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The two sides of the coin


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Hello my buddies,

 

I hope today finds you all doing better than I am.  I have a cold, and a wave, or a wave brought on by a cold or a cold brought on by a wave.  Who cares?

 

There are a ton of discussions about what meds can do TO or FOR us.  Most of us have been pretty badly damaged by benzos and/or other drugs, so the general consensus HERE is get off all psychiatric meds and let your body heal.

 

I had that opinion in the beginning because it worked for so many.  I have since discarded it completely, believing, with many exceptions, but in general believing we do not find our meds, our meds find us.

 

Yes there are horror stories about people given all the wrong meds for all the wrong reasons, or polydrugged into submission, and they end up damaged.  But there are also stories of people who took benzos to manage anxiety or insomnia that was otherwise unmanageable, and ended up damaged after years of use and mistakes.

 

I am at a more or less holding point of Valium at 12 mg, and will make slow cuts as my system and circumstances allow.  But I came across these two articles from two completely different perspectives one right after the other:

 

The first is right out of the benzobuddy playbook.  "The drugs made me sick and now I am getting off so I can heal naturally:"

https://kellybroganmd.com/the-breaking-point/?utm_source=Kelly+Brogan+MD+Newsletter&utm_campaign=8ad0d48f67-The+Breaking+Point&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d0f977a8c5-8ad0d48f67-124482271

 

The second is from a health blogger who does everything she can to be healthy, but openly admits she would have severe anxiety and depression without her medication.  I think it is important to note that she is not on a benzo, but an SSRI, and has been on other meds but not benzos.

 

I think it is also important also to note  that the FIRST article, the ANTI-MED article, is the one selling something.  The second is a blogger being honest.

 

I am not saying that we should all run out and get on meds.  I am saying that if after a few clean years you are looking at your life thinking, "What the F?" it is possible you might need some help.

 

If I could do it all over again, I would have given other meds a longer chance before reinstating, but then again, when I reinstated, I was a hysterical mess 24/7.  I think I personally needed to reinstate, and am now ready to transition to different meds, supps, and therapies from a calmer state of mind  I just wish I had gotten here sooner.  I will be doing a lot in the next several months, and will check in now and again.

 

If I could REALLY do it all over again, I would have taken remeron and only remeron as soon as it was available and never touched a benzo or Z-drug.

 

I hope anyone found that useful.

 

Be well and good luck,

 

ramcon1

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The second is from a health blogger who does everything she can to be healthy, but openly admits she would have severe anxiety and depression without her medication.  I think it is important to note that she is not on a benzo, but an SSRI, and has been on other meds but not benzos.

 

I don't see a second article, but my first thought when I read that someone would "suffer from severe anxiety and depression without medication" is that I would be really curious to know exactly what "doing everything to be healthy" means.

 

I would venture to guess that at least 90% of the anxiety and depression we suffer from today is curable with some combination of diet, exercise and lifestyle changes. Stressful, sedentary jobs, long commutes, rampant consumerism, victimhood society, poor diet, too much computer and tv time and not enough outdoor and social time is a recipe for disaster. And that just scratches the surface.

 

Maybe there were *some* people who suffer from some kind of genetic "defect" that no amount of lifestyle changes would help but I don't believe for one minute that most of what we see is some incurable condition that can only be "managed" with synthetic pharmaceutical drugs.

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The second is from a health blogger who does everything she can to be healthy, but openly admits she would have severe anxiety and depression without her medication.  I think it is important to note that she is not on a benzo, but an SSRI, and has been on other meds but not benzos.

 

I don't see a second article, but my first thought when I read that someone would "suffer from severe anxiety and depression without medication" is that I would be really curious to know exactly what "doing everything to be healthy" means.

 

I would venture to guess that at least 90% of the anxiety and depression we suffer from today is curable with some combination of diet, exercise and lifestyle changes. Stressful, sedentary jobs, long commutes, rampant consumerism, victimhood society, poor diet, too much computer and tv time and not enough outdoor and social time is a recipe for disaster. And that just scratches the surface.

 

Maybe there were *some* people who suffer from some kind of genetic "defect" that no amount of lifestyle changes would help but I don't believe for one minute that most of what we see is some incurable condition that can only be "managed" with synthetic pharmaceutical drugs.

 

 

 

 

I completely agree with Floridaguy

Most of this anxiety disorder and depression can be controlled in a great degree with a healthy happy social life it might not be curable but it definitely controllable

I suffered from anxiety almost all my life and I tried SSRI and it worked but has given me a lot of side effects at the time that I didn’t even know caused by the drug I was using not until I came off of the drug then I realized they all have been caused by the medication it reduced my anxiety for sure but for me it didn’t worth it at all cause the side effects was so much worse than my original condition

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I do agree that a lot of anxiety can be reduced by changing our environment, expectations, and stimuli.

 

What about the deeper damage for some caused, I believe, by how we were raised and inadvertently, but damaging nonetheless, by neurotic parents or some kind of less than fairy tale home life. I'm not even talking about actual abuse but something more like misdirected parenting, or joyless parenting, or whatever. I guess years of counseling?

 

Anyway, there is a reason I used drugs. I wasn't tricked by doctors or pharmaceutical companies. I believe part of the pain and discomfort I feel nowadays is simply who I would have been without drugs. I have to get used to that.

 

Drugs felt good and made me feel normal. I'm not afraid to admit that.

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Believe me Ramcom, if there was a drug that I thought would help me and not throw me into the burning furnace of hell I would take it. I bloody need one!!!

I think a lot of us would take drugs if we knew that they would help us in the short and long term. Trouble is, we have been hurt so horrendously and it is only sensible for us to avoid what has caused us to suffer.

I wish I could take something and one day I might have to try again. I really hope that I never have to but who knows.

Good luck

 

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You're a smart man. I'm sure you've researched the original placebo tests for these drugs. Then you know they do poorly long term. No one who knows anything about these meds believes they work. Read Peter Breggin and Robert Whittaker. I've spoken with Dr Breggin and a sweeter, more intelligent and dedicated man you're not likely to find and he is of a very different opinion than yours after a lifetime in the psychiatric field. Read his book Toxic Psychiatry, read Psychiatry Under the Influence by Whittaker. That one in particular explains the history of the problem. It is not about conspiracy theories, it's about the limits of human nature. Anti psychotics cause permanent damage. I am not a success story, far from it, but I had not even a hint of trouble before being given these drugs for sleep and never once, not one day did I abuse them, and based on what I've read, this chemical "cure" is nothing but a fraud perpetrated by a dying "science" for it's own survival.

 

I wish you nothing but happiness, Ramcom, but healing does take time, a lot of time, not a couple of years for us, here, but a good solid handful of doing NOTHING. NOTHING. No pills, no booze, no weed. If you keep picking at a scab it doesn't heal. It's not rocket science. You never do give it a chance because the suffering is too great. I understand that. I'm not judging you for it. I did the same thing, I reinstated because it just got to be too much. It didn't work. It's not working for you either. At a certain point, these drugs don't work, none of them do, they all backfire, this is something the drug companies know. Continuing down that road will only lead to more pain. If I hadn't reinstated... but I had to, I know it did. I hope I never feel I have to again. I think at this point I'd rather do just about anything than take more pills, and deal with more doctor's who know nothing, but that's me.

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Here is the link to the second story

 

https://www.thehealthymaven.com/2018/08/my-mental-health-story.html

 

If it doesn't work, copy paste.

 

This woman does all of the things one should do to promote good mental health, but would have no life without her meds.

 

I am having a horrific day.  I had a 3 hour window yesterday.  If I cannot find something to stop the pain that is not a benzo, I know I am not going to make it.

 

 

 

Good luck to all of you.

 

ramcon1

 

For the sake of our membership, all references to self-harm and/or harming others have been removed from this thread.

Please click on this link if you are thinking about suicide, self-harm, or harming others: Self-Harm/Ideation (Revised)

 

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[78...]

proof that psychiatric drugs are bad and further proof that pharmaceutical companies know this and even further proof that doctors are in cohorts with drug cos:

 

 

 

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I'm really sorry Ramcom but the lady in the blog you posted will have to come off her drugs one day; doesn't everyone have to come off or switch due to tolerance or side effects?

 

Perhaps I am wrong but things can look awfully rosy for a while on drugs but when you try to come off them a lot of people appreciate how minimal their depression or anxiety was preceding the drugs.

 

Sorry. I wish this wasnt the case. I really do. I also understand why you have to go on them; Ive been there and will probably be there again one day.

 

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If you really ant to be depressed read this:

 

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2045125317753340

 

It basically says that managing protracted benzo withdrawal will probably require a med, but everything that everyone has tried has failed.

 

And Kpin99, I cannot tell what you are trying to say, and I mean that literally.  Your quote with the eyes looking up implies that you believe that psyche meds do work when applied correctly, and then you post that you think it is all a scam with a link to a youtube video about Langrangian Interpolation.

 

Please explain.

 

Ramcon1

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Just a heads up that people need to be weary of Kpin (aka Vineet).  Since the day he joined BB some 8 years ago, his modus operandi appears to be to promote and encourage as many members as possible to get on antidepressants.  He deleted his Vineet account in a huff after being exposed for deliberately trying to deceive everyone by making blatantly untruthful claims about SSRIs, including throwing down misleading "supportive" links with intent to deceive.

 

I see just a week or so ago, he successfully jumped from an uneventful taper and I have no idea what he's still doing on BB, never mind here on the Protracted board. 

 

I will say, if he's not being paid by the pharmaceutical companies for his zealous efforts to promote antidepressants, then he's simply not a businessman, he could be making some very serious dough.  He's *that* good!

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[78...]

I think it is ridiculous to believe that psychiatric drugs do no good and that no one benefits from them. It is equally ridiculous to believe that everything psychiatry related is a clever marketing gimmick or carefully orchestrated charade to fool us innocents. Look at how many people are subscribed to BB and look at how many benzos are sold every year. There' a big gap - it's the unexplained dark energy that abounds in our universe. The gap accounts for 90 percent of matter or millions taking benzos who are not seen and not heard. :laugh:

 

Take any n data points.

Heck, take an infinite data points.

The data points need not have any symmetry or any such beautiful, logical property. N utterly random data points.

 

You can use the Lagrangian to now construct an identity, as a polynomial interpolation and show that they are well behaved and fall into a neat, predictable and perfectly logical polynomial relation. :laugh: if you are dogged and a bit crazy enough, you can use Lagrangian interpolation and then use logic to get illogical. Nobody can fault you for being illogical then.  :laugh: the Lagrangian is Peter briggins et Al.

 

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My Dad is an 88 year old man who is healthier than most 88 year old men.  He has been on Zoloft for at least the last 15 years, and will probably die on it.

 

My brother, on the other hand, had a tough time in his life.  He was on Zoloft for about 2 years, then when he felt ok, he tapered off in 2 months.

 

I have a few codes.  Code #1 is when everyone suspects malice, I suspect ignorance.  I have never been wrong about that one.

 

There is no scam to push meds on people who do not need them.  Not by "big pharma" and certainly not by doctors.  Do pharmaceutical companies make money?  Of course they do.  They are businesses.  I have already posted a really good link proving that the doctor kickback is conspiracy theory horseshit, as is "Anatomy of an Epidemic."  Sells books.

 

Will the protracted heal?  I have no idea.  Will a med help?  I have no idea.  I am in raw, brutal, survival mode, never knowing what I am going to wake up to or why.

 

I know this, if someone is sick, gather data and try to treat the illness.  To tell someone at year 7 or even year 4 "just hang in there, your body will heal itself," has got to be the most irresponsible destructive bullshit I have ever heard. 

 

I am in a wave and getting outta here.  By the way

WE NEVER HEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Oh wow Kpin, a good reminder as to why I stopped coming here. I was speaking out of kindness and in good faith and would never pull what you just did. Lousy. Mean spirited. I'm not wrong, actually. I'm not. I still would never treat a fellow passenger the way you just treated me, shame on you.

 

 

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[78...]

So sorry to hear you are in distress ramcon. Hugs for you. I trust you will work it out in time. You are an intelligent man and I've been following your progress for many years. Since this is my last day today (tomorrow my ID gets deleted as per my request), let me ramble on -

 

Ten years ago, my brother was in severe anxiety and had lived his whole life treating his condition with alternative meds and yoga. He hated drugs but this time he caved in to psychiatry - his breakdown was that bad. He says benzos saved his life. He now believes that sometimes you need meds to fix the brain and meditation and yoga and exercise can help only so much. I feared he would, like me, enter tolerance and then have to traumatically quit his benzo. That did not happen - on the contrary I entered tolerance and quit my benzo. I never needed my benzo in the first place so I'm not complaining.

 

A cousin of mine was on the verge of separation from her hubby and family. Her hubby would not let her take ADs to fix her depression because of the stigma associated with having a mentally ill wife. Ultimately he caved in. My cousin is fine now and this incident is twenty years old.

 

Many of these medicines were discovered when trying to find cures for horses, cattle, insects or anaesthesia. Subsequently they were found to work on mental illnesses. So? I mentioned this because these are some of the type of arguments used to damn these drugs.

 

Are protracted people here faking it? No way.

 

Well they get cured? I don't know.

 

Are they sick because of their benzo withdrawal? I don't know man, I don't know.

 

There was a guy called Eli in BB. he is sick right now. His story is there in BB.

 

Well, let me zoom out and recount his story -

 

Twenty years ago Eli fell sick. Severe anxiety and depressed. It's always severe anxiety and depressed when Eli falls sick. So I'll just say he fell sick.

 

Doc gave him Xanax. He got ok.

 

Again he fell sick. It's cos doc added paxil he figured. He stopped paxil and took two years to recover from a single dose of paxil. Drinking more helped.

 

Yet again he fell sick. It's now cos of drinking he felt. So he stopped drinking but he did not recover. So he and his doc figured it must be cos of tolerance to K that he was also taking. So he increased K. He fell even more sick. So he should stop K he realized because K was probably the culprit. He stopped and felt even more sick. It took him two years to recover from benzo withdrawal.

 

Again he fell sick. This time it was cos of experiments with binaural beats. It's been eight months... He is still recovering.

 

In this short story, I see only one Lagrangian - namely that he falls sick with a predictable frequency. He blames whatever he sees in front of him.

 

Same story Jennifer, kay2020 (she falls sick to bp meds... These days she falls sick to any drug.. she calls it drug akathisa)

 

How does it matter if you blame it on a benzo? The benzo is a cold, unthinking pill. You can personify it and blame it but it does not care. Even if it knows the truth, it cannot tell you.

 

I don't know the truth.

 

There are members here who believe exercise, mindfulness etc can cure most anxiety cases. And that drugs are not necessary. And these people have been protracted for only a decade. It makes me laugh. They don't seem to use their wisdom on themselves.

 

@abcd - I will pray for you. You have been in protracted withdrawal for long and I can see how it is affecting your nerves. Hang in there... Time heals (if meds don't) :thumbsup:

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[78...]

Oh wow Kpin, a good reminder as to why I stopped coming here. I was speaking out of kindness and in good faith and would never pull what you just did. Lousy. Mean spirited. I'm not wrong, actually. I'm not. I still would never treat a fellow passenger the way you just treated me, shame on you.

 

Marina, please don't take it personally. My comments were in a general sense and I wish to apologise for any affront. I will admit that I got a bit carried away in my sarcasm, but once again, I did not mean to attack anyone personally. Apologies.

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First, my buddies, my last post is what a panic attack looks like on a screen.  Whoa.  Sorry about that.  Really.

 

Second, Kpin, I am with you now, and I now almost understand your lagrangian reference, but if that was supposed to be sarcasm underneath the link, it confused the hell out of me.  Granted I am in a wave and was having an actual glutamate storm at the time, but still, I am an engineer and there was no way I was going to make that leap without the follow up posts.  You might be a true genius, but if you are going to use higher math to make a good point, you have to explain it waaaaaaaay better or you will both confuse and annoy people.

 

I am no longer annoyed, but my lagrangian polynomials are not what they used to be.  Do me and the rest of us a favor and explain how that proves that we are making leaps in logic we should not make.

 

Third and last, in the month of June, I was feeling better and had tapered quite a bit.  Not crazy, down from 11 mg to 8.5 in 2 months.  Then July came and all hell broke loose.  It has been months of almost continuous torture.  I still have waves and windows, and more often than not, like right now, it feels like valium is one foot on the break with the other on the gas when what I really want is to let up on the gas.  Where the hell is all this glutamate coming from?

 

I have said more than once, in the most general of terms, metabolism is the transmission side, and our nerve structure the reception side.  My life is unmanageable even with valium, so I am going to collect data from both sides with the help of some good docs, and see if I can find a better solution than valium.  I just hope I can hold on to my sanity long enough to figure a way out of this hell.

 

Ramcon1

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Lots of points I could respond to but I am realizing it is pointless. You have made up your mind and everything you post is an attempt to justify your theory that some people are inherently broken and need to find some drug or drugs that will "fix" them.

 

I wish you luck ramcon, I really do. I personally believe that you are trying to fight fire with a nuclear bomb, but what do I know, I am still sick just like everyone else here.

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Lots of points I could respond to but I am realizing it is pointless. You have made up your mind and everything you post is an attempt to justify your theory that some people are inherently broken and need to find some drug or drugs that will "fix" them.

 

I wish you luck ramcon, I really do. I personally believe that you are trying to fight fire with a nuclear bomb, but what do I know, I am still sick just like everyone else here.

 

Agree, and Kpin is ridiculous. Waste of time to read or comment.

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@abcd - I will pray for you. You have been in protracted withdrawal for long and I can see how it is affecting your nerves. Hang in there... Time heals (if meds don't) :thumbsup:

 

 

Thanks, Kpin/Vineet, I'll pray for you too, Dude.  You've been obsessed with psychiatric forums and psych drugs and alcohol for many years and I can only imagine how that must be affecting you.  Seriously, hats off to you, Dude, I read your Vineet posts from beginning to end, every single one of them and, damnit, you are sooo GOOD at what you do!!!  You got away with it for a long time, didn't you? 

 

Okay, so cheerio for now, you hang in there as well, keep popping those SSRIs (it's good stuff) ...  and, hey, we'll look forward to seeing you back again under your new alias.  :thumbsup:::)

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[78...]

Second, Kpin, I am with you now, and I now almost understand your lagrangian reference, but if that was supposed to be sarcasm underneath the link, it confused the hell out of me.  Granted I am in a wave and was having an actual glutamate storm at the time, but still, I am an engineer and there was no way I was going to make that leap without the follow up posts.  You might be a true genius, but if you are going to use higher math to make a good point, you have to explain it waaaaaaaay better or you will both confuse and annoy people.

:laugh: i think i had subconsciously wanted to weave the lagrangian in a random post for a longgg time.

 

I am no longer annoyed, but my lagrangian polynomials are not what they used to be.  Do me and the rest of us a favor and explain how that proves that we are making leaps in logic we should not make.

 

what more to say... first off, i do not have any answers or know the truth etc.

 

but the sort of pyrotechnics irritating cranks like peter briggins can engage in is all to familiar to me. give briggins random data points and he will knit it seamlessly to prove to the reader - the reader who already mistrusts psychiatry -- that the reader is right. the readers and peter are also random data points themselves, but they all end up singing the same tune. was it you who said meds find us? well, we don't find peter -- peter finds us. he finds those who "need him" to validate their prejudices. these are dirty vicious circles. as for logic... logic is a prostitute. you can use logic to prove illogic.

 

If a 'religion' is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one.

John D. Barrow, The Artful Universe (1995)

 

take something i read earlier today. to paraphrase, briggins rates drugs accordingly by severity of withdrawal; antipsychotics, then ssris, lastly benzos. now how many briggin fans in BB would agree with briggins here? none. but how many would trash briggins for making careless statements like this that could hurt benzo sufferers? none. how can both be none in a logical world?

 

so let us not talk about the logical soundness of what briggin says or the logical soundness behind the superstitions of BB members. people are only wanting to shout down those in disagreement with their prejudices. tolerance, empathy, abstaining from gross generalizations --- all the virtues that are necessary before one can use human logic (which is a prostitute) be damned. just shout them down.

 

Third and last, in the month of June, I was feeling better and had tapered quite a bit.  Not crazy, down from 11 mg to 8.5 in 2 months.  Then July came and all hell broke loose.  It has been months of almost continuous torture.  I still have waves and windows, and more often than not, like right now, it feels like valium is one foot on the break with the other on the gas when what I really want is to let up on the gas.  Where the hell is all this glutamate coming from?

 

hey, let me tell you my story. i started xanax in 1997. worked my way upto 0.75 mg. started drinking too. my use was recreational and then i became addicted to xanax. i had 2 CTs and i couldn't understand why i felt like death every time i tried to stop xanax. eventually i wised up. so i quit drinking in 2016 but strangely started feeling like death. i was in tolerance withdrawal to my xanax i understood. i realized i'd die if i tapered in that situation. so i started prozac and felt on top of the world. i then tapered my xanax and felt no withdrawals. nothing. not a single day of malaise, not a single night of insomnia. i am free today. but i know not exactly what happened with me. if i use my logical cap, i could say -- the only thing i did different in the taper was work out every day. so yes, exercise cures withdrawal... but that would not be convincing. maybe prozac helped... but prozac helped me claw out of tolerance withdrawal... would it mask benzo withdrawals too?

 

did i ever have benzo withdrawal? -- of course i did when i tried to CT. benzo withdrawal is real. i also got tolerance withdrawal when i quit drinking.

then why did i not get withdrawals when i tapered? -- i don't know. what is published out there is evidently not the whole story.

 

so it pays to keep experimenting and be open to ideas. avoid jumping with people who jump to conclusions.

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[78...]

Dude, I read your Vineet posts from beginning to end, every single one of them and, damnit, you are sooo GOOD at what you do!!!  You got away with it for a long time, didn't you? 

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: you have to go down as my biggest fan you know. i wanted to be a fiction writer in college. then god knows what happened and here i am, 53, running a steel biz. in kolkata with 2 sons and a gorgeous wife. i can't make sense of life. i have given up making sense too.  :laugh: and for the first time in my life i am not ashamed of having given up trying to make sense of life. so 2 months ago i threw away all my books and trashed all i had ever written -- because i was very angry with god, universe and above all, human logic. perhaps 2 months ago or even before, i would have felt very flattered by someone claiming that they had read all i wrote.

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Ramcon,

you had some topics I found it really interesting to follow and to discuss with you. Now it seems you only come back on the board when you are not feeling well to cry and yell "we never heal" and to... yeah, what? Discuss? WE have understood that you want to find a med that helps you, and we have noted that you think everyone has a post-benzo-damage and will not heal. Its okey for me. I hope you will find a medication that will finally help you.

I am happy I dont struggle with the idea of having a damage or healing or whatever, I am doing my steps back into life no matter what.

Best wishes,

Marigold

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