Friend who should know better

It's been a horrific time in my house.  To cut to today: my husband had major surgery on July 7. Been in hospital from June 30 to July 14.  He is now home and yesterday drove for the first time to the grocery store (a 10-15 minute drive).  He is restricted from lifting anything so I did the heavy grocery bag lifting.  He also drove around the store in one of the electric carts to not exhaust himself.  So I put on my FB page a pic of him driving and caption "first time driving in 16 days.". Got mostly happy responses.  However, one person told him he shouldn't be doing so much.  He responded he has been taking it easy.  Today she just responded with more warnings and "let Ivygibbsville pamper you ". I am pretty sure this person knows that I was on a mental health leave for a month, but that leave was completely consumed by my husband's sudden illness and 2 surgeries, and now I am back at work for busy season until the end of August. That means 11-12 hour days and it's busy.  My husband just said no way would we hire something new to come in and help with anything, & I really wouldn't know who to hire.  The point is the person on FB should know better, as she just had a horrible summer last year with an illness.  And she doesn't work.  She should know with how bad I feel (& still holding at .25 mgs a day Clonazepam although I don't think my body has adjusted yet) that I cannot *pamper* anyone.  I can do the usual housework and chores and errands I do while working and even that is difficult for me (hence the 30 day stress leave from work), and what the friend doesn't know is my husband had me taken to the ER 3 weeks ago because I was talking about babbling about unhealthy ideas - I was so upset I can barely remember that weekend. Then 2 days ago I was rushing around in the heat picking up stuff from drugstore from husband then dinner and I dented our car trying to back into the driveway - I was on the verge of a panic attack and wl not rush around like that again.

  I am *relatively* calm now. & Thanks, I just needed to vent a bit. 

Here's a question though, AGAIN: how do you deal with tapering and full time work, and then a family crisis on top of that?  I cannot take more time off until September and our closest relatives & friends are 2 hours away.

It's been a horrific time in my house.  To cut to today: my husband had major surgery on July 7. Been in hospital from June 30 to July 14.  He is now home and yesterday drove for the first time to the grocery store (a 10-15 minute drive).  He is restricted from lifting anything so I did the heavy grocery bag lifting.  He also drove around the store in one of the electric carts to not exhaust himself.  So I put on my FB page a pic of him driving and caption "first time driving in 16 days.". Got mostly happy responses.  However, one person told him he shouldn't be doing so much.  He responded he has been taking it easy.  Today she just responded with more warnings and "let Ivygibbsville pamper you ". I am pretty sure this person knows that I was on a mental health leave for a month, but that leave was completely consumed by my husband's sudden illness and 2 surgeries, and now I am back at work for busy season until the end of August. That means 11-12 hour days and it's busy.  My husband just said no way would we hire something new to come in and help with anything, & I really wouldn't know who to hire.  The point is the person on FB should know better, as she just had a horrible summer last year with an illness.  And she doesn't work.  She should know with how bad I feel (& still holding at .25 mgs a day Clonazepam although I don't think my body has adjusted yet) that I cannot *pamper* anyone.  I can do the usual housework and chores and errands I do while working and even that is difficult for me (hence the 30 day stress leave from work), and what the friend doesn't know is my husband had me taken to the ER 3 weeks ago because I was talking about babbling about unhealthy ideas - I was so upset I can barely remember that weekend. Then 2 days ago I was rushing around in the heat picking up stuff from drugstore from husband then dinner and I dented our car trying to back into the driveway - I was on the verge of a panic attack and wl not rush around like that again.

  I am *relatively* calm now. & Thanks, I just needed to vent a bit. 

Here's a question though, AGAIN: how do you deal with tapering and full time work, and then a family crisis on top of that?  I cannot take more time off until September and our closest relatives & friends are 2 hours away.

Sorry to hear it's been a horrific time in your house and you have been through a lot.

May your husband get well as soon as possible.

Don't listen to that one person, if Doctors and her husband are happy with his progress.

Have you considered that this woman must have issues of her own and is projecting them onto you?

Some people have very little empathy.

I am sorry to hear that you had to go to A and E.

Why not do what I did, and carefully research some supplements you can take to calm yourself and lift your mood?

You would have to know that they do not interact with any medications you are on and also, that they are not interfering with the draded GABA.

Valerian works, it acts on GABA, but a science type friend who knew about receptors assured me it was ok to take with valium, sadly I lost touch with her, she knew her stuff.

Valerian is a godsend for me and asheagandha, they need to be cycled though.

Currently, I take 5 HTP, L – tyrosine, magnesium glycinate, and L theanine, I have also taken other supplements but I have to rotate them for tolerance reasons and safety reasons.

I am glad you are *relatively* calm now, and hope you can get more calm and happy.

I replied because I saw that you had no replies and I hope that's what I have said has helped.

It is a shame that you cannot take time off work, however, there are people on here, who work full-time, and who taper successfully, sometimes, I think we find the answers when we word our questions to direct us towards specific answers we need, for instance, you could make a thread asking full-time workers about their success when tapering benzos while working.

Everyone on here has their own ways of tapering.

I am currently dry cutting, I plan to do a daily liquid titration very soon, because, while I am tolerating the dry cutting currently, I know that I will not be able to do it all the way down to 0, because, I see the daily liquid titration has a smooth curve, rather than the bumpity-bumpof dry cutting.

External stress causes release of cortisol.

Excess cortisol is not our friend.

There are some excellent supplements that I have personally experience with, that deal very well with cortisol, Ashwagandha for one.

I find a small dose of Rhodiola in the morning, gets rid of groggy drowsy feelings.

I suggest you have a good google to find out which supplements you can take to address the cortisol and they also suggest that you minimise stress in your everyday life, I understand this is easier said than done. September Will come round soon enough.

Thank you for your detailed answer Journey!

I am very willing to try supplements to help.  Theanine looks promising.  I tried HTP5 and L-tyrosine several years ago for depression and they didn't seem to do anything. 

I was good today - I put my phone down and stayed off social media until now. & I don't feel stressed about the coming week anymore. So hopefully wash rinse and repeat for the next few weeks. 

Thank you for your detailed answer Journey!

 

I am very willing to try supplements to help.  Theanine looks promising.  I tried HTP5 and L-tyrosine several years ago for depression and they didn't seem to do anything. 

 

I was good today - I put my phone down and stayed off social media until now. & I don't feel stressed about the coming week anymore. So hopefully wash rinse and repeat for the next few weeks.

You're welcome.

Try L- Theanine, you may need to experiment with dose.

Same with 5-htp and l-tyrosine. You need 10 x as much l-tyrosine with 5htp taken together.

For instance if you take 50mg 5htp, you need 500mg l-tyrosine.

That dose didn't do much for me, I think you need to gradually up the dose as I once tried 200mg 5htp and spent the day spewing.

I think my depression needs a higher dose, so I am experimenting with gradually upping the dose.

You need the LT for dopamine, I think one deplete the other, but I am not sure of the technical side, I read reddit. They have a sub reddit dedicated to it r/nootropics and r/stackadvice.

It's good you were good today.

It's good you don't feel stressed about the coming week anymore.

Best of luck.

Hi IvyGibbsville,

sorry to hear you're struggling. Have you read the Ashton Manual? If not, I recommend you read it. Clonazepam is a potent Benzodiazepine. 0.25mg. of Clonazepam is equivalent to 3.125mg. of Diazepam (Valium). I'm currently in Benzo Withdrawal myself at 3.4mg. of Diazepam. A cut of 0.1mg. is already very intense for me, so I can only imagine how hard it is to come off such a potent Benzodiazepine like Clonazepam.

I couldn't imagine having to work when suffering from Benzodiazepine Withdrawal. I think it's awesome that you've already come such a long way tapering on your own. My advice is to read the Ashton Manual: it saved my life.

Greetings

Naf1983

From the Netherlands

It's been a horrific time in my house.  To cut to today: my husband had major surgery on July 7. Been in hospital from June 30 to July 14.  He is now home and yesterday drove for the first time to the grocery store (a 10-15 minute drive).  He is restricted from lifting anything so I did the heavy grocery bag lifting.  He also drove around the store in one of the electric carts to not exhaust himself.  So I put on my FB page a pic of him driving and caption "first time driving in 16 days.". Got mostly happy responses.  However, one person told him he shouldn't be doing so much.  He responded he has been taking it easy.  Today she just responded with more warnings and "let Ivygibbsville pamper you ". I am pretty sure this person knows that I was on a mental health leave for a month, but that leave was completely consumed by my husband's sudden illness and 2 surgeries, and now I am back at work for busy season until the end of August. That means 11-12 hour days and it's busy.  My husband just said no way would we hire something new to come in and help with anything, & I really wouldn't know who to hire.  The point is the person on FB should know better, as she just had a horrible summer last year with an illness.  And she doesn't work.  She should know with how bad I feel (& still holding at .25 mgs a day Clonazepam although I don't think my body has adjusted yet) that I cannot *pamper* anyone.  I can do the usual housework and chores and errands I do while working and even that is difficult for me (hence the 30 day stress leave from work), and what the friend doesn't know is my husband had me taken to the ER 3 weeks ago because I was talking about babbling about unhealthy ideas - I was so upset I can barely remember that weekend. Then 2 days ago I was rushing around in the heat picking up stuff from drugstore from husband then dinner and I dented our car trying to back into the driveway - I was on the verge of a panic attack and wl not rush around like that again.

  I am *relatively* calm now. & Thanks, I just needed to vent a bit. 

Here's a question though, AGAIN: how do you deal with tapering and full time work, and then a family crisis on top of that?  I cannot take more time off until September and our closest relatives & friends are 2 hours away.

Ivy,

You are carrying A LOT. And you are doing a phenomenal job. I really empathized with you when reading your story. I have been working and going to grad school through my taper, and have been very sick at times, and other people simply do not understand. And I've stopped trying to get them to understand. That's why we are here for one another - because we understand it.

You just have to take it one day at a time. And if it really does get to be too much, and you have to work, maybe do consider bringing in a little help? I know it seems overwhelming to even figure out what that might look like, but it might be helpful to have backup.

I know this isn't the same, but during a very bad wave, my cat got sick and I had to take him to the ER, and had to wait there for 5 hours, with tremors and nausea and akathisia and - worst part - complete inability to care about anyone or anything other than how bad I felt. I also couldn't comprehend anything going on, so wound up agreeing to $1000 of tests! (He didn't need most of them.) Luckily my kitty was okay. But it was a nightmare. And I did it.

And you're doing it, too. One foot in front of the other.

You got this.