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@KNACKERED

On the Road with Benzos

Hey there, knackered here.  If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you probably haven’t felt the earth tilting toward the sun, but there are signs of spring in the air.  If you don’t believe me you can look out the window or check the calendar.  Fair skies always leave me with a desire to go somewhere, or at least it has in the past; i.e. the quintessential road trip. Which brings to mind loading our VW bus with the family and camping gear and hoping that the engine doesn’t blow up, again, some
[kn...]

[kn...] in Everyday life while tapering

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Widesky

Skin tags, splotches and moles, oh my

Many skin changes toward end of taper but especially at present. Months 6,7,8 multiple skin tags, weird moles and dark splotches appearing within weeks of each other. not only hair loss on entire body with rough texture, but now all these new ugly moles and tags. On my face, ears, arms legs.  dermatologist says it happens rapidly when a person’s hormones are wonky. Thank you psych drugs. Kick me when I’m down. I thought I had a little pimple on the back of the ear and I went to scratch it
[wi...]

[wi...] in Venting

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Puku's Life After Benzos

Jaw Surgery In Korea!

Hi hi blog, I have a heavy digital footprint across all areas of the internet but in a anonymous way. I remember my benzo blog fondly, because I'm pretty sure the anesthesia they gave me for jaw surgery had something in it. Either was, I was a wretch for a week! And now I'm back to sleeping well. It has been my dream of 10 years to get plastic surgery for my jaw, and nose, and eyes... And I've done all of that after getting off the benzos! I knew I would be too sick while I was on them
[pu...]

[pu...] in blog

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In The Remains Of The Day

The Many Failures Of The Man With No Name

Hey guys, it's been a long time. And it's been a strange time. Most of this year has been a struggle, but it got particularly bad in August when I tried to introduce Citalopram into my regime to combat my anxiety, particularly my health anxiety. And what do you know, it made things worse. The first two weeks when I started on a super low dose was fine, but as soon as I upped it, it was terrible. And it felt a hell of a lot like benzo withdrawal. And it started getting better as soon as I stopped
[Hu...]

[Hu...] in The Struggle

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Hotcoldhotcold

Fighting with Grade Schoolers

Most foods don't do anything for me. I eat because I need to; this recovery process kind of killed my appetite. For a long time I had a lump, constantly rising up in my throat when I ate. The lump is gone, so that's a 'yay' box I can check. But I still don't much like food. I do like Fairlife Chocolate Milk. When I can find it. It's amazing. Even my body-building grandsons approve of it because it's high protein and low sugar. It has the same amount of sugar as white milk. You'd never know
[Ho...]

[Ho...] in distractions

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Hotcoldhotcold

What Saving Frogs Looks Like

Today my husband and I went to volunteer at the local forest preserves, cutting down and burning buckthorn. See the photo above? On the left is forest that has been cleared of buckthorn. You can see through the trees; it seems airy and bright and now other species can grow around the trees. But on the right is the dark, scary forest that we're just starting to work on. Most of it is buckthorn. It can have two-inch thorns. Apparently buckthorn emits a poisonous substance that affects the ability
[Ho...]

[Ho...] in Distractions

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Hotcoldhotcold

After the Ball is over . . .

Finally completed this painting. It's in watercolors again, so it's hard for me to work the petals and leaves into anything with more translucence. I'll try the concept in oils one day, maybe. But I got it done! There's an artist's practice that I have to start doing again. You give yourself a very limited amount of time to draw something. Then shorten the time and shorten until you've only got a few seconds. It loosens your wrist and makes your drawing or painting flow and have clean, simp
[Ho...]

[Ho...] in distractions

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Hotcoldhotcold

Beautiful Moments

Right now there's an owl hooting outside. I think it's a great horned owl. It always takes me by surprise because I live close to a major metropolitan area, and owls should (I'd think!) be rare. So hearing one outside, in the night, feels like an honor and a privilege. Yesterday there were two adolescent boys on one bike riding together with huge, huge smiles, dark hair whipping in the wind, legs all over the place, pumping and balancing. Their smiles just transfixed me; sheer joy, just sho
[Ho...]

[Ho...] in Distraction

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In The Remains Of The Day

Last Words Of A Shooting Star

I wish I had something better to update you guys with. But I just don't. It's been a real struggle. Why did I ever touch an SSRI again? Everything was going... well, not great. But manageable. My anxiety was high, despite being on 45mg Mirtazapine, and I added Citalopram to it. Barely anything. And yet since, my life has gone off the rails. Badly.  I stopped taking it, but I've been living in windows and waves, annoyingly. Maybe the waves aren't as destructive as they were in the first week
[Hu...]

[Hu...] in The Struggle

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Hotcoldhotcold

The pen is mightier than the brush. Sometimes!

Well, I went outside with a piece of canvas and acrylic paints. (Along with all the rest of the stuff you need to paint: Water, brushes, paper towels, chair, table.) And painted a blobby piece of work. I got discouraged and pulled the plug pretty fast. I just don't like acrylics! I like oils better but they're so messy to clean up, I don't quite have the energy to start one!  I've started another watercolor, meant to go without pen and ink, but man, it took a lot of pre-drawing, and it's ta
[Ho...]

[Ho...] in Distraction

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Hotcoldhotcold

My Paints are Magical. My Painting, Not So Much!

Finally broke out the watercolors and tried my hand again. I have to say both were a complete fail until I used ink and drew on them. They're still not exactly fresh or exciting but I guess serviceable is a good word.  Honestly inking them was a LOT more fun than laying down the color. It was a pretty good distraction. I've been in an afternoon wave for the past year, and even drawing was tough. TV was worse, and eating awful. When I couldn't draw any more I went outside and took some photo
[Ho...]

[Ho...] in Distractions

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Hotcoldhotcold

Three Best Friends

I get so much advice here. So much encouragement. I have a suitcase filled to the brim. I have to sit on it to close it. Here are some of its simple gems: Eat clean, exercise, trust the healing process, avoid alcohol and caffeine. Consider limiting gluten and sugar. Listen to your body. Yet strangely, I forget to open it. I suffer for it. My family suffers for it. So I'm putting my big three (lately) here, as a personal reminder and maybe an encouragment for some of my beloved benzo buddies
[Ho...]

[Ho...] in Coping Skills

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In The Remains Of The Day

A Day Is A Lifetime When You're Down And Out

Oh now the suffering is here in force. The past two days have been the most difficult I've had in a long, long time. Since benzo WD, I'd say. Constant, non stop anxiety, discomfort. Muscle twitching. Nausea, insomnia. I wish I could offer something more creative to this blog post, but until I'm not suffering quite so intensely then I may struggle very much to do so. But I will try. Not today, but perhaps tomorrow, I will try.   Today I was defeated. From bell to bell, whistle to whistl
[Hu...]

[Hu...] in The Struggle

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In The Remains Of The Day

The Struggle Goes On

Been a really rough couple of days, particularly today. I think I accidentally took my mirtazapine twice on Sunday night, which has led to a reoccurrence of the muscle twitching and the anxiety. Not nice, particularly as I had been experiencing pretty linear recovery since my slip up due to the Citalopram two weeks back, with only the odd half hour or so here and there of feeling anxious. It's got me wondering. These probably aren't waves, right? I mean, it's been two years, I had gone a year wi
[Hu...]

[Hu...] in Serotonin Cinema

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In The Remains Of The Day

Neurosis Incorporated

If I ever finish a major creative work it will be a minor miracle. I am so neurotic, so easily side-tracked by anxiety and fear, that it takes a major effort - or an extended period of good luck - for me to really make any headway. I can produce minor works; it's much easier for me to write a song or a poem than it is for me to work with prose. One of my favourite contemporary authors, Zadie Smith, once described writing a novel as a 'series of problem solving exercise'. Nobel Prize Winner JM
[Hu...]

[Hu...] in The Writer

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Hotcoldhotcold

Meet my Chair.

Finished! I should probably add this to the previous blog post, but here it is. There were so many steps (and so many steps backward!) that I'm fast-forwarding from start to finish line. It's been an exercise in not getting discouraged even when recovery-tired (which sleep doesn't fix yet!), even when I made mistakes and also when I wanted to drop-kick the chair down the stairs. I didn't. Now I have to figure out where it will live in the house!  
[Ho...]

[Ho...] in Distractions

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In The Remains Of The Day

Serotonin Cinema

Well, an odd few weeks it has been. I had a damn good 2-3 weeks, felt much much better mentally, and enjoyed myself. Life was normal. Then I increased my dose of Citalopram (you may know it as Celexa), an SSRI I took during withdrawal and for many years prior to it, and suddenly I felt absolutely awful, with a recurrence of what I thought were benzo symptoms. Made me think.   I went back to my old blogs and realised that the two worst periods of my withdrawal - after the initial acute,
[Hu...]

[Hu...] in Serotonin Cinema

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Hotcoldhotcold

BAKING A CAKE

BAKING A CAKE I'm thinking of baking a kind of cake. It's not really a cake; it's more a metaphor for the resounding question, 'Where do I go from here?' Ingredients: One chick healing from withdrawal, aged for 11 months in the benzo recovery barrel. One laptop A handful of talents and abilities: Can sew. Can paint. Can read. Can write.  Get a house with plenty of rooms. Take the aged chick. Don't worry if her skin is burning, she has the jitters or she has no appet
[Ho...]

[Ho...] in Distractions

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Hotcoldhotcold

Distracted by a Snowflake

By far, the best antidote to burning skin, nausea, malaise, dizziness and weakness is getting lost in something. It's miraculous. A tried and true piece of advice given to young adults is to 'Find something you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life'. Distraction is like that. Suddenly all the torture is somewhere else. The tremors, pain, fear, anxiety and debilitation are just gone. So this is an area we need to circle around, nurturing and valuing these things. While w
[Ho...]

[Ho...] in Distractions

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Hotcoldhotcold

TV Shows I Can Watch. Oh yes.

I don't know about you, but for a while I could barely watch TV.  Everything seemed to zip like an arrow to my core, bothering me at some deep level. So here is a short list of my do-able shows. Not listed here is Project Runway, which I watched as my husband passed behind my chair, saying, more often than not (in Heidi Klum's German accent) "One day your'e in, and the next DAY, YOU'RE OUT!"   Watching that show was the first time I felt normal. But only during the show! As you can imagine,
[Ho...]

[Ho...] in Engrossing TV

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