Please help. Scared and need some advice

Hi,

I am looking fir some advice. For the last 6 months I have been really struggling with my mental health. Specifically Depersonalisation/Derealisation, depression and anxiety. This all started in November 17 around the time I found out about the pregnancy of my first child  (planned).

I had a bad relaspe in all.of my symptoms. At this point I had been meds free for nearly 2 years (Mirtazapine) and didn't have any prior experience with benzo usage or dependence. I ended up going back onto the Mirtazapine again in Dec 17 as things had gotten really bad and I was worrying because my girlfriend was pregnant and I wanted to be well. The Mirtazapine didn't seem to work like the first time around and I came off it (too fast) and was put on citalopram, I had a horrible reaction what I believe to be Akathesia and ended up in hospital psych ward for 3 weeks. In this period they prescibed me Diazepam most days at around 5-10mg a day and put me back onto the Mirtazapine at 15mg. Upon leaving the hospital i stopped the benzo because I didn't want to become dependent. Following that things have jist gotten worse and worse for me. The dpdr have gotten to a point where I feel like ive lost my sense of self, I don't get any joy from things and life just feels meaningless, I have constant anxiety and feelings of terror. Things have just been getting progressively worse. As I didn't think the Mirtazapine was working and could of been causing these issues I started to taper around a month ago and things got even worse. I had a cisntant feeling of fear and terror, i feel hopeless, I don't remember anything about my life and feel like I'm almost losing touch with reality. My memories feel fake and like a dream, I have constant anxiety. Anhedonhia and nothing i used to enjoy brings me any happiness. I ended up back in the hospital because things got so bad. Constant dark intrusive thoughts and suicidal ideation and I'm terrified because I have a baby on the way and so desperatly want to be there for her and my partner. I'm in cosntant state of tears because I can't see anyway out of this and the thought of not being able to make it is killing me.

In the hospital last week they took me off Mirtazapine 15mg to.0mg overnight so pretty much CT and they were giving me lorazapam For 5 days at 1mg a day. The hospital didn't really help and I've been discharged. Since leaving I have had the worst nausea start with anxiety as soon as I wake up. All the previous symptoms just seem to be getting worse. I have been prescibed Lorazapam and have noticed that when I take one the edge is taken off the symptoms drastically.

my main questions today are -

Can I be in Benzo withdrawel from just 3 weeks use back in December?

Could this be due to the Mirtazapine withdrawel and not benzo?

Would the fact that taking lorazepam significantly reduces symptoms within 30 mins suggest that this is benzo withdrawel?

Should I continue to take lorazapam/taper?

As soon as I wake up in the morning all the symptoms are back. Horrible nausea and anxiety and tinnitus.

I'm desperate for some help because I can't continue to live like this. I miss feeling comfortable in my body. I miss feeling happiness and looking forwards to the future. Every second feels like hell at the moment.

Thank you. Jordan

Hi Jordan

sorry to hear your struggling currently and i feel for your situation with the baby. Are you new to this site? if you could give us a bit of history it would help.

In the meantime,  I will try to answer your questions:

Can I be in Benzo withdrawel from just 3 weeks use back in December?  - according to the books ive read (Kumar and Clarke medical textbook and many others), anything from 7-10 days onward is enough for "addiction" to take place with these very strong drugs

Could this be due to the Mirtazapine withdrawal and not benzo? - my own experience of mirtazapine withdrawal was very different to benzo's. Mirtazapine gave me more symptoms then alleviated and so I got off it and felt better, not worse. perhaps others can shed more light. generally speaking anti depressants from my experience don't have such an extensive symptom profile as benzos when withdrawing. its more limited to headaches, nausea, low mood, agitation, anxiety etc. look up antidepressant discontinuation syndrome in afp here: https://www.aafp.org/afp/2006/0801/p449.html.

this is what stopping anti depressants usually causes. Table 2 is a complete list of the symptoms you should expect SPECIFIC TO mirtazapine. It is broken down into SSRI, MAOI, atypical AD etc. Mirtazapine is an atypical antidepressant. This will tell you what the evidence says people with mirtazapine withdrawal go through specifically and not just list all of them which is annoying and vague

Would the fact that taking lorazepam significantly reduces symptoms within 30 mins suggest that this is benzo withdrawel? hard to say. Generally as a rule of thumb, if your addicted to a substance which causes withdrawal symptoms and then you re-administer the drug and the symptoms disappear, then you could say thats pretty likely. I did. I noticed the connection when I had my first panic attack and went to the hospital and they gave me Valium and surprise, all my symptoms went away. So i sort of had an epiphany at that moment, that plus all the other theories were dead ends (tests normal). It could however just be covering up an underlying problem which is why you should get check up by a doctor first before assigning blame to benzos

Should I continue to take lorazapam/taper? - CT (colt turkey) is not a good idea with benzo's. I CT'd and I wished I hadnt. I cant tell you what to do. Only what i did and what i would do if i could do it again. I would not Cold turkey again, not a chance. its the less safe option from what ive read and experienced. Many Benzo buddies on here can advise you on correct ways to taper safely using the ashton manual etc and i would seek them out pronto. Cold turkey may cause very serious complication like seizures and halucinations. Please look into this with your doctor before making a decision

Im sorry i cant give firm answers but i hope this helps. what i can say with certainty is definitely discuss this with your doctor. benzo buddies are not your doctors. The doctors will have your complete medical history which is incredibly important in all medical issues like this. If i could go back knowing what i know now, I would ask for a referral by your primary doctor to an addiction specialist who specialized in benzo withdrawal if possible. Get a decent opinion and if they know they're stuff then stick with them.

Hope this helped, happy to answer any more q's if you need.

I know this is very scary and horrible but you can get through it. I was where you are and Im much much better now. it does get easier.

Pinky