Chop Wood, Carry Water

[[No...]]

Time to move on ... this “chapter” in my story is just about at an end ...

 

I chose to come off this drug ... I did ... and I will never take the drug again ... that is my promise to myself ...

 

Today I am pretty much “healed” ... there is a ways to go yet ... a bit of “housekeeping”, that’s all ...and I know how to survive a little more “housekeeping” ...

 

My mind is clear ... I am back in my life without the drug ... it is time to let the “benzo process” go ... I have “succeeded” ... time to “graduate” ...

 

To the folks who maintain BenzoBuddies ... thank you ...

 

To the Buddies who have shared their stories and encouraged me ... a thousand blessings ...

 

To those of you wherever you are along the timeline of your “healing journey” ... give yourself the time you need to get through this ... you deserve it ... I only have two words of encouragement ... patience and distraction ...

 

We are all unique ... we are all precious ...

 

There is joy here for me, and a sadness ... I have been “at this” for a very long time ... time to let it go ...

 

As they have said ...

 

When you are in distress ... chop wood, carry water ...

 

When you are healing ... chop wood, carry water ...

 

When you move on ... chop wood, carry water ...

 

Take Care ...

 

NovaScotia

 

[[he...]]

Nova, Blessings to you on your next chapter....may you have lots of water to carry and wood to chop!!!  carry on my friend....Jude

[[Ro...]]

Inspiring, courageous and touching. My canadian hero, I'm so happy for you.

 

Please visit us now and than.

 

Holding your hand, Robyn.

 

Xx

[[Se...]]

Dear Nova, I am so glad you have decided to take this next big step in your life, although I admit I will miss you.  You have been such a wonderful, courageous presence here for so many, including me.  Blessings to you and I wish you all the very best, buddy. 

 

SN

 

PS - As Robyn says, please don't hesitate to come back and update once in a while; that gives bb'ers so much hope & resolve to continue on the path of recovery & healing.

[[No...]]

FYI - not "leaving" BB right now ...

 

[[...]]

Nova, I'm so very happy to read this!

 

I'm glad you are to a point that you feel you are ready to post this! I've been asking myself how I would know when it's time to post a success story, yet I think if I'm asking the question I'm well on the road, even if I'm not quite there!

 

Wishing you the best, dear man! I'm glad you're not leaving BB yet, but I must say thank you! You've helped me so much!

 

:smitten:

[Guest [Mi...]]

Thank you for sharing, Nova.

 

"Chop wood, carry water" is a wonderful mantra.

 

"Patience" and "distraction" and the ability to just "let it go" are great ways of conceptualizing this. 

[[Sa...]]

Nova, I'm so happy to read this! You have such insight and infinite wisdom for all of us. I'm glad you're  staying but even more pleased you feel yourself a success. Best to you Nova 

[Guest [su...]]

from one canadian to another congrats and enjoy ..

[[Ga...]]

So happy to hear that you are healed.  I have so appreciated your encouraging posts to those of us who still suffer.  We are in the same age bracket and I feel we have special age issues that we face.  But hope is here though sometimes hard to grasp and hold.  I face bad days of hopelessness and fears of this never ending.  14 months now for only 5 months of usage.  But I must go on for my family if not just for myself. This is the hardest thing I have ever faced , as you well know.  The DNA blood panel i had gives me some ammo for future care from the drug companies and doctors who only want to give out more drugs.  I am so grateful I had it and learned what I cannot ever take. 

 

Please do stay on here to give support and encouragement.  We need you.  Thanks and bless you.  Be well and happy.

Galea

[[bu...]]

Always enjoy your posts Nova - so glad you got yourself "graduated"!!!

[[No...]]

Thank you for your replies today, Folks ... the warmth of support we receive each day here on BB is a gift ... 

 

 

[[In...]]

Always a pleasure reading a success story from a familiar face. Congratulations to you Nova! You've been a wonderful presence here on BB, I always enjoy reading your perspective. You've written so many caring messages along the way. I will miss them but the tradeoff of you being healed is even more inspiring. Take care! 

[[fl...]]

Congratulations, dear Nova.  Your courage is great.  Thanks for writing your story!

[[pi...]]

Congratulations Nova, what a wonderful inspiring post you wrote. I know our members will gain so much hope from it.  Enjoy your wellness, you deserve it.

 

pianogirl 

[[je...]]

So happy and proud of you Nova!!! You deserve every bit of this!! So glad to have "met" you on here

[[Fr...]]

Dear Nova,  congratulations on your healing.  Thank you for all your kind words and wise support.  You have always been a guiding light and calming source for me as I struggle through this.

 

Lisa

[[li...]]

Congratulations on your healing !

Thank you for writing your inspiring story.

 

Lib

[[No...]]

Good Morning ... thank you all again for your kind words ...

 

I did not write about "the particulars" of my day to day experience ... and that was intentional ... perhaps what is more "important" for me and perhaps helpful to others are the "stages" or "phases" of my journey ... and once again we are all unique ...

 

What is so "encouraging" and marvelous about BB is the huge amount of information here and the wondrous stories found here ... and of course the day to day encouragement available ...

 

Back perhaps about four years ago I stated getting hints that something was "wrong" ... that the "suffering" I was experiencing on the drug was not "normal" ... and there was no support or information in my community that could address this "suffering" ... almost 20 years on the drug did nothing for any sort of "healing" ... and what was even more disappointing ... all the "practices" I engaged in had no physical or mental efficacy for the long term ... they did offer some "relief" in the moment ... and I did not experience them as a "path" towards "healing" ... the practices were experienced as palliative ...

 

The "practices" included TaiChi ... and mindfulness as offered by Jon Kabat-Zinn and the MBSR teachings ... and teachings offered to release the bonds of panic ... in the beginning Claire Weekes and followed up with Herbert Benson and others ... and I found I "did" most of these "practices" alone ... being in a group with others was often torturous for me ... getting to and participating in a group practice and getting home most times amplified my distress ...

 

The initial "event" that opened the door to my using the drug was "panic episodes" tangled up in, for lack of a better framework I will use PTSD, energized by my experience of physical and mental abuse as a very young child that lasted for several years ... and I survived, I got on with my life, and all in all things were pretty good ...

 

After accepting the drug and doing some "work" with the "panic" experience which I believe released my denial and brought me to a place of "acceptance" of the abuse and an experience of "healing", which took a couple of years, I found that all that "work" and "practice" did not return me to a place of feeling "normal" ... what everyone "missed", including myself, was that I was still using the drug ... so I 'settled in" to this "new normal" and carried on with my life ...

 

It is remarkable what we can live with when we do not have the "full picture" ... we keep trying to put the jigsaw puzzle together not realizing we do not have all the pieces on the table ... and we keep trying ...

 

So for many years I just "carried" on partially functional ... moving in and out of the effects of the drug ... until I received my next "teaching" ... the serendipity of finding Robert Whitaker's book "Anatomy of an Epidemic" ... and eventually finding Ashton's work ... and after many months waking up enough to accept that the chains that were binding me was the drug ... and once again hit the wall of denial in my community that the problem was me, not the drug ... however I could not deny the evidence I found contained in Whitaker and Ashton ... so, once again I moved on alone, put together a withdrawal schedule and commenced a slow taper ...

 

And, pardon the pun, the rest is history ...

 

I think I will leave this here for now ... I will come back and write about the next "stages" or "phases" of my recovery soon ...

 

Have a good Sunday ...

[Guest [Mi...]]

Thanks for writing this, Nova.

 

I enjoy reading about your "stages" as it puts your recovery into perspective.

 

I think many of us had rough starts as children - I too was raised in a very toxic and abusive environment.

 

"Anatomy of an Epidemic" opened my eyes and confirmed something I had been saying for years to various pdoc's - the drugs are causing the manic-depression (later to be called bipolar). It was Robert Whitaker's investigative genius that brought reality home, followed by Dr. Ashton's Manual, which gave me the blueprint to start rebuilding my life.

 

Starting from the ground, demolishing the bipolar framework, and doing a complete re-build.

 

Be well. 

[[Mo...]]

Nove, so beautiful.  Thank you for this.  Lead the way friend.  We are following. 

[[No...]]

Hello Again ...

 

How to "string" this story together so that it "does" something ... and I have the image of the "telling of the beads" ... many traditions use this practice ... whether it be a "rosary" or a moving a pebble from one bowl to another, or some other "vehicle" ... it seems to be both a marking of time and a gentle inquiry of or exposure to "mystery" ...

 

Stages of my journey ... and remembering we are all unique ... these stages are coloured with the day to day experiences of the "process" and the abiding "hope" for the "destination" ... is this the "phenomenon" of windows and waves we all speak about? ...

 

And ... both the experience of the day to day stuff and the sense of destination during these stages changed for me and both continue to do so ... the "geography" of my awareness and my acceptance continually expanded ... even though oftentimes I could not see the forest for the trees ... and spent many, many months tangled in the underbrush struggling to stay with the hazy path before me ...

 

The time of the drug before taper ... the sense of being "lost" ... the sense of constantly trying to find or make an accommodation with my life ... trying to make a "deal" ... the doing what I was told ... not abusing the drug according to prescription ... the totally useless "advice" from the medical community in which I lived ... the utter loss of any hope ... the feeling that this is all there is ... and the "losses" ... the sense of "integrity" or wholeness gradually diminishing ... the cacophony of side-effects ... for me the greatest of these was the sense of no longer being connected to my "story" ... the awareness that I was trapped in a never-ending nightmare ... the labyrinth had become a maze ... floundering, drowning slowly ... and no land in sight ... my "story" was "broken" and slowly, gradually being erased ... it was no longer an issue of not seeing the forest for the trees, all the trees had been cut down, there was no forest anymore ... the land was barren ... there was no path to be seen ...

 

The time of the awareness that the drug was the problem ... pure serendipity ... Whitaker and Ashton threw me a lifeline ... initially I "thought" their writing was probably just another "false" path ... and as I am wont to do I just read their messages over and over again ... and gradually I came to a place where I accepted that there wasn't another game in town so I might as well try this one ... and in the beginning that wasn't enough to get me "moving" ... so I reread them some more ... and in the stories of others I began to see there was some "hope" in these stories ... gradually a path became clear to me ... the path of "get off the drug" ... so I sought "confirmation" of these stories in the medical community around me ... and there was none ... my final acceptance was I was going to have to "do" this alone ...

 

(I did connect with BB back before I started my taper ... that advice was contained in my readings ... and I tried ... and I could not make heads or tails out of BB and how it worked ... and that was my issue ... the drug had me so muddled and confused that BB did not make any sense to me ... so I disconnected ... I could have asked for help from BB to get connected in a useful way ... and I am sure BB would have reached out to me ... and I did not ... I just walked away ... "trust" was not something I had much of at that time ...)

 

Withdrawing ... and once again remembering we are all unique ... I chose a slow taper based on the Ashton protocols ... and a switch to diazepam when I hit the 1 mg level of clonazepam ... in general maintaining an average of a 10% cut with a three to four week pause in between cuts ... and this taper lasted 26 months ... I chose this process because I felt "safe" with it ... from what I read this method should keep me out of any withdrawal "dangers" ... in the beginning I was filled with hope and energy ... I was "doing" something ... I was getting somewhere ... I had a goal ... gradually over a few months the malaise of how long this was going to take set in ... and there was no noticeable change in the side-effects of the drug ... and I clung to my "goal" ... from reading, rightly or wrongly, I clung to the expectation that I would not see much "change" until my taper was finished ... until the drug was gone ... and for me that was the case ... I did not use the word then, I only heard it once I became connected to BB ... I was in "survival" mode ... first step - get off the drug ...

 

Taper finished and a bit of a "holiday" ... for about two months after finishing my taper I experienced a diminishing of side-effects from the drug ... now I would describe this time as a hiatus between withdrawal and recovery ... there was a diminishing of the intensity of side-effects and also a significant sense of accomplishment ... I was drug free ... and I was again a bit lost ... I was still "working" alone ... and my readings did not describe this hiatus ... or if they did I did not recognize them as such ... I muddled along waiting to see what would happen next ...

 

Acute ... this lasted about six or so months for me ... and somewhere around the middle of acute I reconnected with BB ... this is where for me things really got confusing, difficult, and exhausting ... for the first three or four months the side-effects were relentless ... and I lost almost complete connection to anything "external" ... most of my "distractions" fell away ... I could not read, any amount of light more than almost subdued darkness was intolerable, any sound was disturbing ... I lost all my "attention span" ... things became very circumscribed ... soft music with no vocals and my computerized jigsaw puzzles became my existence ... looking after myself became problematic ... things seemed to be only tolerable in very, very small doses ... things felt like they were disintegrating ...

 

And now I can describe this time as one of "recovery" ... I believe a time of being "restored" ... one confusing and very scary aspect of this time was the appearance of unfamiliar "side-effects" ... I knew my "repertoire" of side effects and that was okay ... when the new ones started showing up I became very afraid and confused ... and that was about the time I re-connected with BB and received the reassurance that this was a "normal" course of events ... without that reassurance I may not have been able to carry on ...

 

(This is getting a bit long again ... I will stop here for now ... more later ... )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[[Lo...]]

Time to move on ... this “chapter” in my story is just about at an end ...

 

I chose to come off this drug ... I did ... and I will never take the drug again ... that is my promise to myself ...

 

Today I am pretty much “healed” ... there is a ways to go yet ... a bit of “housekeeping”, that’s all ...and I know how to survive a little more “housekeeping” ...

 

My mind is clear ... I am back in my life without the drug ... it is time to let the “benzo process” go ... I have “succeeded” ... time to “graduate” ...

 

To the folks who maintain BenzoBuddies ... thank you ...

 

To the Buddies who have shared their stories and encouraged me ... a thousand blessings ...

 

To those of you wherever you are along the timeline of your “healing journey” ... give yourself the time you need to get through this ... you deserve it ... I only have two words of encouragement ... patience and distraction ...

 

We are all unique ... we are all precious ...

 

There is joy here for me, and a sadness ... I have been “at this” for a very long time ... time to let it go ...

 

As they have said ...

 

When you are in distress ... chop wood, carry water ...

 

When you are healing ... chop wood, carry water ...

 

When you move on ... chop wood, carry water ...

 

Take Care ...

 

NovaScotia

 

 

I will miss you dearly...I'm in the thick of a healing crisis...but I know if you could do it so can I! Much love to you and many blessings! 

[[mi...]]

Thank you for sharing your story. This spoke to me because I have literally chopped wood to get through some of the rough times in my life. My mom and dad would both send me to the wood pile when there were no answers to be had anywhere else. I hope you are able to finishing stringing the beads together for us.

[[Te...]]

I'm so happy for you, Nova!!! Thank you very much for sharing your story, and great healing. I'm really inspired to read that you've reached the "other side." I so look forward to that, but I know there's a long way to go for me still. All the best to you!!!