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Benzo withdraw from another perspective. My personal views.


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  Benzo withdraw from another perspective.

 

    My personal views.

 

    First of all, let me give you reassurance right from the start because this is one of our first obsessions with benzo withdraw/recovery, although I will be mentioning this more as we go on. You are NOT dying! You do NOT have a fatal disease! You WILL recover! No matter how much you are told this, you can’t quite believe it, that’s part of what I feel benzo’s were designed for, call it paranoia or whatever but this my belief, benzo’s are horrible things if over used at all and this is something that can and will destroy the mind and body, In a nutshell it totally destroys the soul, then it can take over your mind as a form of brainwashing.

 

    We were being brainwashed all the time we took benzo’s, the longer we are taking them, the more this is reinforced. This doesn’t seem to be evident until we stop using them, then the crap hits the fan. As weeks turn into months the belief that we are dying becomes stronger. This is what causes benzo’s to be so dangerous. It’s the stopping that starts the trouble. So what do we do? do we take another pill? This would be the start of an even more vicious cycle called kindling. I’m not going into that too much because I think you might already know. Once this takes hold, it just escalates the whole process of withdrawing, it becomes even more difficult.

 

    Why would they (big pharma) want to do this? Money and control, then control leads to money and so on. Benzo’s can be extremely addictive for some and there are various benzo’s to tempt us. Some of us might not become addicted so easily, although enough will and this ensures big pharma have a steady amount of customers. If we don’t abide, (we decide we don’t ever want there drugs again) then we end up in a proper mess, you’re no longer needed, so you’re left to fend for yourself because what use are you if they don’t have your money or control, they just don’t give a damn about us. So there’s only three ways out of this mess and I’m going to tell you how to escape.

 

    First of all though, just what do these pills do for you? Well it’s no good trying to rob your soul without giving something. The very first time I took Valium was for severe muscle spasms in my back after an injury which also stopped me from sleeping, one dose of Valium and the spasms disappear within 20 minutes, then I fell asleep for 8 hours solid. The magic pill, what a God sent and the most wonderful pill ever, I couldn’t believe my luck, I thought my prayers were answered. See the trade off, I bet your story was much the same. They work fantastic on the first use for just about most people and you can just take them anytime and there you have it, your soul has been sold!

 

    So you want to stop? Well then there are only two ways out now! You could carry on taking the magic pill, but eventually they won’t work, so that’s an option off the list. I think most of us have thought about the second option, suicide, it’s a dirty sort of word to me, but let’s not beat about the bush, we’re all grown up enough to take the pills and I certainly thought about this option on a daily basis, for me though it was just an escape door that seemed like an option if things were really bad, the thought of it helped me manage my way through. But this isn’t even an option, because it’s game over then, you’ve lost! and so have all your family and friends. Third option...STOP!

 

    If you want your life back then you need your soul and you’re going to have to fight for it like hell. After all, you traded your soul in, you had all that anxiety, pain, sleeplessness etc. taken away for months or even years, so the trade off is going to cost you. We’re not talking money now, you’ll have to pay for it with pain, brutal mental and physical torture. I won’t trivialise this, it’s going to hurt, it hurt me and many people before me and it will hurt many after me. But you won’t die! As much as you think you are dying, you will NOT die. You will be fixed just like you were before you ever took a benzo, although you’ll be stronger, fitter, happier and so much the more wiser.

 

    Nobody said it would be easy and that’s an understatement. When you attempt this, make sure you have done your homework. I just jumped, it was only a small dose, although this doesn’t seem to make such a difference. Personally I feel it has a lot to do with how long one has taken them, my use was over many years on and off and a five year continual run, then I jumped and suffered terribly, as most of us do. See, everyone’s individual experience is the worst, ask fellow sufferers and they will tell you that they felt that they had suffered more than the next person. We all just seem to feel we are going to die, that I’m the one person that ain’t going to make it.

 

"I will never get better " YES you will!

"I will feel like this for the rest of my life" NO you won’t!

"My case is different to everyone else’s " NO it’s not!

"I have something seriously wrong with me" NO you don’t!

"I’m just one of them who won’t get better" YES you will!

It will cause you to feel certain that you’re the one who doesn’t make it and you will be totally brainwashed into this way of thinking, it’s really quite disgustingly cleaver how it makes one think and feel like this. But you have to be reassured time after time after time and then some more just to make sure. You will heal absolutely and time is your only sure way and also never ever take a benzo again.

 

    Some people don’t even realise they are healing as it is so very gradual and that you don’t even realise you are getting better. You need to look back months, (not days or weeks) yes, months to see improvement. Don’t expect to get better in a few weeks otherwise you’ll be sadly disappointed, after all it probably took you months or years to become sick. Give it at least ten percent of the time you were using, although most people see a definite improvement at the six month mark and most see nearly full recovery six to twelve months, but don’t count it on the calendar, you will fix when it’s fixed and the golden rule to complete healing is "Never ever give up!"

 

    So how did I do it? I’m no special case, I jumped cold turkey and wondered what the hell was happening. My God I thought, what the hell is this all about. I quickly realised, it was so much the same as the amitriptyline I had stopped a couple of years prior, although I did have the sense to taper these, well I was on 120mg at the time. Just 5mg of Valium was doing this to me. I very quickly educated myself, I read everything and anything, every bit of literature I could get my eyes on, I spent six hours a day on the internet, I went to the library, phoned help centres, I did everything I could all day and every day educating myself as to what the hell was happening.

 

    After several months came a new fantastic source of information and understanding, salvation at last, BB's! And every God damn person was experiencing the same cruel torture. Straight away I felt like trying to help everybody even though I was and am as of today (I’m still only7 ½ months out whilst writing this) suffering from the benzo recovery as I call it. I am writing this whether I’m in a wave or a window because I found the the best thing one can do whilst suffering is to distract yourself, nothing too physical though and don’t distract with food, reading and writing is my fix and that’s why I wrote this story, two birds with one stone, a win win for us all.

 

    So everyone seemed to be obsessed about what to eat drink or what pills or medications should be used in this whole process. Firstly, any pills for me are out of the question, I’ll never take another pill of any kind in my life if I can help it. I might think differently about this as time goes on, like if I’m at the dentist in a few years time or if I’m up for an operation or have an accident or emergency of some kind, but as for now at this moment in time I’m keeping well away from the doctor and his chemicals. Yes that’s all they are, even vitamin pills, they don’t extract the vitamins out of fruit or vegetables, do you imagine that they extract vitamin b out of an egg, you’re nuts if you think that any pills are anything but poisonous! Or haven’t you learnt yet!

 

    Having gotten pills off the menu, we turn our thoughts to just food and drink, sleep and recovery. Simple, not for everyone! Thing is you’ve caused some damage along the way, now let me emphasis that "damage" like if you run your car into a brick wall, it’s damage repairable. So it can be fixed just like it was before and the good thing is your body will do all this for you without much help. You’re going to have to eat healthy though, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and meats, in fact the better you eat the better it will fix and the better you will sleep. I choose to eat anything, although keep away from too much raw sugar, that’s in cakes too, but everything in moderation I find for me, but we are all different.

 

    Then there is drink and just to drink water at this point in your life would be cruel. Again, drink whatever you like in moderation except for alcohol, it’s an obvious no no. I drink coffee, just light and only occasionally, say twice a week. I drink tea every day, again only one cup. See it’s all about moderation and not exclusion. If you were to exclude everything then not only does it get very boring but you will not fully recover because you will not have any tolerance to anything, so live life as you mean to carry on but use sense. I would steer clear of coke and sugar loaded drinks, but I do have a non alcoholic beer occasionally. Plenty of water though, again don’t drink gallons of it, just drink when you’re thirsty.

 

    Sleeping is very important as we all know. In the early days I suffered terrible insomnia, 7 ½ months out now and I’m getting 6-7 hours almost every night. It’s been a slow progression to this and even if I wake and think I’ve been awake for ages, I haven’t as I recorded myself and found that I was falling back to sleep within minutes, it’s just a trick on your mind, you think you’re awake but really you’re asleep, it’s called Pseudoinsomnia, google this one. To ensure my sleep was full as possible I made sure I exercised every day and always got out of bed before 8am. I kept to these rules because it fixes us and also gave me an appetite.

 

    I walk two Miles in the morning and two in the evening at the present, I have always walked six miles a day for many years, but had to reduce it to two miles total in my first weeks of withdraw and I am building it up again. It was very hard going in those early days and I was slow, then I started to have a lot of muscle and bone pain and still do, this is diminishing as is every other symptom I’ve had. I have picked up pace in the last few weeks, I’ve just been listening to my body and I want to walk more soon, so there is definite recovery happening, I never did think that I would get worse, we all get better if you just keep moving, I know it’s hard at first, just keep fighting.

 

    There is great Excitement of knowing you are about to have a new life, especially as those windows start appearing. As I mentioned previously, the recovery is painfully slow and doesn’t fix in a linear way. It’s so slow you think that you’re not moving, a bit like the hour hand on a clock, if you look at it, it doesn’t move, but given enough time and sure enough there’s movement. You will all get better, you will be back to your old self, you don’t have to do anything special, time is your answer and full recovery will come to all of us. I was the biggest doubter of them all, now I see the light and know I will keep improving and that will carry on until this episode of my/your life is just a distant memory. Good luck!

 

 

Now I’m back to normal. Banana Man, a Superhero!

 

Also see...

 

http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=235341.0

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This is exactly how this is!  Stay with it!  You got this!  You will persevere!  Thanks Bananaman!

 

Keep on the Sunnyside!

 

B

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  Benzo withdraw from another perspective.

 

    My personal views.

 

    First of all, let me give you reassurance right from the start because this is one of our first obsessions with benzo withdraw/recovery, although I will be mentioning this more as we go on. You are NOT dying! You do NOT have a fatal disease! You WILL recover! No matter how much you are told this, you can’t quite believe it, that’s part of what I feel benzo’s were designed for, call it paranoia or whatever but this my belief, benzo’s are horrible things if over used at all and this is something that can and will destroy the mind and body, In a nutshell it totally destroys the soul, then it can take over your mind as a form of brainwashing.

 

    We were being brainwashed all the time we took benzo’s, the longer we are taking them, the more this is reinforced. This doesn’t seem to be evident until we stop using them, then the crap hits the fan. As weeks turn into months the belief that we are dying becomes stronger. This is what causes benzo’s to be so dangerous. It’s the stopping that starts the trouble. So what do we do? do we take another pill? This would be the start of an even more vicious cycle called kindling. I’m not going into that too much because I think you might already know. Once this takes hold, it just escalates the whole process of withdrawing, it becomes even more difficult.

 

    Why would they (big pharma) want to do this? Money and control, then control leads to money and so on. Benzo’s can be extremely addictive for some and there are various benzo’s to tempt us. Some of us might not become addicted so easily, although enough will and this ensures big pharma have a steady amount of customers. If we don’t abide, (we decide we don’t ever want there drugs again) then we end up in a proper mess, you’re no longer needed, so you’re left to fend for yourself because what use are you if they don’t have your money or control, they just don’t give a damn about us. So there’s only three ways out of this mess and I’m going to tell you how to escape.

 

    First of all though, just what do these pills do for you? Well it’s no good trying to rob your soul without giving something. The very first time I took Valium was for severe muscle spasms in my back after an injury which also stopped me from sleeping, one dose of Valium and the spasms disappear within 20 minutes, then I fell asleep for 8 hours solid. The magic pill, what a God sent and the most wonderful pill ever, I couldn’t believe my luck, I thought my prayers were answered. See the trade off, I bet your story was much the same. They work fantastic on the first use for just about most people and you can just take them anytime and there you have it, your soul has been sold!

 

    So you want to stop? Well then there are only two ways out now! You could carry on taking the magic pill, but eventually they won’t work, so that’s an option off the list. I think most of us have thought about the second option, suicide, it’s a dirty sort of word to me, but let’s not beat about the bush, we’re all grown up enough to take the pills and I certainly thought about this option on a daily basis, for me though it was just an escape door that seemed like an option if things were really bad, the thought of it helped me manage my way through. But this isn’t even an option, because it’s game over then, you’ve lost! and so have all your family and friends. Third option...STOP!

 

    If you want your life back then you need your soul and you’re going to have to fight for it like hell. After all, you traded your soul in, you had all that anxiety, pain, sleeplessness etc. taken away for months or even years, so the trade off is going to cost you. We’re not talking money now, you’ll have to pay for it with pain, brutal mental and physical torture. I won’t trivialise this, it’s going to hurt, it hurt me and many people before me and it will hurt many after me. But you won’t die! As much as you think you are dying, you will NOT die. You will be fixed just like you were before you ever took a benzo, although you’ll be stronger, fitter, happier and so much the more wiser.

 

    Nobody said it would be easy and that’s an understatement. When you attempt this, make sure you have done your homework. I just jumped, it was only a small dose, although this doesn’t seem to make such a difference. Personally I feel it has a lot to do with how long one has taken them, my use was over many years on and off and a five year continual run, then I jumped and suffered terribly, as most of us do. See, everyone’s individual experience is the worst, ask fellow sufferers and they will tell you that they felt that they had suffered more than the next person. We all just seem to feel we are going to die, that I’m the one person that ain’t going to make it.

 

"I will never get better " YES you will!

"I will feel like this for the rest of my life" NO you won’t!

"My case is different to everyone else’s " NO it’s not!

"I have something seriously wrong with me" NO you don’t!

"I’m just one of them who won’t get better" YES you will!

It will cause you to feel certain that you’re the one who doesn’t make it and you will be totally brainwashed into this way of thinking, it’s really quite disgustingly cleaver how it makes one think and feel like this. But you have to be reassured time after time after time and then some more just to make sure. You will heal absolutely and time is your only sure way and also never ever take a benzo again.

 

    Some people don’t even realise they are healing as it is so very gradual and that you don’t even realise you are getting better. You need to look back months, (not days or weeks) yes, months to see improvement. Don’t expect to get better in a few weeks otherwise you’ll be sadly disappointed, after all it probably took you months or years to become sick. Give it at least ten percent of the time you were using, although most people see a definite improvement at the six month mark and most see nearly full recovery six to twelve months, but don’t count it on the calendar, you will fix when it’s fixed and the golden rule to complete healing is "Never ever give up!"

 

    So how did I do it? I’m no special case, I jumped cold turkey and wondered what the hell was happening. My God I thought, what the hell is this all about. I quickly realised, it was so much the same as the amitriptyline I had stopped a couple of years prior, although I did have the sense to taper these, well I was on 120mg at the time. Just 5mg of Valium was doing this to me. I very quickly educated myself, I read everything and anything, every bit of literature I could get my eyes on, I spent six hours a day on the internet, I went to the library, phoned help centres, I did everything I could all day and every day educating myself as to what the hell was happening.

 

    After several months came a new fantastic source of information and understanding, salvation at last, BB's! And every God damn person was experiencing the same cruel torture. Straight away I felt like trying to help everybody even though I was and am as of today (I’m still only7 ½ months out whilst writing this) suffering from the benzo recovery as I call it. I am writing this whether I’m in a wave or a window because I found the the best thing one can do whilst suffering is to distract yourself, nothing too physical though and don’t distract with food, reading and writing is my fix and that’s why I wrote this story, two birds with one stone, a win win for us all.

 

    So everyone seemed to be obsessed about what to eat drink or what pills or medications should be used in this whole process. Firstly, any pills for me are out of the question, I’ll never take another pill of any kind in my life if I can help it. I might think differently about this as time goes on, like if I’m at the dentist in a few years time or if I’m up for an operation or have an accident or emergency of some kind, but as for now at this moment in time I’m keeping well away from the doctor and his chemicals. Yes that’s all they are, even vitamin pills, they don’t extract the vitamins out of fruit or vegetables, do you imagine that they extract vitamin b out of an egg, you’re nuts if you think that any pills are anything but poisonous! Or haven’t you learnt yet!

 

    Having gotten pills off the menu, we turn our thoughts to just food and drink, sleep and recovery. Simple, not for everyone! Thing is you’ve caused some damage along the way, now let me emphasis that "damage" like if you run your car into a brick wall, it’s damage repairable. So it can be fixed just like it was before and the good thing is your body will do all this for you without much help. You’re going to have to eat healthy though, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and meats, in fact the better you eat the better it will fix and the better you will sleep. I choose to eat anything, although keep away from too much raw sugar, that’s in cakes too, but everything in moderation I find for me, but we are all different.

 

    Then there is drink and just to drink water at this point in your life would be cruel. Again, drink whatever you like in moderation except for alcohol, it’s an obvious no no. I drink coffee, just light and only occasionally, say twice a week. I drink tea every day, again only one cup. See it’s all about moderation and not exclusion. If you were to exclude everything then not only does it get very boring but you will not fully recover because you will not have any tolerance to anything, so live life as you mean to carry on but use sense. I would steer clear of coke and sugar loaded drinks, but I do have a non alcoholic beer occasionally. Plenty of water though, again don’t drink gallons of it, just drink when you’re thirsty.

 

    Sleeping is very important as we all know. In the early days I suffered terrible insomnia, 7 ½ months out now and I’m getting 6-7 hours almost every night. It’s been a slow progression to this and even if I wake and think I’ve been awake for ages, I haven’t as I recorded myself and found that I was falling back to sleep within minutes, it’s just a trick on your mind, you think you’re awake but really you’re asleep, it’s called Pseudoinsomnia, google this one. To ensure my sleep was full as possible I made sure I exercised every day and always got out of bed before 8am. I kept to these rules because it fixes us and also gave me an appetite.

 

    I walk two Miles in the morning and two in the evening at the present, I have always walked six miles a day for many years, but had to reduce it to two miles total in my first weeks of withdraw and I am building it up again. It was very hard going in those early days and I was slow, then I started to have a lot of muscle and bone pain and still do, this is diminishing as is every other symptom I’ve had. I have picked up pace in the last few weeks, I’ve just been listening to my body and I want to walk more soon, so there is definite recovery happening, I never did think that I would get worse, we all get better if you just keep moving, I know it’s hard at first, just keep fighting.

 

    There is great Excitement of knowing you are about to have a new life, especially as those windows start appearing. As I mentioned previously, the recovery is painfully slow and doesn’t fix in a linear way. It’s so slow you think that you’re not moving, a bit like the hour hand on a clock, if you look at it, it doesn’t move, but given enough time and sure enough there’s movement. You will all get better, you will be back to your old self, you don’t have to do anything special, time is your answer and full recovery will come to all of us. I was the biggest doubter of them all, now I see the light and know I will keep improving and that will carry on until this episode of my/your life is just a distant memory. Good luck!

 

 

Now I’m back to normal. Banana Man, a Superhero!

 

Also see...

 

http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=235341.0

 

 

Great post, Banana Man!

 

:thumbsup:

 

Katz

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