How to know when is really anxiety or withdraw ?

My answer has always been--did you feel this anxiety before you were on the medication, even in a lesser form? If so, then it's at least partly true anxiety. Otherwise, it's the benzos.

But, really, it's not that important either way. If it feels like anxiety, then treat it like anxiety. With real anxiety, you gradually try to get over it. Too quickly, and it can cause problems. What happens in benzo withdrawal? If you do too much, you feel bad, so you do a little at a time. The methods do not have to contradict.

Constantly trying to figure it out won't help, and may give you something else to worry about. One thing I had to learn in withdrawal is that my constant quest for knowledge is not always useful. I really don't think knowing exactly what is causing your symptom will help.

I'd like to throw my $0.02 in as a man who recently has been struggling with and overcoming bouts with panic and anxiety. I was given klonopin 3 1/2 months ago to mitigate panic attacks during which time I started seeing a therapist. The therapist taught me how to use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to identify and combat the underpinnings of what was causing me to be anxious. That said one of the biggest things I learned from him was that often times, despite it's cause, anxiety tends to be a self fulfilling prophecy. This is to say that if you "wonder" or "think" that you're having an anxiety attack, you can easily talk yourself in to having one.

So, all that said, I will say that when I started my tapering process I was overcome with anxiety, but after my sessions with my councilor I was able to discern that in this case my anxiety was artificial as it was caused by my sudden drop in a brain altering. I was able to fend it off using my mental toolkit that I learned to use with help from a shrink.

That said, my suggestion would be this, and again I base this off my own experience. First, you need to quiet the detective in you. The more you worry about worry, the more you worry. Spending hours on end just asking yourself the question "is this withdrawal or is this anxiety" will result in the same conclusion regardless of the answer. You will be anxious. Now I know for a fact that it is nearly impossible to just stop thinking like that. I know that anyone who tells you "try not to worry" or "just don't think about it" is not very helpful, even if they're trying to be. The fact of the matter is that benzos have a tendency to cause you to feel anxious if you a) get use to your dose, or b) taper off them. There is also a likelihood that you may be prone to anxiety, which isn't a bad thing, it's just how some of us function.

I would suggest that you pick up the book "The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook: 4th Edition"[nobbc] http://is.gd/fA97T[/nobbc]and start by reading the first chapter, followed by the chapters on "Negative Self Talk" and "Mistaken Beliefs". I have found for me that learning about those, and doing the exercises in the book have allowed me to start conquering my anxiety all together. I'm not sure you're ever cured from something like this, but you can certainly be in control of it and after a long enough time you can be in effortless control.

I'm taking the long way around directly answering the question, but I wanted everyone to have this information. It's certainly helped me. So in a nutshell I submit this to you. "How do you know when it's anxiety or w/d?". You don't. It's likely both, however you can treat them both by examining yourself. Ask yourself, what were you thinking when you first started to feel anxious? What was the thought specifically? If you were just walking outside on a beautiful day thinking that you should mow the lawn and suddenly you get a shot of adrenaline, your heart rate picks up, your breathing gets rapid, AND you're tapering off a benzo, that's likely w/d. If you're thinking "I don't want to panic today. I don't want to have anxiety today" AND you're tapering off a benzo, that's probably real anxiety exacerbated by the w/d. With enough practice you'll know when you need to examine a real issue that causes you anxiety, or an artificial on set at which point you just have to take a minute, a few deep breaths and say "I'm getting better, this will pass." Trust me, it took me months to get to that area, but I got there and I believe you and everyone who suffers from panic and anxiety can too.

Please don't take this as me saying "it's all your fault" because with anxiety that too is a fallacy. With true anxiety you were either brought up in such a way that you believe X to be true, where X causes you anxiety, or an even in your life (even a cumulation of events) cause you to believe X. X is rarely true. It's a long road, and it's not always smooth, but the fact that you are all here tells me that you can handle it. The book really was a life saver, and if you can talk to a therapist WITH that book I believe that you can not only come out of w/d happily, but also have a better quality of life afterwards.

I wish you all the best of luck. I know all too well how easy it is to get stuck in an anxious loop, but I've also seen how you can break out of it as well.

Edit: Deactivated commercial link.

At nine months off, my anxiety was off the charts and all consuming, and the cog fog was indescribable.

I felt as though it was affecting my physical good health and that I would never be well again.

Last week, I told my doctor, a psychiatrist who believes in medication only as a VERY last resort (a rare find, I know),

that I was feeling desperate and needed some answers, that I could not fight this battle any longer by myself.

I was at the end of my rope.

He prescribed Zoloft, beginning at 25 then increasing to 50 in a few days.

The difference the Zoloft has made in one week is absolutely incredible.  My anxiety had calmed immensely and I feel as

though I am FINALLY going to make it out of this nightmare called withdrawal.  I finally have hope that the end is in sight

and I am going to get my life back.

I think my anxiety was taking on a life of it's own in by body and I needed something to help me combat it.

I really wanted to pull through this without medication and I had done everything possible to do that.

But, if Zoloft is what it takes for me to get well, I am going to give it a good try.

This has been the most difficult and horrible experience of my life, and I am glad finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I wish all the best to everyone here.  We are fighting battles that no one else can truly understand.

Percussion

aka Tish

Tish - you went into Rehab the day after you got off the K and the Ambien?  What did they do for you in Rehab?  Did they put you on more drugs?  If not, then how did they help you?  I have never heard of a rehab that doesn't put you on more drugs, well, maybe I'm thinking of hospital rehabs - they dose you up with a drug cocktail and good luck getting off that.  Just wondering.

Thanks for your input.

Hoping