1 Year Free

October 15th marked 1 year free from taking Ativan for 11 months plus a 5 month taper.  After having suffered a panic attack in March 2017 from an injury that brought on anxiety and insomnia, I trialed 10 different drugs (mostly sedating ADs), but took Ativan the majority of the time.  I was completely against taking these drugs and knew the danger, but I was desperate.  All of them gave me horrible side effects and left me worse than when I started. 

 

I ended up needing to take disability and eventually left my wonderful corporate job of 20 years.  Sadly, through this whole nightmare, my husband has been my greatest stressor.  It's opened my eyes to a lot.  He has not come to terms with what happened and does not care to understand.  He is not an empath.  He is an alcoholic and our marriage is very much on the rocks.  I can't help but think that I might have healed a long time ago if it were not for him.

 

Despite it all, have I seen improvement?  Yes!  The first 6 months after I jumped were acute.  I had extreme head pressure, eye twitches, body pain, internal buzzing at times, hand trembling, high heart rate, severe anxiety, suicidal ideation, depression, and of course, insomnia!  During acute, I managed to work a little at our business and take a vacation to Orlando.   

 

By the Spring, I started to have days where I felt better, not 100%, but better.  The head pressure is largely gone.  The eye twitches are gone.  I still have body pain when I don't sleep.  The buzzing is gone.  The hand trembling is very faint now and only happens on days when I don't sleep well.  The anxiety has lessened a lot, but is not totally gone.  I still suffer depression because of my situation.  The suicidal thoughts are gone, but again, on days when I don't sleep, I feel hopeless.  Summer was definitely better.  The sun is so healing for me.  It was also stressful as my MIL died of cancer and my SIL and husband were at odds.  The stress from this put me back a bit.  Things are settling down and I am determined to get back to focusing on my self-care (diet, exercise, meditation, yoga).

 

My biggest issue by far is the insomnia.  For the past 6 months, I have been in a pattern of sleeping one night and not the next.  At night, I take 2 tart cherry pills, l-theanine, 200mg, tryptophan 500mg and only .4mg of melatonin.  I have managed to ween myself down from taking 1.5mg since I jumped.  On nights when I don't sleep, I take more melatonin (5mg).  The yo-yo effect I'm causing is probably not good.  I hold on to the success stories who say they recovered from the insomnia.   

 

I have a friend who went through benzo withdrawal and has healed.  He credits his recovery to meditation and marijuana.  I'm jealous as I wish I could smoke, but I cannot tolerate it.  My husband thinks I should try psychedelics as we saw a special on 60 minutes about how it's being used to treat depression, anxiety and addiction.  I said I would do it if he did it to stop his drinking.  He doesn't get how much that is effecting me.   

 

In the meantime, I'm thinking about looking into CBT-I down at the University of Pennsylvania.  I so desperately want to regain my sleep and no longer have to rely on supplements to sleep again.  Before all the happened to me, I was a champion sleeper all my life, never any issues.  I'm trying my best not to lose hope that I will be stuck like this forever.  I have a 12 year old son, who is the light of my life, and I want to get back to living my life fully with him before he's gone and off to college.  I want to travel outside my time zone and perhaps find a job that I love again!

 

I wish everyone here continued healing and a fully recovery.  Keep fighting!!! 

 

 

Congratulations on your 1 year off! 

Congratulations sounds like healing is well under way for you, wishing you a speedy full recovery