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There is Hope!! It will all be in the past!! You will heal!


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Tonight I felt compelled to write and transfer hope to anyone who needs it! Over 2 years ago I was having trouble sleeping at night because of the stress I was enduring at my job and I got a little scared at the time went and saw a doctor. I was prescribed to take temazepam to help my anxiety and help me sleep. I took it a couple nights and helped me the first night. From then on it’s effect decreased to the point of not helping at all. After doing some research on them and realizing how bad the side effects were, I stopped taking them immediately cold turkey and my nightmare started! Acute insomnia that lasted at least two months but the worse was the first couple of weeks followed by panic attacks, twitching, depression, etc... I think we all know what the withdrawal symptoms are and don’t have to discuss those in detail; what I would like to share with you is what helped me to overcome the process and the darkest moments. BenzoBuddies was a heaven sent and reading the success stories gave me a lot of hope so many times. I think what helped me the most was reading someone else saying insomnia will not kill you, you will not die from insomnia. Reading the testimony of that person enduring hundreds of sleepless nights talking with such boldness and confidence gave me a lot of hope. The realization that you can make peace with your insomnia and rest your mind it was such a relieve and little by little I started gaining hours of sleep without even realizing it. Sometimes I thought I hadn’t slept anything but deducted that I did indeed sleep because I would remember dreaming about something. Once you stop caring if you sleep or not is half the battle. Today I sleep like a baby and looking back I am amazed at how your body heals!! You will heal!! Believe it!! Another thing that helped me a lot was that a lot of times when I felt an anxiety attack or felt depressed realizing that it was a withdrawal symptom and that it wasn’t me! Disassociating myself from a withdrawal symptom helped me a lot! Because we often don’t realize that we are having an anxiety attack and in our subconscious we try to give it meaning like there is something wrong that needs to be fixed or that we are failing at something or we are not doing something that we are supposed to be doing; once I learned to realize that it was a withdrawal symptom and not me, it helped me remain calmer through the experience. I knew I didn’t have to do anything or fix anything, that I only needed to wait till it would go away.

In my darkest moments I thought that it would last forever, had a lot of hopeless days without purpose or drive, I thought I would loose my career and didn’t give a penny for myself. Today a little over 2 years I can tell you that I’m completely healed,  sleep like a baby, didn’t loose my career, and I only tell you this because there is hope for you today! I know what some of you are going through right now and you will see the light at the end of the tunnel and come out the other end! This will pass! You are so much stronger than you think! It happened to me.

My advice for you today is LOVE yourself! That’s something I’m still working on even today! Have patience with yourself! pamper yourself! You are so worthy! Ask God to help you see your self worth! Take one day at a time. Stop worrying about wether you sleep or not. If you sleep 1 hour that’s fine, if you don’t sleep at all that’s just as well. You will go on. You will be ok! And laugh so much more!

I hope this brings inspiration to you and know your life is precious and you are not alone!

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Rusty7,

 

Its always good to wake up, go online, and see a new success story! so happy for you!

 

I love how you mentioned we need to disassociate ourselves from what we are feeling (anxiety/depression, etc) that it is a withdrawal symptom and not something defective with us. Its so true how when feeling hopeless it seems like it will never end and that we are ruined. Thanks for reminding us there is hope :thumbsup:

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Hi Rusty7

 

Thank you for sharing your success story, i am sure it will inspire a lot of people.  it is truly wonderful to hear that your life is normal again. I love how you said "I didn't give a penny for myself"  because that's exactly how i and many of us feel when we arrive here.  Congratulations on getting back to life, wishing the very best for the future.

 

Magrita :smitten:

 

 

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Hi Rusty7-

how long did you take it before you quit CT..  I was on Ativan for 2 weeks and also quit CT and dealt with insomnia for 3 miserable weeks but was also doing all sorts for supplements which now I know made things worse..  wish I never did the supplements and stuck it out longer..  I had to go back on it at night 2 weeks ago and now trying to tapper..  I think things are worse..  but you give me hope

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Kry123, I took temazepam and ambien for about a week and then I stopped cold turkey. Is obviously not recommended to do that but I did, hence stronger withdrawal symptoms especially at the beginning. I said to myself never again will I take anything to be able to sleep! Even if i die! And obviously I didn’t die.
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God Bless you..  these doctors prescribe these with no warning.. my nightmare began on 4/8/20..  I was a healthy fit guy..
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Thanks Rusty.  Great story, great advice.  I would add that in addition to loving ourselves, we also need to learn to let some things go.  Keeping yourself in a cat like state of readiness, obsessing over this and that will only make your anxiety worse.

 

Very happy for you, thanks again for sharing.

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RShack I couldn’t agree more! That’s why I say to take everything day by day and don’t obsess over everything and specially over things you can’t control! If you believe God is good and everything will be ok is a major step! Another thing that helped me a lot in the latter stages was to rest in God! I would get in bed sometimes with that thought of am I going to be able to sleep tonight? But then I would visualize myself as a little kid and God watching over me and feeling He has brought me this far, He will not let me go, I would think positive thoughts: God you are good, I am going to sleep well because You love me and You are watching over me, tomorrow will be a great day; thanks for another day I had food, surrounded by family, I’m loved! Do not overestimate the power of positive thinking, gratitude and faith! Your sleepless nights will start to fade away little by little.
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I’m with you buddy.  Before I started tapering, I did CBT and my therapist gave me exercises for helping to develop positive thinking.  One example, he had me keep a journal of things that angered me throughout the day.  But for every complaint, I had to try and find two positive things that happened. 

 

I quickly found out I had a lot of good things that I was ignoring!  And I was carrying around a lot of problems that were easily disposed of.

 

So I agree with you, positive thinking works....but I fully admit I didn’t believe it at the time.

 

Best wishes to you!

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Thank you Rusty7! So happy for you! So happy you took the time to spread the good word of healing & recovery! Thank you!
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Thank you for posting good story and ideas!

 

As stories that you read, your story encouraged me.

 

Congraturations!

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Hi Rusty7-

how long did you take it before you quit CT..  I was on Ativan for 2 weeks and also quit CT and dealt with insomnia for 3 miserable weeks but was also doing all sorts for supplements which now I know made things worse..  wish I never did the supplements and stuck it out longer..  I had to go back on it at night 2 weeks ago and now trying to tapper..  I think things are worse..  but you give me hope

 

Yes, going back on makes everything worse. I, like you went back on because I didn’t know what was happening and I regret it. I was given Xanax for a week and had withdrawals (insomnia, twitches, burning muscles, anxiety and panic attacks only). I was then prescribed different drugs which I took and when I stopped those -CT because none of the Drs told me about tapering, I was clueless to these meds. What I experienced then was 10 times worse than the initial withdrawal. I’m now recovering from that. Good luck with the tapering. Once off, stay off...

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Awesome!  Yesterday I saw my counsellor.  We had an entire session on how to separate self from withdrawal symptoms.  Especially, scary depression thoughts.  She got me to understand that these thoughts are only thoughts.  They aren’t reality.  So, it’s good to read this here again toddy. 

 

Healing happens.

 

Thank you.

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