30th birthday crisis

Hi BB’s. I’m having a bit of a rough night. I am 13 months off benzos, and next week will be my 30th  birthday. I feel like I’ve been robbed of the last 5 years of my life. My 20’s came and went while unknowingly dealing with inter-dose w/d. I’m slowly starting to make progress, but the depression is really weighing me down. Did anyone else feel like there life was over during withdrawal? I’m only 30 but for some reason I feel like my youth is gone, and my best days are long behind me. I’m hoping this feeling goes away.

Yes i did feel that way a lot during the taper and withdrawal. I'm old though, but feeling better now, and that there's life left for living. Congratulations on getting off benzos while you're still young. The 30s and 40s are the best decades, it's good to see you don't have to waste them.

I do understand depression and how you're feeling, trust me it gets a lot better. Hang in there and hope things turn around and your birthday will be a great starting point for the best years ot your life, and that youre doing it benzo free.

Thank you Bracess1 for the kind words. Much appreciated! 🙏🏻

I feel 100% the same. I turn 40 soon and feel like my prime years have been destroyed. Well, they have been destroyed. Unreal.

Hi, thank you for sharing your thoughts. I know exactly how you feel, and it's comforting to find that I'm not the only one.

 

Life for me has been generally hard for the last seven years. I'm turning 33 in a month, and I just recently found out that it might (or rather, likely is) due to benzos. I also feel like a huge chuck of a very important stage of my life was (and still is, since I just started tapering) very negatively affected by benzos. And the feeling of my life being over in some abstract way is horrible.

 

But! When I first found out about the whole benzo issue it felt like a HUGE relief: "So... I wasn't born to be like this? I feel like this because of the medication I'm on? This is not really me?". This realization helped me shift the blame from myself to the medication, at least a little bit.

 

Did you have a similar moment?

 

 

Positivevibes,

 

Happy Birthday!!!!  13 months off benzos is huge,  the farther away you get, the closer you get to healing.

 

I think we all feel robbed of the time we lost to these drugs, whether it be tolerance or withdrawal.  At times I felt intense jealousy because I saw people doing things that I used to do without  thought.  I finally had to let go of that anger, that sense of loss, the bitterness and accept the process.  Once I did that, getting through the rough parts was much easier.

 

While we can't regain lost time, we can forge a new future for us. You are very young and have a lot of good living left to do.  You'll get there, just give it time.  Being patient and allowing the central nervous system to recover is so worth the time and effort, in my opinion.

 

pianogirl 

30 years was before benzos before I became an alcoholic now I'm looking at 60 still on benzo off of alcohol and alone 30 you have so much more to have so much to look forward to

This year I turned 30 and was welcomed into the first year of my 30s with this unimaginable hell. Who knows how long this will last so I feel your pain. There goes my prime years AND any reward I worked my ass off during my 20s (went to graduate school, loads of debt, 80+ hour work weeks, days and nights spent studying for exams). I have never even held a real job and here I am. Disabled, hundreds of thousands in debt, no career, no significant other, no children, no future. Not worth it.

Happy Birthday! I totally understand, I am 32 turning 33 in february, and I feel like I should be living my life at the max right now, I just got married, so imagine that. I'm not even able to have unprotected sex with my husband because I am afraid I might get pregnant during taper....

But, nothing is forever

much love

Blossom

I can totally relate, my 33th birthday was 4 days ago, I feel the same way

On the one hand, you're only 30, true, but those years in your 20's are too precious to lose. I'm 61 and could care less losing a few years here and there at this point but it's a shame to see young people get screwed out of their youth. Lousy Benzos. So sorry.