3 Years Update

Hey Folks,

 

Today marks exactly 3 years since I took my last benzo and thought I'd give you all an update on how things are going. I wish I could say that I'm 100% healed--in fact, I wish I could have said that on my 1 year or 2 year anniversary as well, but here I am still dealing with the recovery process. Despite all that, I do feel a bit better overall. My worst waves are shorter in duration, my more frequent waves are lesser in intensity, and I'm getting a bit longer windows. I still struggle with a lot of symptoms--mild tinnitus and GI issues, floaters in my vision, hair loss, rosacea, hives, OCD, depression, a bit of anxiety, these super intense feelings of fear/dread that hit me out of nowhere, DP/DR vision stuff (especially with artificial light sources at night), eye pressure increases, and stomach bloating. Most of the symptoms get worse with stress, and sometimes it just happens randomly out of nowhere. I'm really not sure if all of this will ever go away, but all I can do is keep hoping and living my best life in the meantime. I will say that throughout this whole process I've become so tired and fatigued as a general baseline. Life is already hard in a normal state for a multitude of reasons right now, and this all just adds to it and makes daily life this constant thing where I have to take very good care of myself and be extremely careful. I have changed so much about my daily habits since WD started--I never drink anymore, I follow a healthy diet, do yoga 2-3 days per week, and have a regular bed time schedule. All of these things have been great changes for my overall health, but I sure wish they would have helped me heal from this entire process faster.

 

My history with benzos was really weird and sometimes I wonder if that has something to do with it. Xanax was the benzo that caused this whole mess to begin with, which I cold turkey'd from 0.5mg back in January of 2018 after being on for just under 2.5 years. I went into acute for maybe 2 months after that, but since I had no idea what was happening to me I continued drinking socially and took Ativan on occasion for extreme anxiety emergencies. Fast forward to maybe September or October of 2018 I cut out both of those things, then the real hell broke loose. I went into the worse acute ever from maybe October until the following February of 2019. I took a low dose of Valium for emergencies, then finally stopped that on March 7th of 2019.

 

Anyway, I truly hope this ends soon because the longer it goes on the less hope I feel for ever making a full recovery. I know some folks on here can take 4+ years to heal, so hopefully that will be the case for me as well. I'm grateful for doing better than I was in my first year off, but I'm just so done with this chapter of my life and I'm sure all of you who are still in recovery are too. I would give just about anything to be able to move on and be normal again. Feel free to PM me if any of you want to chat, and sending healing thoughts to all of you!

Glad you are healing Ali, hopefully we heal fully soon and I look forward to your success story. Keep going and thanks for sharing your experience.

Hi Ali. Thank you for sharing. I would consider myself around 27 months if you don’t count the dose the dentist gave me in 2020. I have many of the symptoms you describe (plus some) and know how challenging and depressing this whole process can be. The exhaustion is the hardest part because you don’t have the energy to push through and distract yourself from the other side effects. I don’t comment much on this board and mainly just read on occasion because it is all so overwhelming for me to process, but your post resonated with me.

 

I get Baylissa’s daily affirmations and those help me a lot just to tell myself positive things. I hope that like me you do have some good days or at least hours that can help to keep you hopeful for better days free of this nightmare. Just remember how hard the first year was and how far you’ve come to get to where you are. I just took an hour long nap and didn’t wake up in a panicked state. That, to me, is success. The little wins will eventually add up, and I have to believe we will heal.

 

Healing thoughts to you wherever you may be when you read this.

Glad you are healing Ali, hopefully we heal fully soon and I look forward to your success story. Keep going and thanks for sharing your experience.

 

Thanks Trying, appreciate the kind words and encouragement! Even though this has been such a long haul, I truly think by the end of this year I'll be feeling a lot better. I'll keep everyone posted.

Al,

Hey friend. Going to write my three year mark at the end of this month and I feel you.

I also get the really bad DP/DR at night with the artificial lights too. Thought I was the only one.

You are not alone. Keep taking steps every single day and we will be writing our success stories in the future.

Al,

Hey friend. Going to write my three year mark at the end of this month and I feel you.

I also get the really bad DP/DR at night with the artificial lights too. Thought I was the only one.

You are not alone. Keep taking steps every single day and we will be writing our success stories in the future.

 

Hey Warrior, congrats on approaching the three year mark! it helps to know I'm not alone in this, especially with some of the more persistent lingering symptoms. You definitely aren't the only one with the weird vision stuff at night with artificial lights. It has gotten a little bit better for me over time. Look forward to seeing your success story when you completely heal! Hopefully it's not too much longer for the both of us.

Hi Ali. Thank you for sharing. I would consider myself around 27 months if you don’t count the dose the dentist gave me in 2020. I have many of the symptoms you describe (plus some) and know how challenging and depressing this whole process can be. The exhaustion is the hardest part because you don’t have the energy to push through and distract yourself from the other side effects. I don’t comment much on this board and mainly just read on occasion because it is all so overwhelming for me to process, but your post resonated with me.

 

I get Baylissa’s daily affirmations and those help me a lot just to tell myself positive things. I hope that like me you do have some good days or at least hours that can help to keep you hopeful for better days free of this nightmare. Just remember how hard the first year was and how far you’ve come to get to where you are. I just took an hour long nap and didn’t wake up in a panicked state. That, to me, is success. The little wins will eventually add up, and I have to believe we will heal.

 

Healing thoughts to you wherever you may be when you read this.

 

No problem Tinkered, thanks for reading! Congrats on 27 months--that is quite the milestone. The exhaustion is rough for sure, and I'm glad my post spoke to you. I realize it wasn't super optimistic in terms of a celebration, but I also wanted to be honest about how things are going. I still have hope for healing, and I really do think by the end of this year things will be much better for the both of us. I'm going to look into Baylissa's daily affirmations, as I could definitely use that right now. Also, you are so right about the better days and hours--it's important to remember that those are small signs of hope that things will be better in future. Hope you're feeling better!

We are on a very similar timeline, still struggling with the mental symptoms. I’ve just stopped unisom now sleep pretty awful. Past and ongoing toxic family is delaying my recovery. I think mental akathesia best describes the symptoms, in constant state of high alert and fear, always looking fir danger.

Like you get more despondent longer it goes on. Strangely I wasn’t too bad first 8 or 9 months, got lot worse after stopping AD’s. I listened to a lot of Baylissa’s webinairs , been listening to another lady recently, a psychotherapist going through withdrawal, got bad mental symptoms. Hope things improve soon for us both.

We are on a very similar timeline, still struggling with the mental symptoms. I’ve just stopped unisom now sleep pretty awful. Past and ongoing toxic family is delaying my recovery. I think mental akathesia best describes the symptoms, in constant state of high alert and fear, always looking fir danger.

Like you get more despondent longer it goes on. Strangely I wasn’t too bad first 8 or 9 months, got lot worse after stopping AD’s. I listened to a lot of Baylissa’s webinairs , been listening to another lady recently, a psychotherapist going through withdrawal, got bad mental symptoms. Hope things improve soon for us both.

 

I still take Unisom when I can't sleep and it helps me a lot... never thought of stopping it as it doesn't appear to cause any symptom flare-ups for me. I also have a toxic family, but I went full no-contact with them because they were causing awful waves. I totally get the mental akathisia thing--I had it too, but it has mostly gone away so hopefully it will for you soon as well! Stay strong and keep going Leann!