seeing what others post and hope that mine helps someone else. Keep strong, we are doing this one day at a time.

 

Hi Mtngirl, thank you for your response. It's good to read that you are feeling better!

 

I totally know what you mean that your anxiety switched to rage. I oscillate between those two (mostly because I was taught to never be angry and I am very afraid of the feeling that I am experiencing). Did you learn how to handle your anger? I think it can be constructive sometimes, when you need to change your life for the better, but I am too afraid to use anger as a tool yet.

 

Is Headspace a free app? It seems like there are in-app purchases?

I wish I could say the anger)rage was under control. Most days it feels like a runaway train. I too think that the anger will be useful for positive change and standing up for myself eventually, I just need to learn how to 'tame' it so that I don't scare or hurt the feelings of those around me (anger is a very foreign emotion to me too).

 

There are a few free meditations on headspace but I decided that the subscription was worth it to get more custom meditations (anger, anxiety, sleep, etc). There are many other meditation apps and even YouTube videos that are free. The meditations by Jason Stevenson on YouTube have been helpful for sometimes getting to sleep on those insomnia nights.

 

Best of luck, we are both healing a little more each day!

5 1/2 months out from a C/T Klonopin withdrawal.

 

I have anxiety and fear around a 0-5 lending the day.

 

I still have hypnagogic bangs and noises when first falling asleep about 1-3 every couple weeks.

 

Irrational fear that I’ll become schizophrenic - which led to a huge set back tonight. Googled the Internet too much convinced myself that it could be true and panicked hard which is now causing Hypnos jerks when trying to fall asleep.

 

Burning in my forearms mostly. A weird moving sensation in my forehead.

 

Hyper aware and question every sound or noise I hear.

 

Need some support tonight that I’m not going crazy it’s my worst fear. I’ve made so much progress but I worry I’ll never get normal again.

 

Who has jumped 3-6 months ago? Let's support each other!

 

What are your current symptoms?

 

Which symptoms have improved?

 

What helps you?

 

What triggers you?

 

Thanks for the post, it's a good idea!

 

I jumped 10/22/2017. My current symptoms are DP/DR, fear of going insane and panic attacks. I had them a lot during the last two weeks but it seems to get better now (hopefully it will last). However, I know I'm still not done with wothdrawal.

 

First two months, symptoms were mostly anhedonia, lack of libido and depressive thoughts but they have slowly improved.

 

Reading scary posts and obsessing about w/d and its symptoms triggers me. Meditation, acceptance and distraction (video games, TV, comic books) are my best allies in this fight so far.

 

Take care my jumping partners!

 

Pierre

 

Hi all, I jumped on Nov. 9, 2017 after a 9 month dry taper off of clonazepam.  Here is what I am left with: Insomnia (fairly relentless, with a window two weeks ago that lasted the better part of a week, followed by less sleep the next week.) RLS/leg jerks, tinnitus, racing brain (at night), anxiety, dementia, agoraphobia (improving), hair loss, depression, no energy. There are more, but I can't think of them this morning. I slept maybe two hours last night, which leaves my brain in a really bad state.

I'm still walking 30 minutes a day. The last two weeks I stopped lifting hand weights and doing yoga, because I thought it was making my sleep worse. Obviously they were not related. I'm too despondent to feel what I thought I would feel after the initial jump last November. Time is what I need. On the plus side, the RLS/jerks are getting less, at times, benzo belly is better. I wish there was more, but not yet.

Great blog.  jumped uninformed cold turkey on Nov 26, 2018 (what a hell for first two weeks then less hell for the next two weeks). Current symptoms are anxiety/depression/apathy, its pretty bad on wave days.  Comes in waves, seems like three days waves three days windows.  Had one day a couple weeks ago where I felt almost normal.  I have been keeping a journal.  Yesterday was really bad and called in sick for work and stayed in bed all day for fist time since I was in acute (first month).  Today is better and I am able to work.  The irritability/sensitivitycraving for large amounts of junk food seems to be fading.  I think I am healing, but these wave days (depression/anxiety/apathy) are horrible. 

 

I hate reading the posts of people who have been in withdrawal for long periods as I have great fear that I will not recover. 

 

For those who think they will go insane, YOU WON'T.  After all the reading I have done, have not seen one case where withdrawal triggered insanity/schizophrenia.

 

For those fear they will not recover (me included) YOU WILL, everyone does with time. 

 

Will look into the medication

 

I do not know what my triggers are.

 

Thanks and I hope you all keep up with this blog. 

5 1/2 months out from a C/T Klonopin withdrawal.

 

I have anxiety and fear around a 0-5 lending the day.

 

I still have hypnagogic bangs and noises when first falling asleep about 1-3 every couple weeks.

 

Irrational fear that I’ll become schizophrenic - which led to a huge set back tonight. Googled the Internet too much convinced myself that it could be true and panicked hard which is now causing Hypnos jerks when trying to fall asleep.

 

Burning in my forearms mostly. A weird moving sensation in my forehead.

 

Hyper aware and question every sound or noise I hear.

 

Need some support tonight that I’m not going crazy it’s my worst fear. I’ve made so much progress but I worry I’ll never get normal again.

 

I can relate to your fear of going crazy. I heard a voice one time before going to sleep and then was worried about schizophrenia for a week or so.

 

Let's hope it'll end soon and will recover 100%!

Thanks for the post, it's a good idea!

 

I jumped 10/22/2017. My current symptoms are DP/DR, fear of going insane and panic attacks. I had them a lot during the last two weeks but it seems to get better now (hopefully it will last). However, I know I'm still not done with wothdrawal.

 

First two months, symptoms were mostly anhedonia, lack of libido and depressive thoughts but they have slowly improved.

 

Reading scary posts and obsessing about w/d and its symptoms triggers me. Meditation, acceptance and distraction (video games, TV, comic books) are my best allies in this fight so far.

 

Take care my jumping partners!

 

Pierre

 

Thank you, Pierre! Hope you keep improving every day!

 

Oh, so now I know what this is called: anhedonia. I totally have it too.

Hi all, I jumped on Nov. 9, 2017 after a 9 month dry taper off of clonazepam.  Here is what I am left with: Insomnia (fairly relentless, with a window two weeks ago that lasted the better part of a week, followed by less sleep the next week.) RLS/leg jerks, tinnitus, racing brain (at night), anxiety, dementia, agoraphobia (improving), hair loss, depression, no energy. There are more, but I can't think of them this morning. I slept maybe two hours last night, which leaves my brain in a really bad state.

I'm still walking 30 minutes a day. The last two weeks I stopped lifting hand weights and doing yoga, because I thought it was making my sleep worse. Obviously they were not related. I'm too despondent to feel what I thought I would feel after the initial jump last November. Time is what I need. On the plus side, the RLS/jerks are getting less, at times, benzo belly is better. I wish there was more, but not yet.

 

I am glad at least some symptoms are improving for you. Hope you can get your full night sleep back soon!

Great blog.  jumped uninformed cold turkey on Nov 26, 2018 (what a hell for first two weeks then less hell for the next two weeks). Current symptoms are anxiety/depression/apathy, its pretty bad on wave days.  Comes in waves, seems like three days waves three days windows.  Had one day a couple weeks ago where I felt almost normal.  I have been keeping a journal.  Yesterday was really bad and called in sick for work and stayed in bed all day for fist time since I was in acute (first month).  Today is better and I am able to work.  The irritability/sensitivitycraving for large amounts of junk food seems to be fading.  I think I am healing, but these wave days (depression/anxiety/apathy) are horrible. 

 

I hate reading the posts of people who have been in withdrawal for long periods as I have great fear that I will not recover. 

 

For those who think they will go insane, YOU WON'T.  After all the reading I have done, have not seen one case where withdrawal triggered insanity/schizophrenia.

 

For those fear they will not recover (me included) YOU WILL, everyone does with time. 

 

Will look into the medication

 

I do not know what my triggers are.

 

Thanks and I hope you all keep up with this blog.

 

Thank you for your response! I hope your windows get longer and your waves shorter. Seems like you are getting better slowly but surely. Hope you recovery much sooner than most people on this board! Those PAWS stories are discouraging sometimes, I agree, but we all heal in our own time.

Hello. Thank you for opening this group. I got on Lorazepam on July 24th 2017 for hypnic jerks while falling asleep due to alcoholism. That was very stupid thing to do as I compounded everything. I jumped off lorazepam being on that drug for 4 months and 2 weeks on December 7th, 3 MONTHS AGO TODAY! I'm also 7 months sober. That's the best thing I can say about that right now. Things have been going ok for the most part with lingering w/d symptoms like dry mouth but the biggest one that has plagued me since the first week being on the drug is stomach issues like digestive/bowel problems and this feeling that I need to burp but I can't. Silent reflux if you will? Also have the occasional high blood pressure, high heart rate, heart palpitations, sinus pressure, fatigue, dizziness and sometimes short term memory. I've had really messed up sleep since a month and week after jumping. Chopped up, waking up to early and not being able to go back to sleep because my body thinks it's time to get up at 3am/4am. Never had any of this crap (minus hypnic jerks due to alcoholism but those are mostly gone now) until getting on this drug. I haven't seen a doctor for anything after experiencing all these withdrawal symptoms as both my personal physician and a psychiatrist I've seen say this is not BENZO withdrawal I'm going through. Heck, not even personal physician thought I was having alcohol withdrawal. Says it's anxiety and wanted to put on zoloft. Also reading a lot of the stories here I see everyone else goes through this and I figure the more drugs I get on... the worse I'll be on them or having to withdrawal from them. This has been one big nightmare. I had my blood work done before any of this back in Jan 2017 and it was normal. Had blood/Urine work done by the psychiatrist while tapering at .5mg back in the first week of October and was pre-diabetic my TSH read 4.55 (didn't check my t4 t3) but everything else was fine. The psychiatrist said I needed to get those things taken care of by my personal physician and in a nut shell I wasn't her problem anymore. After that I was going to set up an appointment with my personal physician but thought it best to ride this taper/post taper out. So here I am. 60 lbs dropped, healing, and waiting.       

Thanks so much for starting up this group.  I find hearing about others in similar timelines really helpful.  It seems that the length of time you've been on benzos doesn't always correlate to the severity (or not) of symptoms - it seems to be all over the place.

 

I am 90+ days post C/T withdrawal (out of ignorance of benzo w/d issues!) of Diazepam (Valium) for muscle/pain issues.  I am a very light user - occasional use (several days per month or less - skipping some months entirely) for the last year.  It had escalated recently (I realize now I was in tolerance).  I C/T'd and then it was horrendous (where upon I began researching online and scared myself out of my wits at what I read!)

 

In early w/d i had horrendous scary nightmares and fear - anxiety, abrupt wake ups, and terrible insomnia. Heart palps.  Sweating.  Nausea, GI issues (benzo belly).  This continued for a few weeks and then the pain kicked in.  This pain seems to be somewhat muscular in origin, and often is at sites of previous injuries.  Debilitating leg pain, numbness, shooting pains.  The leg pain then switched to neck pain and cramping waves up the back of my head (only on the left side), headaches at the back of my head/neck, shooting electric zaps.  Head pressure.  Pain behind my ear that is terrible and on and off but frequent.  DIZZINESS. Ugh.

 

I am so very, very fortunate that many of my symptoms are not "psychological" (since the fear, panic etc has downgraded a bit) but more physical.  But because I am older, i fluctuate between believing they are all W/D symptoms and then 10 minutes later being worried they are "something more". 

 

I have finally started having a few windows.  Not long lasting but they occur.  I had one for 2 days! But most short.  But appreciated.

 

Sugar triggers me.  Lack of sleep.  The more I have insomnia, the worse my symptoms are that day.  Exercise and distractions help.  Meditation helps me a lot, as does the practice of Qi Gong.  Simply sitting and trying to help myself relax and do system scans helps sometimes.  Laughing - is good when i can manage it.  Playing mindless app games.  Reminding myself all the time how lucky I am - there are so many people worse off. 

 

I will heal.  We all will.  I do not believe it causes permanent damage.  I believe that you have to help yourself as much as you can. Warm showers, darkened rooms sometimes, sitting in the sunshine others. Being good to yourself.

 

And making myself not beat myself up for being so ignorant to be in this position I am now.  Forgiving myself. And vowing to always take strong responsibility for my health, doing all the research that I can, and understanding that the VAST majority of physicians can not be relied on to make decisions for us.

 

Thank you so much for your stories.

In one week I will be 3 months off, so would like to join this group.  My symptoms are all mental except for insomnia.  I have terrible fear and terror that never lets up....I have heavy breathing all the time which makes it difficult to be around anyone.  I am completely alone which makes everything worse.  When will the anxiety, fear and terror lift?  Also, the depression is the blackest I've ever experienced and causing me to be despairing and hopeless.  I sleep very little. 

Garden

 

The timeline is different for all of us.  My terror/nightmares/anxiety were mostly in my acute stage  - but at about 2-3 months it all morphed to physical symptoms (and some anxiety, off and on).  While it is terribly hard to be alone, at the end of the day, all of us are "alone" with this in many ways.  Thank God for the people here on BB.  You're never alone.  Welcome to the group - hang in!

Hello everyone:

 

I would like to join the group. I jumped on Nov 15/17, the same day my mother passed away. I am going through a setback and a conflict as to what I need to do next. I did a DLMT and throughout my taper that was plagued with a few minor withdrawal symptoms that were bearable except the bulging disc I acquired from a fall back in April. Fortunately with good PT I am am pain free since January. However, in February I started developing more sleep issues. I decided to try some supplements and herbs but they are not working and my insomnia is worse. I have developed burning skin, hypnic jerks, extreme fatigue, depression, intolerance to exercise, my reflux has worsen. This is the hardest thing I have gone in my life. I was a healthy 58yr old lady up until 2014 when this nightmare started. I need to make a decision to cold turkey the supplements or try an Rx. I am so scared, I am afraid being so fatigued I won't tolerate sleepless nights anymore. Any advice please?

Hello,

 

I jumped 01/01/2018 after tapering for almost a year. I'm experiencing windows and waves and in general I'm feeling better and better, although some days ago quite a bad wave started: I have diarrhea, stool color change and all kind of GI symptoms exacerbated dramatically, I also have anxiety and a bit of depression. The most annoying is that I had been actually feeling really well and I had the best window ever and just prior to the wave I had a stress at work and I guess it triggered this bad wave. 

 

Anyway reading this forum helps a lot! The funny thing is that I had a strange symptom: it was a weird feeling in my legs, a bit like restless legs syndrome and I didn't know what to do and was suspecting it was some bad sign of smth horrible, then I came to the forum and realized some people have it too and it's just a psychological thing and after that all of a sudden it went away and never came back. It's been several days that I don't feel anything wrong with my legs, so it just proves how our brains play tricks with us and how important it is to stay positive, guys!

 

Wishing you all well! Try to stay positive! 

I am now 5 months off. So far, months 3.5 to 4.5 were the worst for me with panic attacks, anxiety and strong DP/DR. I had the chance to experience my best and longest window right after that. I was totally symptom free and I was 100 % myself again. It lasted 12 days and now, I am in a wave of depression and high anxiety. It seems that a lot of people have hard times around 3-6 months.

 

Hopefully we'll all turn a corner at 6 months off!

 

Take good care!

You know what we must focus on? We are drug free! It is difficult when our symptoms are still hanging on like they will never leave us, but we have to believe they will. It just takes time. In six months or six years we will still be drug free and older and better than we are today.

I'm fighting a cough and cold, the first since I began my taper and finally got off of clonazepam. I worried that if I got sick, I would end up too sick to make it, but here I am, surviving.

My symptoms haven't changed during the 3 months I've been off....rather they just intensify.  I have tinnitus, insomnia, dp/dr, fear, terror, anxiety, depression.  Most people seem to have symptoms that come, go and change.  Mine don't...am I the odd case?  How long until some of these lessen?  I've had no windows...just one long, excruciating wave.  The negativity is horrible although I say positive things out loud.  This self-talk hasn't helped and I'm getting more negative and depressed.

 

 

gardenlady

My symptoms continued on, unabated for about 3 months.  I didn't get a window (and it was in "hours" long not days until month 4 - and they are not a lot.

I am a similar age to you.  The only thing different is that i did have some symptoms come and go - but the new ones that came were as bad or worse than the old ones...

gardenlady you are not alone. My symptoms are pretty much the same as before I jumped. Some days I feel like. okay...now what?  Everyone says it will get better, so that's all I can go on at this point. I get little sleep, have no energy, feel awful, look awful. Mostly I feel like this is it. Nothing is ever going to change.

As I said in a previous post, at least I am drug free. That's all I have to hold on to.

 

nightengale, I'm glad you are drug-free....wish I could say the same.  I still have nasty Cymbalta to taper and I am dreading it.  I think it might be adding to my anxiety, but I'm too scared to touch it now as I am in such bad shape. 

 

The heavy breathing from anxiety is awful...I can't stop it.  Even if I do for a few min, it comes back.  How do people live like this for months and years?  I'm afraid I'll go insane.

Gardenlady

 

You won't (go insane).  You will reach down inside of you and find the strength you need.  And you will have the support of others on BB if you choose.  Many of us come her to vent, and whine, and despair - it helps sometimes.  And we find strength in other's experiences, kind words and support.  And sometimes we kind of "tell it like it is" to each other too! (i.e. buck up!) :-).  But you WILL find the strength.  Soon you will have a window - it might be 30 minutes - but you'll have one; and you will remember how it felt to be healthy and whole - and instead of making it worse, somehow those windows, over time, make us feel better and renew our hope. 

Your heavy breathing is just that - from anxiety.  As are these other horrid symptoms.  We all have days that it gets us down.  Hang in.  Ask questions.  Look for advice.  You'll conquer this.