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The danger of trying to help others see the dangers of psych drugs


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Keeping with the "dangers of" theme. I thought I would share something that has been bothering me.

 

I am a member of a work related facebook group and I have become friends with someone on there who sells products that are similar to mine. If "The Most Interesting Man in the World" were modeled after a real person, this would be the guy. Lets call him Bo.

 

Bo is a very interesting person with tons of cool life experiences. Interesting family as well. If there were a "Most Interesting Mom in the World" his mom would even have that title! Seriously.

 

So a couple of months ago Bo posts on his personal facebook page that he is in a ton of pain from some kind of injury and is desperate for relief. He talks apprehensively about the drugs that doctors are trying to put him on and he is asking for advice from friends. I don't remember all of the drugs he mentioned but gabapentin was in there, along with what I believe was possibly another psych drug.

 

I typed out a long reply briefly explaining my experience and outlining the possible issues with psych drugs hoping to engage in some kind of discussion that might help him understand the dangers of these classes of drugs. What did I get? A "like". No "thanks for the info, I will definitely look into it" or anything. Just a "like".

 

Oh well, I tried.

 

A few days ago Bo posts again about his medical issues, this time about how he doesn't think the drugs are working and might even be making him worse and how he is still desperate for relief. Again, I take the time to write out another lengthy, well thought out reply pointing out that these drugs don't actually cure anything and that they make changes to the CNS in ways that no one really understands, and some of those changes may or may not be reversible.

 

What did I get this time? Another "like".

 

Ok, he's a popular guy and he got lots of replies to his post, but many of them he did actually respond to, and I just felt like I was being brushed off. I guess I can hope that at least I planted a seed that might help him in the future, but you would think that someone who is directly soliciting advice about these drugs would take first person experiences a little more seriously.

 

I suppose there was no real "danger" in me trying to help Bo, and as I said, maybe it will be something that helps him or others that read my posts in the future. It just seems futile to pour your heart out trying to help someone avoid making what might be the biggest mistake of their life, just be brushed off like that.

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Hi FG,

 

Its really frustrating and off putting when you take the time to respond with well thought out words in any situation and then get no validation that you tried to help.  That happens quite a bit on this forum too, it just that we don't have "like" buttons so don't get any indication at all that the original poster even read your words. Its often a "prophet in their own country" situation in psych drug land.  What people usually want is just to vent and for others to agree with the course of action they have already decided on.  "Bo" doesn't want to hear your good advice or warnings and he probably will not until he's in the throes of a hellish dependency and withdrawal.  This is especially true on social media sites like Facebook.  This bothers me too and it makes me less and less willing to take time to post.  FWIW Bo sounds like a narcissistic twit those real life is probably a lot less interesting that he would like you to believe.  Don't waste your time with people like that.

 

She

 

 

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You tried, sometimes that’s all we can do.  I know it’s frustrating, I have a friend on sleeping pills and a sister-in-law on Temazepam who know what I’ve been through and still take it.
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It's Facebook ...

 

Exactly. The best way to warn anyone of any dangers of any psych drugs is in private. 1:1 conversation either in person or over the phone. Anything that carries a lot of social stigma (such as psych drugs) cannot really be solved via social media. In fact, so much social media has actually been very detrimental to people who are on psych drugs, off psych drugs, coming off of psych drugs, thinking of starting psych drugs,  or trying not to get on psych drugs in the first place.

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[67...]

Hi FG,

 

Its really frustrating and off putting when you take the time to respond with well thought out words in any situation and then get no validation that you tried to help.  [b]That happens quite a bit on this forum too, it just that we don't have "like" buttons so don't get any indication at all that the original poster even read your words.[/b] Its often a "prophet in their own country" situation in psych drug land.  What people usually want is just to vent and for others to agree with the course of action they have already decided on.  " Don't waste your time with people like that.

 

She

 

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

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One question, Why would he use psych drugs for an injury? :idiot:

 

Anyway, these drugs are relatively safe if you use them with caution, even myself after kindling multiple times, am still relatively functional and productive even if i feel like shit sometimes.

 

Instead of trying to change the mind of others, let them find out the truth on their own accord, sometimes even logic won't get through the heads of some people.  :thumbsup:

 

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"Bo" doesn't want to hear your good advice or warnings and he probably will not until he's in the throes of a hellish dependency and withdrawal.

 

You are absolutely correct. When he first posted about it, when he announced that he was going to give it a shot I could tell that he had made up his mind before he posted. I guess we just have to hope that these warnings will help people recognize problems sooner if they do occur.

 

You tried, sometimes that’s all we can do.  I know it’s frustrating, I have a friend on sleeping pills and a sister-in-law on Temazepam who know what I’ve been through and still take it.

 

I would like to think that I would be smart enough to listen if I were on the other side of this but I guess the reality is that  there really isn't anything we can do to convey the seriousness of this to most people.

 

It's Facebook ...

 

Exactly. The best way to warn anyone of any dangers of any psych drugs is in private. 1:1 conversation either in person or over the phone. Anything that carries a lot of social stigma (such as psych drugs) cannot really be solved via social media. In fact, so much social media has actually been very detrimental to people who are on psych drugs, off psych drugs, coming off of psych drugs, thinking of starting psych drugs,  or trying not to get on psych drugs in the first place.

 

Unfortunately not an option as this person lives in St. Louis and I live in Florida. I don't think it makes a ton of difference either way though as I have had people ignore my warnings in person as well.

 

One question, Why would he use psych drugs for an injury? :idiot:

 

Some of these drugs are commonly prescribed for physical issues.

 

Anyway, these drugs are relatively safe if you use them with caution, even myself after kindling multiple times, am still relatively functional and productive even if i feel like shit sometimes.

 

A lot of people would very much disagree with this, myself included. How exactly do you use these drugs with caution? Sure, if you only take a benzo once every six months you arent likely to develop dependency, but a lot of these AD's and such don't even achieve the "desired effect" for several weeks after you start taking them. I'm sure there is a line with most of these drugs that if you don't cross it you should't have any issues, but knowing what I know about these drugs and how poorly understood they are I know that no one really knows where that line is. If you want to try to "use them with caution" feel free, but I look at them as essentially poison.

 

Instead of trying to change the mind of others, let them find out the truth on their own accord, sometimes even logic won't get through the heads of some people.  :thumbsup:

 

So if someone asks we shouldn't give our 2 cents? As bad as it feels to be ignored I think I will continue to spread the word. I don't push it on people but if someone asks I will tell them exactly how I feel.

 

 

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I feel like I fell into this "trap" as well...an old friend from high school recently started getting bad headaches and was posting about them on FB.  It was beginning to sound like a doctor was going to send him down the road of benzos, so I sent him a PM.  Totally got brushed off.  Two weeks later he's posting about how Tramadol has changed his world  :'(  Seriously...  However, I was relieved to see a few other friends post up similar information to what I had shared privately.
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[45...]

 

I would like to think that I would be smart enough to listen if I were on the other side of this but I guess the reality is that  there really isn't anything we can do to convey the seriousness of this to most people.

 

 

Wise conclusion. If we were on the other  side, we too wouldn't have listened. I am sure there were several people who tried to warn me but I brushed them all off thinking they were paranoid. I have stopped warning people because it is most discouraging when you go out of your way to warn a long term user about withdrawals, advise him to get off by a slow taper and then learn later that he quit it without any issue -- then you end up scratching your head, wondering what happened?

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Wise conclusion. If we were on the other  side, we too wouldn't have listened. I am sure there were several people who tried to warn me but I brushed them all off thinking they were paranoid. I have stopped warning people because it is most discouraging when you go out of your way to warn a long term user about withdrawals, advise him to get off by a slow taper and then learn later that he quit it without any issue -- then you end up scratching your head, wondering what happened?

 

I had forgotten about this but someone did in fact try to warn me about benzos while I was on them and I completely blew it off. I had posted on another message board how they helped me and someone messaged me describing the horrors of these drugs. I thought that since I wasn't taking the full prescribed dose and I could skip days here and there that is was impossible for me to have an issue.

 

Maaaaan....was I wrong. And that's why I am so adamant about making the distinction between addiction and dependence and calling long term "withdrawal" what it really is (CNS damage). Telling someone that benzos are "addictive" might help someone with an addictive personality stay away from them but it does precisely the opposite for other people because it gives them a false sense of security.

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[45...]

I had forgotten about this but someone did in fact try to warn me about benzos while I was on them and I completely blew it off. I had posted on another message board how they helped me and someone messaged me describing the horrors of these drugs. I thought that since I wasn't taking the full prescribed dose and I could skip days here and there that is was impossible for me to have an issue.

 

Maaaaan....was I wrong. And that's why I am so adamant about making the distinction between addiction and dependence and calling long term "withdrawal" what it really is (CNS damage). Telling someone that benzos are "addictive" might help someone with an addictive personality stay away from them but it does precisely the opposite for other people because it gives them a false sense of security.

;D

 

I agree with you. We think we will get away but then we get stuck. Someone here once said -- some get hit by a truck, some get hit by cancer, I got hit by a benzo and that's that -  in the end we all have to deal with it.

 

I still warn people about the dangers of benzo but I don't give a lecture until the person is receptive. After I started tapering, I bought one set of tapering equipment for my brother and gave him detailed instructions on how to taper gently. It was only last week that he gave me the entire equipment back as mine had broken and he wasn't interested in tapering. It isn't that I won't help him if he ever wants to taper -- it is just that I can understand why he can't understand right now.

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I agree with you. We think we will get away but then we get stuck. Someone here once said -- some get hit by a truck, some get hit by cancer, I got hit by a benzo and that's that -  in the end we all have to deal with it.

 

I did have one doctor yell at me while I was in a middle of a panic attack (I wasn't on meds, and it was chest pain caused by heartburn), and the doctor said "if you start taking this, pretty soon, the whole bottle will not be enough". And it's one of those warnings along the lines of "if you take one of those pills, you're doomed". But it never went down for me in that fashion. In the context of that situation, what he said sounded like some sort of doomsday, rapid escalatation scenario, and it certainly didn't feel good being yelled at while in the middle of one of the worst panic attacks. There wasn't really any knowledge that he gave me or even mentions of tolerance, dependence or anything. I felt insulted that he'd consider me as someone who'd take a med like that in some sort of massively abusive, out-of-control way.

 

I wish someone gave me a more factual warning rooted in real life, along the lines of "this will help your anxiety/panic at first, but it can cause so many problems and side effects that it may not be worth it".....

 

I think that if people understood that they can get much worse while taking a reasonable/modest dose for a while would be a deterrent to most people. Most people just assume that they will be ok, because they take a low enough dose or only as needed. But this drug doesn't cooperate with the predominant way of thinking in mental health about how it should be used.

 

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I think that if people understood that they can get much worse while taking a reasonable/modest dose for a while would be a deterrent to most people. Most people just assume that they will be ok, because they take a low enough dose or only as needed. But this drug doesn't cooperate with the predominant way of thinking in mental health about how it should be used.

 

People need to understand that these drugs can cause the very things they are supposed to treat, along with a myriad of other painful, debilitating or even bizarre symptoms, and that these issues can persist for many years after the last dose.

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I think that if people understood that they can get much worse while taking a reasonable/modest dose for a while would be a deterrent to most people. Most people just assume that they will be ok, because they take a low enough dose or only as needed. But this drug doesn't cooperate with the predominant way of thinking in mental health about how it should be used.

 

People need to understand that these drugs can cause the very things they are supposed to treat, along with a myriad of other painful, debilitating or even bizarre symptoms, and that these issues can persist for many years after the last dose.

 

Very well said. I think that some people might be able to intuit that there could be some problems. The problem with explaining is that the problems some of these drugs cause can be 1,000 times worse than even Stephen King would have imagined.

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I had forgotten about this but someone did in fact try to warn me about benzos while I was on them and I completely blew it off. I had posted on another message board how they helped me and someone messaged me describing the horrors of these drugs. I thought that since I wasn't taking the full prescribed dose and I could skip days here and there that is was impossible for me to have an issue.

 

Maaaaan....was I wrong. And that's why I am so adamant about making the distinction between addiction and dependence and calling long term "withdrawal" what it really is (CNS damage). Telling someone that benzos are "addictive" might help someone with an addictive personality stay away from them but it does precisely the opposite for other people because it gives them a false sense of security.

 

This is exactly what happened to me. I was aware of the addictive potential of these drugs (diazepam in my case), but thought I was safe because I had never been addicted to anything else. Also, I took less than prescribed, just in case. I wish the half-life of these drugs was fully explained on the drug insert details. I never knew they accumulated in your system, even when taken sporadically at a low dose. Now, if someone had warned me about THAT...

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In the throes of acute and debilitating anxiety and panic, most of us here would have taken anything offered to make it go away.  Warnings of tolerance and dependence and other consequences would have been put into Scarlett O'Hara bucket to be thought about tomorrow.  My first go around I was not offered drugs and was offered counseling instead.  I remember thinking, "Here I am suffering from the equivalent of a gunshot wound and you're offering me a bandaid!"  I would have thrown down a pill in a hurry and not think twice.  Of course I am lucky I didn't get drugs that first time or my history would have been 10 years longer.  But my point is, like others, we probably don't/can't hear the warning bells initially even if on offer.  Most of us felt as though we would be the exception and only when further down the road and beginning to have problems were we able to face the truth.  Even then I was skeptical.  What??? I didn't take them every day!  I never abused them or go over the prescribed dose!  Its something most of us have to actually experience to get.

 

She

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Wise conclusion. If we were on the other  side, we too wouldn't have listened. I am sure there were several people who tried to warn me but I brushed them all off thinking they were paranoid. I have stopped warning people because it is most discouraging when you go out of your way to warn a long term user about withdrawals, advise him to get off by a slow taper and then learn later that he quit it without any issue -- then you end up scratching your head, wondering what happened?

 

I had forgotten about this but someone did in fact try to warn me about benzos while I was on them and I completely blew it off. I had posted on another message board how they helped me and someone messaged me describing the horrors of these drugs. I thought that since I wasn't taking the full prescribed dose and I could skip days here and there that is was impossible for me to have an issue.

 

Maaaaan....was I wrong. And that's why I am so adamant about making the distinction between addiction and dependence and calling long term "withdrawal" what it really is (CNS damage). Telling someone that benzos are "addictive" might help someone with an addictive personality stay away from them but it does precisely the opposite for other people because it gives them a false sense of security.

 

No doubt that some people have addictive personalities.  Personally I think benzos can create addictive personalities.  Tolerance to the drug being one of the hallmarks of benzos.  I believe the medical industry latched on to the term addictive personalities and applied it to benzos to cover themselves from liability.  This way if someone has a problem with benzos it becomes the patients fault, not the drug, not those prescribing it and not those who make benzos.  Not everyone who develops problems with benzos had an addictive personality when they started the drugs.  Addiction is not always a moral failing or character issue.  Addiction doesn’t discriminate.  Sometimes, I think, addiction is simply a virtue of the drug itself. 

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Quite a few people had told me benzodiazepines were a serious problem, including one bizarre behaving doctor, prior to my own true discovery of this in 2014.  I had been told this in 2011 and 2012.  Quite frankly, our movement has a credibility problem.  Not one person specifically, but the good information is riddled with poor sources and broad sweeping statements ("These drugs help nobody") etc.  And "Big Pharma" conspiracies. 

 

People don't care about that.  They care about why do I feel terrible?  I recall, in 2011, joining a group about benzodiazepines and being overwhelmed and running off scared.  A big aspect of that was my own cognitive dissonance and denial as this problem seemed too complex and big.  I wanted nothing to do with it.  I asked my doctor about it and he said everything I learned here isn't even possible.  That was the answer from the expert I wanted to hear to let this thing go.

 

The message that a benzodiazepine may be your problem joins a message that you can't just stop it and might not get relief, even feel quite worse, for a ridiculously sounding long period of time, with no medical support, or public belief.  I had a really hard time with the end.  I didn't believe medicine as a whole could be so ignorant.  This is a tough "pill" for any patient to swallow.

 

Also.  My brain was extremely damaged from the drug.

 

But here I am in 2018 still working on this horrible taper I started in 2014.  I deeply regret not starting in 2011, when I was only on for 2 years, but I was unaware of the broader implications.  I knew I had a drug dependency, I didn't know my seemingly unrelated (and undiagnosable) problems were created by this drug as well.  Irony: I was waiting for those to resolve to deal with this drug.

 

Anyway, my point is, the people I met still planted a seed.  It has blossomed.  I understand now.  They're part of my understanding story, which, due to the incompetence of the medical system, and the improbable sounding reality of benzodiazepines, did not grow as fast as it could have.

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FG!

 

Just so you know, I think and Im cetain others here do too, that you are an amazing person. You are thoughtful, considerate and yes vulnerable. That is what makes you real!

 

This so called Bo, can take a hike if he is too ultra cool to see the writing on the wall. Point is you have tried to save another soul from the hell these drugs often cause and sometimes a person's ego gets in the way of true enlightenment.

 

Just keep being you! There are enough Bo's in this world!!

 

Peace&Love

Hope &Faith

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Addiction is not always a moral failing or character issue.

 

Frankly I don't care what addiction is or isn't, beyond the fact that it really has nothing to do with what I am going through and the fact that the mischaracterization of benzos as being addictive is part of the reason why my brain has been destroyed for 7 years and counting. I'm sure people who have true addictions are judged unfairly all the time but I have my own problems to worry about and they have nothing to do with having been addicted to something.

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