Made a decision... enough is enough.

I am tapering for another 18 months at a pace that I find tolerable... including small updoses where necessary if things get ugly...

IF things are not better on the anxiety front after another 1.5 years... I am done.

I have been at this 2.5 years already from a paltry 12 mgs Valium equivalent... I am now at 2.9 mgs.

It seems to me that many bad CT cases heal by 4 years... if my taper does not put a serious dent in withdrawal after 4 years of going super slow... then I quit...

I would taper faster but I think that would be unbearable... and I think I would not make it even if I tried...

I thought (naively) that this would get easier as I got lower... in some ways I can feel healing... on a good day I can feel 85% well when I am stable... but usually I tend to be at about 60% (it feels like I have gone back as I so often see others here post the same)...

When I am feeling a cut, I can even feel like some that have already jumped... or not far off it.

This is ridiculous and my hopes and dreams of this getting better at 2 mgs probably are wishful thinking... but I am prepared to keep putting one foot in front of the other and taper where possible but in all honesty... I can't see this happening any more, I come here and all I see is suffering and after years at this, I just think it's too late for me... I have been on 22 years and more now...

If there were a guarantee that this would be over in "X" amount of years and that it would get better by zero... then fair enough... but this slow taper is torture... it's not working and in fact, I may have to radically change my approach... I just don't know what to do...

Maybe Ashton is right after all... maybe healing does not really start until off but how to get there and survive? That's what I keep wondering...

I really have a gut feeling that my taper has pretty much failed... I hope I am wrong but I sure don't feel right.

I am not prepared to live in terror for years... it's just not going to happen... the whole idea of tapering this slow was to heal and feel better on the way down... so why I wind up feeling so bad is a complete mystery to me... i can only think I must be in tolerance now and it sucks.

Sorry this is negative I know but I am at a complete loss here now... I have been struggling to get lower and the reality is I am barely moving in my taper... and still I feel bad withdrawals...

After long term use, I could be looking at years of being ill... that just seems nuts to me.

Oscar

I am off this site for awhile... reading of hospitals and setbacks and God knows what else just makes me feel worse.

I can barely see the sense in this anymore.

Oscar…it does get better but I don't know if anyone can count on feeling better until the taper is over.  I never did…but after my taper was finished things slowly and gradually have gotten better and at 20 months off (today!) I'm probably 90 to 95% now.  The best thing is to know I'm not dependent on anything and for me that's very important. 

There are nothing but positives being benzo-free.  Please stay.  Please keep tapering.

Challis

I'm longterm as well…31 years.  You can do it, too.

wow Challis,

thats inspirational!

Oscar,

ive read the bottom gets kind of rough but you will heal when youre off.

you are like me and catastracize stuff?

I took for 15.5 years -- 20 to 30 mg. Valium daily. I did a rapid taper from January 2013 to May, dropping from 30 mg. to 5 mg. I couldn't keep going down, so I jumped off c/t. I was in hell for the first 6-7 weeks, but then over the next two months it got slowly better.

Now, I'm 6.5 months off. I have good days and I have bad days. I'm in a wave right now. I can't work, but have enough savings for a couple more years, so no pressure for now.

If you can hang in there at 2.9 and just stay there for a month or so, see if your body adjusts to that level -- anything is better than giving up and reinstating. I did a reinstatement after nearly four months off a c/t in 2011 and I spent all of 2012 really just pissed at myself for blowing it. That's what prompted me to begin a rapid taper on Jan. 1, 2013...

It's been tough, I won't say it hasn't, but knowing I don't have any benzos in my system and have no urges or cravings for them -- well, it makes any crap I may be going through as part of my recovery something that I can do. It feels so GOOD to be benzo-free. It's a freedom I haven't had for 16 years...

Thanks everyone.

I am going to make a *tiny* updose tomorrow (just a days tiny cut reversal) and wait this out...

I read this today... really made me realize this is not to be messed with...

http://www.mentalhealthy.co.uk/blogs/the-hell-that-diazepam-withdrawal

It is for this reason that withdrawal scares me as I have had that panic also... and although it was whilst I pushed ahead when I should not have, if that happens again, I will do what is necessary... I am not going to lose the plot doing this... I just cannot hack that level of suffering... it's torture.

I know one thing... I will need to be in hospital when I jump off this stuff... I have no idea when a CT is no longer a CT but even at this dose of 2.9 mg... I would go insane if I rapid tapered off this amount...

I just want to know at what dose does one start to feel this is actually doable? 

Sometimes I just think this is too much of a big risk... seriously, people have taken their lives trying to get free of this stuff and that is very, very frightening to me.

If you taper low enough, you will most likely not notice much of anything different when you jump.  Things went absolutely crazy for me when I tried to jump from .25 of Xanax but I reinstated and kept going to .0625 and the jump was totally uneventful (as it is for most of us) … though utterly terrifying.  Like waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I didn't dare dispose of my leftover Xanax for a month…just…in…case…something…happened.  It never did.

If you taper low enough, you will most likely not notice much of anything different when you jump.  Things went absolutely crazy for me when I tried to jump from .25 of Xanax but I reinstated and kept going to .0625 and the jump was totally uneventful (as it is for most of us) … though utterly terrifying.  Like waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I didn't dare dispose of my leftover Xanax for a month…just…in…case…something…happened.  It never did.

Thanks Challis... that is reassuring.

I guess low dose jumping must be doable... so many do it here... and survive...

I guess worst case scenario is jumping back on again.

Oscar,

your plan doesn't account for the possibility that being at a low dose isn't allowing you to really recover, and therefore you could continue to taper for 1.5 years, still not be off, and conclude that you can't heal -- when in fact you haven't been off, so you don't know. Based on my own experiences with the sub-2mg doses, I'm pretty confident that I would have continued to feel terrible no matter how slowly I'd gone, and that it was only by being off completely that I've turned the corner a bit.

Oscar,

From 2mg down my taper was incredibly tough- I had to buy a bed like a hospital one (one that moves up and moves electronically) bc I couldn't sit up on my own for 9 months. The only thing that made it tolerable for me was this forum. I really feel healing only started for me once I was off. I was shockingly ill for 7 months once off- it was horrible but at least I am now liberated from the addiction and can start to rebuild.

I wish the same for you.

SD

Oscar, I'm on the same drug as you, at the .75mgs mark. There were times when I really didn't think I would make it to the end and even these days I sometimes feel this as well.

The thing is when I was on the amount you are now, well I was never on 2.9 but 3 and 2.5, I felt a lot worse than I do now on .75.

I know it's individual but as I did go slowly between then and now, but not over slowly, my cuts became a bit more bearable overtime. I've felt better below 1mg than I did above, I touch wood, but I believe as Dr Ashton said, we don't completely heal until we're off and this makes sense.

I'm not sure if thinking of the possibility of failing to feel better and eventually fully recover helps overall.

I know it's hard, but stay positive and envision the end of this taper as a happy ending.

Hi Oscar, I would think that once you do jump it will just feel like another cut, no better no worse. Why wouldn't it? So please don't get it in your mind that all hell will break lose the day after you cut. After that, your post-taper experience will probably be up and down like it is for the rest of us.

You might have bad times where you think that reinstating is the answer, believe me, it has crossed my mind many times. However there is a freedom in being benzo-free, in being able to count the days that you have been off rather than the days until your taper is over.

I know that this process has been agonizingly slow for you. Sometimes we have to have the patience of a saint to get through this life.