anxiety and panic

Hi, this is mishi, thank you for your help.  I am so panicky right now.  How do I stop the thoughts from coming back in my head from the trauma experience in the hospital from going cold turkey, all the people in the  hospital that were screaming having to be tied up because they could not stop there rage., and alot worse, that i saw.  It is starting to come back to me. I had blocked it out for awhile.  there is much more but is okay to tell you what happened after i went cold turkey for 9 days i do not want anyone do judge me.  I am a good  person but got into a mess, and I need the help.  How do I stop all the bad thoughts to come back into my head and the fear that I have.  I know it makes it worse for the anxiety but i had a bad trauma experience.  I am scared to go home because I don;t know if i am stable enough mentally to face up to where I am at today, in front of my kids and hubby.  Hubby is bibolarl and my son again is only 15 will i scare him with my withdrawal.  There is so much to tell.  I also read on the forum that when you are finished tapering you can be sick for a long time.  This to scares me because can I get thru this and not have to go thru what some of the people went thru for a year after they had tapered i will loose everything.  it scares me. or is everyone different. Can I talk to you about the real bad experience, after the withdrawal and what really happened afterwards.  Is this okay to talk about on the forum.  It gives me anxiety but i have to share.  How do i stop the thoughts and fear please help. thank you

Mishi,

 

my psychologist told me these things which helped.

 

1) you can't help having thoughts, they just happen.  You have to look into the thought, acknowledge it.  If you try to block the thoughts, they will haunt you.  Thoughts are just thoughts. 

 

2) having bad thoughts is not the same as going a bad action.  You can try to google thought-action fusion. 

 

I too had a bad experience while in the hospital.  I wrote a letter of complaint, but have not sent it yet.  It really helped to get it out of my head, because I was just running the experience over and over in my head.  I may send it yet.

 

I was also very scared of the wd symptoms after the end of my taper, but what I found was once the benzos were out of my system, I no longer had the terrors and fears, the fears were fueled by the drug. 

 

Hang in there mishi.

 

 

 

 

I believe wellness is right about not trying to suppress thoughts and if writing them down - here or in a journal, for instance - have at it.  The are just thoughts and can't hurt you if you don't let them rule you.  Try not to worry about the future but take each day as it comes.  Most of what we worry about never happens and we've wasted all that time and energy!

Hi Mishi,

 

I can relate to the intrusive thoughts and the fear. I too experienced a hellish detox/cold turkey.

I had feared that that experience left me with post traumatic stress disorder. I'm relieved to say I now know that it is the withdrawal that is causing these thoughts to pop in my head out of no where. I find myself becoming fearful by over-analyzing everything. I worry about not only everyone in my life right now and in the past, but everyone and everything in the world.

 

I finally figured it out, that it was the withdrawal doing this to my mind. Knowing this -takes away some of the fear. Things that I once laughed at, now seems to be a big deal, like watching TV and thinking how could people laugh at such a sad thing or why would they show something like that on tv?  I am so emotionally sensitive about a lot of things. So now when these thoughts come, I know that it is part of the healing and just let the thought pass knowing that I am getting better.

 

Beeper and wellness are right, I think the harder you try to stop these thoughts the more they come and the more fearful you get. Let them come, and just acknowledge them and let them pass. After awhile, they'll stop coming so frequently and you'll be less fearful of them.

 

I hope I'm not rambling (I find this is part of my withdrawal also   )

 

It will get better

Kim

 

 

edit: my benzobrain cleanup