The Cut Hit Me

[[Buddie]]

I only cut from 3mg K, to 2.5mg K, to 2.25 K, and last night before I was going to cut to 2mg K it slammed me. This is a type of depression I don't remember. I've had a lot of types of depression but I've lost 20lbs in a month (140- about 115, maybe 120), am straight up numb, no will to live. Don't care about friends, family, obligations, pleasures in my life, nothing. It's just gone out the window. The mood stabilizer isn't working, the ADs ramp me up too much.

I'd go to a hospital if I didn't know better.  This is the beginning of a numb, meaningless existence. When I pray I feel nothing. I just lay on my back and sleep. Can't tell the doctor or he will cut the K completely and it will just get worse. I have 500 K pills sitting in the drawer beside me and I see that as about a year of sanity left, but now the sanity is this numbness. I haven't gone insane, I just don't care about anything at all.

The feelings I used to have for people and things...My beautiful Airedale Terrier. Nothing. My faith in Christ? Still there, but feel nothing. My love of music? Nothing, don't want to listen to it or play it. My love of socializing and yakking it up with my fellow neighbor? Nothing. My favorite foods? Nothing. My family is very upset that this is happening to me but I don't even care how they feel.

It's less that I don't care, and more that I can't care. If I want to get medical about, anhedonia I suppose. My grandfather is dying and I was just thinking that if I found out he passed away, I know I would normally be grieved, but I think I may just feel absolutely nothing.

Aren't I supposed to be revved up and experiencing all these emotions intensely? Isn't glutamate supposed to be firing off and making me hop around the place like a scared animal?

Writing this is probably pointless but I figured a shot in the dark is fine. I got nothing to lose.

This probably won't get approved anyways since I'm in the penalty box.

MM

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[[Buddie]]

MM,

You are cutting significant amounts from a very strong benzo, clonazepam.  I tried this and failed miserably.

What you feel is unfortunately part of the withdrawal process, the numbness, not caring.  I never experienced depression or for that matter severe anxiety until I was put on benzos. They did a great job of creating it, along with the withdrawal.

It can take a while for 'real' feelings of any kind to reappear, whether they be joy, happiness, sadness or grief. That is the nature of this process.  Mine came back rather suddenly, once while watching a movie, another time playing games with friends, and finally I was able to really grieve the loss of my very best friend.  When this happens, it's a real glimpse into future wellness and for me, worth waiting for.

pianoirl

[[Buddie]]

I've made these big cuts because I was never stabilized on 3mg. I took 2mgs most days and would throw in another mg a couple times a week. I'd say my average was 2.5 so I started with that, then went 2.25, and am going to go to 2 starting today for two weeks. From there, I'm doing 7 percent cuts the rest of the way. It's kind of weird to say but I kind of want these terrible intense feelings. At least I'd be feeling something. The benzo is probably numbing me out itself. It always has but I wasn't mindful about it because I didn't imagine the doctor would rip me off. Now that I'm mindful, I'm noticing things that I normally didn't think about.

Thanks for the reply. I play the [...] too. Classically trained but play a lot of waltz.

MM

[[Buddie]]

Your original post brought me to tears [...], you managed to conjure up the horror I felt when I was recovering from my cold turkey.  I thank you for this because I don't ever want to lose my gratitude and humility nor respect for the power of these drugs.

I'm so very sorry for the loss of self you're experiencing, I know you feel a stranger to yourself and others but please know this is temporary, you will return and you'll be able to feel the power of your love for everything in your life again.

[[Buddie]]

Your original post brought me to tears [...], you managed to conjure up the horror I felt when I was recovering from my cold turkey.  I thank you for this because I don't ever want to lose my gratitude and humility nor respect for the power of these drugs.

I'm so very sorry for the loss of self you're experiencing, I know you feel a stranger to yourself and others but please know this is temporary, you will return and you'll be able to feel the power of your love for everything in your life again.

[...] I don't know how this can be happening when still taking over 2mg a day. That's enough to kill a horse. It's making me feel like I have a limited amount of time to do anything, whether I get pleasure from it or not. With these 500 pills I'm seeing it like I have just little under a year to cross shit off the bucket list before I'm thrown into a psych ward. It feels like waiting for a trial but I didn't commit a crime, you know?

Do you have any recommendations on how to feel again? I know "time" is always the usual answer but I want to feel something, anything, before the cliff gets steeper.

[[Buddie]]

Its the nature of this process to think the worst and I can see you're in the thick of it, I know what you're feeling but I can only offer you platitudes, the same ones everyone else has to offer and I know it's not enough but its all we have. 

I was able to cry only one time when I was recovering and I felt so much relief I vowed I'd try to recreate that feeling so I rented cry movies but I couldn't, there is no way around the pain this creates, only through.

These extreme symptoms are your body's way of telling you to slow down, I know you have a goal in mind but is it worth the anguish to maintain a schedule? How would you feel about holding this dose to see if you can stabilize?

[[Buddie]]

I would hold but I simply don't have the supply to hold at above 2 for much longer.. I can't be shedding 60 pills a month for too long. I'm trying to get to .5 in 6 months since I have heard that's when the taper gets really bad. If I can do that, I will have a sufficient supply to take it as slow as I want from there.

I'm already debilitated and hardly keep up with basic functioning. If it gets much worse I won't have a place to live. I'm supposed to move to finish uni after summer and I want to, but I don't know if I'm going to suddenly get slammed and become disabled so I'm scared to sign a lease or make arrangements. I'm just a bag of bones at this point and no hospital can help me or they'll toss me off the deep end. This is an anonymous board so if I was psychotic I would admit, but I'm simply not. I just have bad OCD and the "cure" for it is being taken away. My family doesn't even think any of this is real and that I am attributing symptoms I have read online to myself, which just isn't true. I have akathisia, OCD behaviors, fear of going anywhere I can't escape, tinnitus dp dr. No muscle twitches, nerve burning, or any of the nasty stuff I could easily "make up" like they say.

They don't want to read any of the literature because they want to pretend it isn't true and that's my only support system.

[[Buddie]]

I didn't know you had supply issues, I get it now and the family, I get that too.  My situation was exacerbated by the fact that I'd been recovering for 8 years before falling down the Klonopin hole and my family was very disappointed in me.  Where they might have felt compassion and forgiveness, they only felt betrayal and mistrust.  This forces us further inside ourselves trying to defend ourselves from the onslaught of the symptoms and the abandonment of our friends and family. 

You mention OCD, are you on any other medications for this, we have one member who was greatly helped by other medications.

[[Buddie]]

I take sertraline for the OCD and lamictal to help keep it balanced out since it's rather activating.

I wouldn't say I have supply issues considering I have around 470mgs, but if I keep up at 2mg that won't last all too long. I've calculated that I have enough to do 7% cuts every two weeks for now on and will be able to jump off at a point as low as 0.015

[[Buddie]]

Yes, that's what it does, sort of leaves you emotionally flatlined but it's the benzos for sure and no need to feel guilty about how you don't or can't care, just you can't force it, it's just how it is Most people recover, regain their emotional capacity, just depends everyone's different -
all the best to you -