My retrospective guide out of the Benzo hell hole. Read if you need support !!!

I’m 8 months benzo free and yesterday I started a terrible wave! I’m not in a good place, I feel fortunate because they are pretty infrequent, but I’m in a bad one just the same. I really needed to read this today. Many of the things you posted here are things I did in fact do and continue to do. Do you have any insight on waves? Why do they come?

On 13/07/2021 at 15:48, [[d...] said:

My Roadmap out of the Benzo Hell. A Retrospective summary.

Dear buddies. It's been a long time and that's a good thing. Coincidentally the time passed after I started working on my problem now, is almost the same, as the amount of time my problem existed when I first came onto benzo buddies. Who doesn’t like a bit of symmetry? This is my succes story on how I beat my  benzo problems and anxiety. And the tips I wish I would have had when I was 25.  I now speak 2 new language (a total of 4), Moved to another country, Started my own business, keep achieving new athetlic goals and pushing my boundaries. I found the love of my life, have a beautifull dog, and I'm enjoying life. There is sunshine after the rain, and it can be great.

Looking back at my personal journey I noticed there were several steps and realisations on the way, that I think might be helpful. I was also in doubt if I should post it at all, since there are already so many great tips, and stories here. Also I’m quite the scatterbrain, so I’m hoping this will be halfway Coherent. Please bear with me

Some of you who are reading this are going through the darkest periods of your life, I’ve been there, my hope is I can contribute a little bit in helping anybody through this. I’m sure with the support on this forum and your hard work, you will come out stronger than you ever imagined. I know I did. If you’re interested you can check my posts and see what I wrote 6 years ago. It's not even the tip of the iceberg, and I'm always open for PMs. to elaborate or discuss things.

Step 1. Problem Identification.

Realising there is a problem, and deciding to fix it. There are a lot of tapering schedules on this website, so step one would be either starting with one of those, or quitting altogether if this is possible for you.

Step 2. Identifying emotions/coping mechanisms.

Physical withdrawal vs. Emotional withdrawal.

I would like to make a distinction between anxiety, as a tension, a stress, negative thought patterns, uncomfortable body sensations, and panic attacks.

Panic attacks usually follow anxiety, but have a very pronounced tipping point, where anxiety becomes panic and a full adrenaline reaction takes place. It’s also important to realise in my opinion, that your recovery runs into two parallels. I’m not a psychologist, these are my own experiences, but I think they can be broadly applied. Apart from the chemical process of the withdrawal syndrome, and your body trying to find a new ‘balance’. Is also the psychological and emotional recovery.

The anxiety medication filled a hole: Coping with certain emotions and stress. Although this is not a physical addiction, it is in my opinion a big part of a full recovery and reducing the post withdrawal syndrome. After the medication, and a couple months later when the central nervous system starts to become ‘normal’ again, there is still a lot of work to be done. The problems that were avoided or paused by the medication will come back at you stronger than before. Just quitting medication will not fill this hole. Meaning that you will still be pushed into full anxiety and panic attacks even if you are completely off of your meds for multiple months and the body is already back to its normal self.

You will have to find something else that can put your mind at ease,

Try a form of light cardio exercise where you get sweaty and start huffing and puffing, on a comfortable level. This has scientifically proven to reduce anxiety levels and promote feelings of well being. This is a process and it takes time. Just like it did to form an addiction, it takes time to form healthy habits. I can not stress this enough. Stick. with. it. Progress will follow and this is such a vital part of recovery. Humans are made to move and exercise. A sedentary lifestyle indoors is going to exacerbate anxiety.

Anxiety: I did not understand this at the time so I wasn’t able to address this back then, I only learned this a lot later in life. But I think this would have been a very good second step. Rationally we know anxiety isn’t a real danger, emotionally we do not. I had all sorts of behaviours to try to comfort myself (touching my neck or face for example). Those behaviours are in my opinion a form of coping (and also confirming the reality of the threat, by taking defensive action or avoiding actions, you make the threat real, after all, there is nothing to fear, but fear itself). I wanted to not feel anxiety, anxiety is bad. If I touch my neck or massage my neck muscles this will relax me and make me feel more pleasant. Essentially I was trying to calm myself so I did not have to experience the anxiety.

Not trying to experience anxiety is like not thinking about a pink elephant. It’s only going to come at you harder the more you avoid it. What helped me a lot was allowing the anxiety to be, realising it’s a feeling that can’t hurt me. Easier said than done, I know this sounds impossible. The key here I think is experiencing enough so that it is challenging for you, but not so much that it's overwhelming and it turns into a panic attack, and your fears are confirmed yet again.

I think a lot of people can relate to this, that we become scared of fear itself. This gives substance and credibility to the anxiety, it makes it a real thing. A thing needed to be avoided at all costs. Just dealing with anxiety is already too much to put in this post, I read a book about it that I thought was extremely informative. It's called The Dare Response : The New Way to End Anxiety and Stop panic attacks. By Barry Mc Donagh. This will help you a lot if you’re far into the post withdrawal syndrome and you are still dealing with a lot of anxiety or panic attacks.

It is always better to be in the ‘attacking, chasing’ mindset than in the ‘running, flight’ mindset. After you gradually expose yourself to a level of anxiety that you're half comfortable with, and do so repeatedly. Eventually you will start to build a tolerance for it.

Essential here is that it’s not too overwhelming, but challenging. Because if you feel like you’re losing control and it’s too much to handle you confirm your fears: That you must fear fear. You want to do it gradually so that you can overcome small levels of anxiety, and experience success with it. Slowly becoming more comfortable with this sensation. Eventually if you grasp this concept you might apply it in a bigger context. When anxiety creeps up on you, you can defy it : ‘Come on then, anxiety, give me your best shot, show me the worst thoughts that you can come up with, make me faint, try me’. Instead of running away from the anxiety, you are taking control of it and will realise it's just a paper tiger. I wanted to add this in here even though it's described a lot better in the book. Just so this guide is as comprehensive as possible.

Panic attacks: One of my primary reasons to be scared of fear were panic attacks. This almost out of body experience, the dissociative losing control feeling, the feeling of not being able to breathe and losing any control. On a daily basis. It really limited my ability to function in everyday life.

Besides tapering, I also analysed how a panic attack works. I simply googled it.

It follows roughly this pattern:

Anxiety builds up

Breathing can become shallow, or anxiety becomes more intense.

often these two things go unnoticed.

Tipping point.

Because of shallow breathing you are exhaling too much Co2, the changing Co2 levels trick your body into thinking that you can’t breathe. Note: Although you have the sensation that you cannot breathe in, the problem usually lies with propperly breathing out. You cannot breathe, because you are breathing superficial, and you’re lungs are already 80% full. This is why you cannot fill them back up. Focus on breathing slowly, and focus on breathing out properly.

The symptoms of co2 levels changing rapidy, and a panic attack, are almost identical to a heart attack. No wonder we freak out about them.  I’m not quite sure if there are other triggers apart from breathing. I assume if anxiety increases this would perhaps only cause a very fast heart rate, maybe without the shallow breathing. Maybe the fast heart rate would already be enough to trigger a panic attack. Bottom line : Intense anxiety can cause terrifying harmless symptoms. Here Adrenaline usually kicks in involuntarily, which you can’t really stop.

It is when those symptoms present, that you are 100% certain that you are in fact dying or this time it's actually real. Because of those weird feelings. The adrenaline makes this even more terrifying and intensifies all of the symptoms. Now You are even more convinced, more adrenaline is released, etc. etc. etc. This cycle continues until you eventually get exhausted, or distracted enough to break this loop. For me a shower usually works wonders.

https://www.jyi.org/2007-november/2007/11/10/new-insight-into-panic-attacks-carbon-dioxide-is-the-culprit#:~:text=These%20results%20imply%20that%20neuronal,symptoms%20that%20resemble%20panic%20attacks.

The fix:  Your survival rate for panic attacks up until this point is 100%. Do not let them convince you otherwise.

You cannot stop the initial flood of adrenaline that stops you in your tracks. You can however control your response to thàt initial flood. Once your body floods itself with adrenaline you have a choice: You’re dying for the 2000th time, or, you’re just freaking out about something and you’re gonna take it easy, relax, try to control your breathing: 4 - 4 - 4 -4

Four seconds in, hold four seconds, four seconds out, empty 4 seconds. Continue this cycle for a minute or 2. If you prefer to do 6 seconds in and  6 seconds out, this is fine, see what works for you. The controlled breathing will force your body to understand that you are not in a life threatening situation and that everything will be fine in 2 minutes. Tell yourself ‘ This is a panic attack, I've had a 1000 of them, focus on your breathing, don’t let it take control. If you are able to do this for just 2 minutes. You interrupt the cycle and the panic attack evaporates into thin air.

In the beginning this will not work, this might work 30% of the time. But every single time it works, It shows you that you can take control of these panic attacks.

In short: Knowledge is power. Inform yourself about your reactions, like you did by coming onto this forum, inform yourself about anxiety, panic attacks, maybe consider going to a psychologist that is experienced in anxiety.

Step 3. Transcending your dependence and leaving it behind you.

So when all is well you did the following: You understand your anxiety and are able to cope with it. People feel anxious all the time, you just feel REALLY anxious because you’re not used to it anymore (And probably dealt with it wrong, thats how it becomes worse, like a REAL threat). Allow and accept it as a part of you, don’t be afraid of it. See it as a long companion that stops by every now and then to tease you.

You understand panic attacks, and know how to interrupt them and stop them from spiraling out of control.

You established good habits to make yourself more resistant to stress. Probably avoid caffeine, make sure you sleep well. Exercise in moderation or as much as you can tolerate. Be careful, overdoing exercising may provoke anxiety. But  if you exercise 2 or 3 times a week, you will definitely start feeling more relaxed.

One reason for this is the physiological effect on your body, all your muscles tense up with jogging, your heart rate increases, and when you’re done, all muscles relax. Your mind relaxes, also some endorphins and other chemicals are released that make you feel better. 

Another reason would be pushing your limits. It's uncomfortable to start working out. Especially if you have never done it before. You might feel like people are looking at you and or you might feel weird. You might feel like you can’t do this and want to go home. But if you stick to this, just like you stuck to your tapering plan. You are increasing your tolerance to stress and anxiety. It will force you to have success experiences. I would highly recommend downloading Strava, or any other recording app on your phone or smart watch to track your runs, no matter how humble, no matter how little you ran. You’re still beating everybody sitting on the couch . Tracking your runs with strava allows you to see your progress, this can be a huge confidence booster.

And a simple trick about social anxiety or agoraphobia: If you feel like everybody is watching you, the solution is not to look at the floor and try to be invisible while dieing inside. The solution is to look at the people that you think are watching at you. And see that they are just busy with their own problems

If you did all of the above, stick with it and try to improve on all the aspects of it. I feel confident in saying that you will become a more stable person, in control of their anxiety.

I am sure I projected a lot of my own problems onto everybody here, and that I generalized too many things. As said at the beginning of this post, I'm a huge scatterbrain. I do think there is a lot of useful information here that I know helped me a lot. I guess this is the post I probably would have needed to read myself when I was 25. I’m hoping there are other people out there that are able to relate to my story and my solutions. I hope this will help someone to get better. I’m hoping people that relate will respond here and we can share some thoughts. I know how bad some people are feeling now, but also know, if you challenge yourself and you manage to fight through this. You will have achieved a lot, I feel like I'm stronger and more determined because of what I went through. Most people don’t have to deal with it. If you can fight through these problems, and work hard on yourself, you will learn that you can push your limits further than you ever imagined. People overestimate what they can do in a year, but you have no idea what you can achieve in 5 years, with consistent effort every day, step bey step. 

I managed to accomplish more things than I ever would have hoped to achieve 6 years ago. And I’m not showing any signs of slowing down. Full steam ahead, and enjoying life, and taking care of myself as best I can. Yes I have a tendency towards depression. Not every day is a good day. But when it’s a good day I’m there to enjoy it. And I hope you will be too.

All the best and good luck during your recovery buddies.

I just wanted to say thank you. Your story has helped me.