Morning hell (and not because of anxiety)

Helllooooo.

 

8 months off, and since about the start (CT'd start of the year) my mornings are unbelievably atrocious.

Wake up feeling like I've been in a bullfight overnight/ in a 10 car pile-up/ run over by a steamroller.

Brain doesn't work, at times severe muscle and back pain, lower back, upper back, all over.

I can only sit and zone out to youtube, any cognitive work is out of the window.

 

It's like reviving a corpse, for minimum 3 hours, before I can kind of get up and slowly start the day.

 

If I have insomnia/ 3am wake ups I feel like shite.

Now I'm having a couple of weeks of sleeping through, but now it seems the more sleep I have, the more I feel like I have the worst hangover in the world, minus the alcohol, and am recently being rendered incapable of anything for the most part of the day.

Either way it's the corpse revival revue every morning.

 

Has anyone else experienced this? I see posts a lot about morning anxiety, but not much for the above.

I do have intermittent extreme anxiety, in waves, ofcourse, but that's on top of this physical/ cognitive incapacity.

 

As an aside, waking up with a mind like a car stuck in the sand, wheels spinning and spinning, racings, thinking of the thou=sands upon thousands of things in my life I should be doing/ need to be done/ wasted opportunities/ live is over/ why aren't I more like this/ I'm a child in a world I know not how it works/ obligations/ tasks etc (and of course can't do any of them at the moment). Everything is overwhelming.

 

But alas, this post was about the daily worst-hangover-In-your-life-sans-alcohol mornings.

 

Is this just me? do i have some kind of undiagnosed disease, cancer, anything, or is this still the withdrawal?

 

While youtube's endless supply of 'the love boat' has been enjoyable, I can't spend my life like this.

 

Thanks in advance my friends

I can relate bobthrob,

 

I wake up to severe muscle and back pain, lower back, upper back, buttocks, legs.

 

It also takes me several hours before I can kind of slowly start the day.  Afternoons are usually a little better especially if I can go swimming to stretch my muscles. Gentle swimming is the key - nothing serious.

Yes, morning anxiety is really challenging at times.  But, the feeling that you drank a case of beer the night before and got the sh*t kicked out of you is every morning for me.

Oh wow, yes djej2010, absolutely that's it

 

Flyfisher me too.

 

I know this must be benzo withdrawal, but it's just so debilitating it's hard not to think it's something more serious, not that this isn't, but, well you know what I mean.

 

Honestly thanks for responding, it makes so much of a difference to know it's not just me. I don't want anyone else to go through this, but it helps to know what we are experiencing is somewhat common

Yep,  I feel pretty much exactly add you described it.  No disease,  it's  the benzos.  I'm starting to assume this is for good arty this point.  I only feel better for a bit in the evening.  Awful.  Peru much every morning lay in bed feeling like crap and thinking about the past and how I destroyed my life and brain and body.  Doesn't change from day to day.  Keep waiting to wake up from this nightmare but realize that won't happen.

I used to wake up and immediately go and now trying to go back to work somehow.

It gets worse if you just stay in bed....I guess walking helps deal with it.... I mean process it somehow...

I listened to Jordan B Peterson describing it...

He said he wonders how he is alive feeling like that... Like it feels like death....He has to go for a walk to process the feeling...

Bobthrob I still wonder what is contained in these drugs.....So evil...

If it’s not raining, I typically just peel myself off the sheets, put on workout clothes, and go on a walk just to try and shake it off.  It takes a lot of energy to do that but it gets easier once you get into the habit. 

Oh yes, every single morning is a nasty alcoholless nightmare of a hangover.  I wake most mornings feeling excessively groggy and thick headed. My gut is normally a little upset.  Muscles ache. Feel like a pack of wolves ripped me from limb to limb.  Atrocious.  I get it. It seems like a person living like a monk should feel a smidgen better than this.  Every morning I have to tell myself to wait it out.  I eventually snap out of it most days. Sorry you have this too.

 

 

 

Worst is I'm looking at a job that's shift work so handful if days then handful of nights.  Not sure gire breaking my circadian rhythm is good work these days,  used to do it all the time.

Oh my god wow I thought it was just me! holy moly thanks for all your replies!

 

I'm so admirable of those of you who are working. I'm self- employed, an english teacher in Europe, and I can barely do a lesson per day, my cognitive ability is just gone. Motivation, gone. Living on the meagre savings I had, while I've always been low income at least I would keep on top of things, keep track, I haven't even checked my bank account for a long while, not living like a responsible adult at all, just feel like a small child ill-equipped for adult life.

Anhedonia really plays into it too, if there is no pleasure, no reward, in life, then there is no motivation. I can't see a reason to do anything, if I won the lottery I'd be very happy because then I wouldn't have to worry about money, but then getting up, packing a suitcase, going on holiday, why? Walk along a beach? Such huge effort, why would anyone do that?Apart fromkeeping the wolves from the door, whywould I work, strive? I have no physical capability to do so at the moment, plus I can't seethe point of anything in life.

 

But sorry,hijacking again. It's hard to when it all seems somehow tied together. The motivation to try and get through the physical pain is lacking, which makes it allso figgin exhausting. Man I just want to be normal.

 

 

Side note: I wonder if the morning pain if from a high stress level baseline? I have developed bruxism, I notice I wake up with a sore jaw now, never was a tooth grinder, in fact the opposite, always slept with my mouth WIDE open,perhaps we are just so tense when we sleep. Or adrenaline/ cortisol something or other crystallising in our muscles (what's that chemical that does that? I can't remember)

 

Jonna that's a tough one with work. I wish I had a solution for you but all I can offer is my hope that something will work out and a hug because I feel you.

Helllooooo.

 

8 months off, and since about the start (CT'd start of the year) my mornings are unbelievably atrocious.

Wake up feeling like I've been in a bullfight overnight/ in a 10 car pile-up/ run over by a steamroller.

Brain doesn't work, at times severe muscle and back pain, lower back, upper back, all over.

I can only sit and zone out to youtube, any cognitive work is out of the window.

 

It's like reviving a corpse, for minimum 3 hours, before I can kind of get up and slowly start the day.

 

If I have insomnia/ 3am wake ups I feel like shite.

Now I'm having a couple of weeks of sleeping through, but now it seems the more sleep I have, the more I feel like I have the worst hangover in the world, minus the alcohol, and am recently being rendered incapable of anything for the most part of the day.

Either way it's the corpse revival revue every morning.

 

Has anyone else experienced this? I see posts a lot about morning anxiety, but not much for the above.

I do have intermittent extreme anxiety, in waves, ofcourse, but that's on top of this physical/ cognitive incapacity.

 

As an aside, waking up with a mind like a car stuck in the sand, wheels spinning and spinning, racings, thinking of the thou=sands upon thousands of things in my life I should be doing/ need to be done/ wasted opportunities/ live is over/ why aren't I more like this/ I'm a child in a world I know not how it works/ obligations/ tasks etc (and of course can't do any of them at the moment). Everything is overwhelming.

 

But alas, this post was about the daily worst-hangover-In-your-life-sans-alcohol mornings.

 

Is this just me? do i have some kind of undiagnosed disease, cancer, anything, or is this still the withdrawal?

 

While youtube's endless supply of 'the love boat' has been enjoyable, I can't spend my life like this.

 

Thanks in advance my friends

 

 

It's not just you. I have been there too. The morning and sometimes midnight hours were horrible. And no you are not having any other disease but if u feel doubtful get yourself checked. It wil come normal for sure but it will ease your worries. It is all due to this drug withdrawal. Just hang in there you will definitely pass this phase too.

It gets worse if you just stay in bed....I guess walking helps deal with it.... I mean process it somehow...

I listened to Jordan B Peterson describing it...

He said he wonders how he is alive feeling like that... Like it feels like death....He has to go for a walk to process the feeling...

Bobthrob I still wonder what is contained in these drugs.....So evil...

 

Bexlan, would you mind sharing a link for where you heard Jordan Peterson discussing this?

 

Regardless of whether one is a fan or not, I think it's hugely valuable for well-known people to outline their experience with benzos. Even if we can't change things on a medical level, it's hugely important to hear we are not alone with this or that symptom, and that we are not crazy. I've been contemplating starting a youtube channel, with separate videos going into each symptom and the compiled experiences of buddies here. (I don't even have any social media, I'm a big luddite, so it's something that would be out of character for me!)

 

I suspect the official percentages of people in protracted withdrawal are MUCH MUCH higher, and most people just think there is something wrong with the, as doctors don't inform them/ they haven't connected the dots and found sites such as this.

Prescription rates here in Italy are huge, most Italian housewives take them, and I tell you, most walk around seeming seriously disconnected, stay at home, don't engage much outside of family and the local grocer and some gossip with the other ladies, are fearful of everything, don't have hobbies or interests, etc. - 'checked out syndrome' I call it. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not so much that 'only a small percentage suffer', but that it's a silent epidemic and people just don't know that their daily reality is not normal.

In my street there is a man who is the DIRECTOR of one of the hospitals here. I ran into him and he asked me whereI have been, I told him here, at home, sick with withdrawal. He said 'There is no such things, Benzos are like water, I should know, I run the local hospital'

Another time I went to my local doctor in heaving sobs and told I needed help because I didn't know how I was going to stay alive, that I wanted to 'stop living'. He offered me a multi-vitamin....

 

Again sorry I keep running this thread off into different topics, but my brain is going all over the place, and you know, it's all interconnected.

 

 

 

It's not just you. I have been there too. The morning and sometimes midnight hours were horrible. And no you are not having any other disease but if u feel doubtful get yourself checked. It wil come normal for sure but it will ease your worries. It is all due to this drug withdrawal. Just hang in there you will definitely pass this phase too.

 

Thanks Benzopatient

Woke up at 2 am after 3 hrs of sleep then laid in bed for 5 hrs wanting to go to sleep and just thinking about how terrible life has become.  It's pure hell and I feel the same, I used to love everything and to go and do, go to the beach, anywhere, now especially with my vision and memory problems I dislike everything and just get frustrated all day.

Oh no Jonna, I'm so sorry. I fully relate, constant anxiety/ hopelessness about the future.

I look at all the people around me living normal lives/ socialising/ working/ studying/ having functioning brains/ seeming to have 48 hours in a day to do things while I seem to have 2 hours as I get nothing done/ seeing even people put words together, thoughts, sentences, making cognitive and intellectual connections and wondering how they do it, how they do anything.

 

It WILL get better. I'm better now than I was months ago. I can feel things in my brain slowly coming online. I can feel changes. I know it's like 2% improvement each month, but it will happen.

 

In the meantime you aren't alone.

 

Hi, Thanks for sharing. 20 mg Valium every night for two years. I am 5 months from my last dose and windows and waves phase. When the waves comes (which are less often) it is like this: wake up 4am (5 hours of sleep)....feel fine...then the brain starts up with intrusive thoughts about crap that I really should careless about...everything in my life now is fine....with an 30 minutes brain is spinning...within an hour I'm clutching my wife and crying like hell (God bless her)...the crying continues and anxiety until noon....then it over and by nighttime I am totally fine....the process repeats for a day or two then a window comes and I'm good...My reasoning ability helps to understand my brain is healing but while I'm going through the wave I'm scared as hell that it won't go away, my marriage will crumble and other crazy thoughts, UGH!

 

Can anyone shed light on why many people are reporting morning anxiety? The only thing I think about is our brains heal a lot during sleep this when we wake up we need to get used to the new repairs? Thanks

I like that theory! Maybe our brains were under construction over night and the morning is the adjustment phase. That surely puts a brighter light on it! Nice one BlueMoon.

Same. I was on Ativan for 50 days. Every morning was rough even when I was on it as my dose was one a day in the morning. I'm 24 days out on CT and damn it feel like my neck muscles are made of barbed wire every morning and my head feels like a balloon. Once I take the dog on a walk and get some tea or coffee that helps. I used to be a power lifter so the high strain stuff doesn't really help so I'm trying yoga and stretching in the morning. It surprisingly helps ground you without making you stressed!

Hi Bob, I'm doing really well at 24 months.  But my mornings are still rough, lower back hip and abdomen pain. The strange thing is,  it goes away about 2 hrs after I wake. Hang in there buddy your time is coming.

I have a lot of pain for the first couple hours in the mornings. Some days are worse than others. What has worked for me is to get out of bed as soon as I wake up, have a quick cup of tea and get out for a walk. Middle part of the day is pretty good usually and then when I get tired at night sometimes my muscles start to seize up again. It’s unbelievable how long the repercussions of withdrawal can last. Some mornings I lay on the heating pad for a few minutes right before I get out of bed if I’m really in a lot of pain.

18 mo off here

Been an athlete my whole life

Drinking and partying all night long, a little tired and dehydrated the next day, but it goes away

 

THIS Benzo shit

 

months on end for me of waking, with heavy sore head, tense shoulders, abdomen and body, woozy drunken pressures, neck tense

 

I drink coffe, 1 cig, then hot shower,,,,,the AM is always the hardest

 

It used to fade a bit 1yr ago, and the evenings were much better,  but as time passes for me the muscle stuff gets more intense for me, I have no idea why its this way for me

 

I guess we just need to give it more time

Morning are rough for quite awhile..and yes eventually the morning paranoia goes, but you're left with a brain that def needs time to get going. It takes about 2 hrs before I feel " sharp".

Its kind of like our brain has a hard time transitioning from sleep to wake. Our receptors are sluggish or something...

Bobthrob

 

Sorry to hear you are going through this.

Same hear every morning i wake up i feel like i have the worst hangover in the world, extreme body pain and fatigue, extreme muscle soreness plus dark depression.

At about 6 months off(summer 2020) i felt a lot better and i felt healed about 60 to 70 %, then after I got covid and had to take a course of antibiotics i was thrown into a setback and after that time i started to feel worse specially in mornings. So be careful with medications and alcohol.

Hope you feel better and 100% recovery

Hang in there, you are near to the end of this, life is beautiful on the other side