Numb brain and body in mornings

It seems my mind and body go through the same broken cycle every day.  I usually feel exhausted in the evening after doing very little all day.  I dont feel tired at 9, 10 or 11 but my brain is done and all I want is to go to sleep.  I might can sleep from 11 or so to 3am or if I'm lucky 4 or 5 am with getting up a few times but able to fall back to sleep.  When my temperature and heart rate and blood pressure elevate whether 3am or 5am I know I'm awake although I feel so exhausted.  I might lay in bed until 9am with occasional loss of conciousness and awake type dreaming then my brain feels numb and my body starts to feel the same for a while.  I have to pry myself out of bed when my kids are awake and I've hoped this would get better but has been the same  for the 14 months I've been off xanax just minus the initial hallucinations and anxiety.  I can actually do some things during the day now as opposed to several months out but I'm stupid forgetful.  I used to have a job working 18 hr days and I was really good at my job.  Now I struggle with figuring out how I'll support my family going forward.  I'm basically only good for like 10 or maybe 12 hrs of the day and spend the same in bed with sleeping maybe 4 or 5 hrs.  My brain is so freaking damaged from this all, it's impossible to cope with.  My eyes hurt, my vision is trash, my brain hurts, no brain energy whatsoever, I lose my patience easily with my kids.  Ever since I had a brain zap down my brainstem it just solidified the damage.  I feel like a taper may have mitigated much of the damage but then again, if X number of receptors were only going to ever respond to the artificial GABA from the benzo they were going to disappear no matter what.  The other thing a taper may have reduced was a glutamate storm which is what I think happened when I got the severe anxiety and the brain zap last November.  Everything just went downhill from there.  I got put on an antipsychotic in September that pulled me out of a degree of the hallucinations but I would wake up tingling and didn't know why.  That tingling finally exploded and I lost intelligence,  memory, vision, vision quality, more sleep, ability to speak and think for months.  It must have been a glutamate storm which had been in the works for 4 months anyways as I thought there were evil spirits in my brain preventing me from being able to think properly.  I weaned of a tiny dose of the antipsychotic a couple months ago which didnt change much.  The Rexulti I think increased serotonin and GABA enough to help for a bit but I did stop it for a couple months when I had the brain zap then started back in Feb.  Thought maybe others might at least relate to the feelings of numbness in the mornings, it's awful.  And one other thing and I've read these drugs disrupt forward thinking which is totally true because all I think about in bed or much of the day is old memories where as I used to always be imagining the future and my projects which sadly don't exist anymore.  I hardly have a sex drive without taking testosterone but don't get the fuzzy horny feeling and spontaneous erections anymore either.  Even when my wife and I have sex I don't get hard until I squeeze it and put it in and start going whereas I used to be hard just thinking about sex throughout the day, I'm 37 and shouldn't have lost that ability so fast without this disruption.  Just want to be the old me but I feel like the glutamate surges just wiped a lot of that out.  I realize that right before I quit CT we were doing it all the time and my erections were raging and my  imagination was making me crazy horny.  This withdrawl just robs so much brain power and is absurd.  Sorry kinda detailed but just the changes I notice.

You sound so discouraged, have you been keeping a journal of your symptoms and their severity so you can better gauge if you're showing any improvement?

 

I've noticed stress plays a huge role in increased symptoms, can you tell if they do increase when you under stress?  Have you started any new medications lately? What caused your brain zap, are you still on the anti-psychotic?  Are you currently working?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Currently only doing some construction.  The benzos were the cause of the brain zap, just delayed sx at 5 months out.  Hit extreme anxiety and the brain zap hit while at a park with my kids.  The night before everything was clear, lights were perfect,  I had night vision,  could see in low light,  then the next day the brain zap hit and had extreme visual snow,  light sensitivity and afterimages came then contrast issues then a month later my eyes burned then got stars around headlights,  cells bursting into flames left and right.  I am not on any meds now,  have zero paranoia because my imagination self destructed.  I don't journal,  I think about it all enough already.  Some visual stuff got less extreme but just leveled out and that's where it will stay for the rest of my life I'm sure.  Cog fog is awful,  if that many of my brain cells died in my vision and visual pathways then plenty have died in the rest of my brain.  Yes,  It's discouraging and painful to live with.  I hate it and hate myself and my Dr for it.

Hi Jonna

 

I am sorry you are having a tough time, as Pamster said stress increases symptoms and Its hard to avoid stress going through withdrawal!  I am glad that some visual symptoms got less, I am sure it will  get better with more time.    I had extreme anxiety, also had brain zaps.  I had eye issues.  burning, red eyes,  light sensitivity, floaters,  colors flashing at the side of my eye.  The visual snow has been reported by some members.    I would get checked out, I did, I made an appointment with an ophthalmologist, didn't find any problems, I  wanted to rule out other causes

 

I am sure these symptoms will resolve soon, mine did eventually but it took a while.

 

Hang in there

 

Magrita

I went to 2 ophthalmologists and an eye specialist.  They didn't really know anything about palinopsia or visual snow.  The Specialist said there's a wikipedia page on it,  lol, thanks buddy,  I can Google too basically.  It's the visual processing center rather than only the eye I believe.

Does anyone else wake up with their brain and body feeling numb?

I think excitotoxicity did major damage to my nervous system.  Months of glutemate surges did some serious damage.  It makes sense that tapering will avoid some of this.

Does anyone else wake up with their brain and body feeling numb?

 

Not many people quit cold turkey so responses on this board are limited, if you'll post some of your concerns on the Post-withdrawal Recovery Support board I think you'll get more replies.