End of taper- getting worse? Will I make it?

[[Si...]]

I did a careful taper off klonopin- 5 percent a month yet in the last 20 percent since June it has gotten worse and worse, almost daily. I do have a cold turkey under my belt back in 2012. What is getting worse is my anxiety and dissocative symptoms/ dpdr and just feeling more and more gone in my mind like I'm losing reality. Each day almost my body has felt more numb like I can feel less and less physically and less connection to it. I feel like I'm being erased from the universe like my body is almost gone and my mind is going with it. I am so numb I feel basically nothing it's been getting more severe for months. I'm in the last couple weeks of my taper and scared I won't make it. I feel so out of body I have no connection to it I don't even know how I move. Along with this I've felt more dead and unreal and family and people look so unreal/fake and nothing seems like it ever really happened to me. I'm so scared to finish this taper don't know what's in store for me and can't shake the feeling something is "happening" to me. Like I must have done something wrong in the taper or I must be going crazy. Anyways can this actually happen where the last part of the taper things just seem to get worse like depths of hell worse? Really worried I do not want to have to go back on and do this a third time. I also don't want to end up on other drugs or in a mental place I'm losing it so bad. How the heck am I gonna jump guys?! Is something seriously going wrong if I keep going into a deeper dpdr dissociation? Btw sometimes I emotionally feel nothing and other times my anxiety is through the roof, and I am having some trouble sleeping but I can't complain cuz I'm getting some.

[Guest [sa...]]

this whole thing is very individual, some people make major breakthrhoughs when they finish they taper, others experience things getting worse.  some times is not that you did something wrong if  uour taper, but you're getting rid of an addictive drug, so it's normal that you feel like crap. jump whenver you feel ready. you body must have developed tolerance to the drug so you didn't experiecne much relief, that must be it, i could be wrong.

 

 

i'm on the same boat as you. my whole body is hurt and numb, i have no problems falling asleep.

[Guest [Mi...]]

Siberia, dp/dr is the worst symptom I have right now. It started like yours - while I was still tapering back in March and has been with me for more than 6 months.

 

I feel for you. I really do. The feeling that you're so detached and in your head that you're disappearing is so intense and so scary.

 

You're not losing your mind. It's the drug doing this to you. I've had a few "partial windows" in the past few weeks where I didn't come completely out of it. The best way I can describe it is I was "swimming close to the surface" and felt if it lifted just a bit more, I could finally come up for air and breathe.

 

What helped me the most was finding this forum in May and finding out it's very common with coming off of benzos. I've also read that it may be the result of the brain "protecting" you. And that dp/dr may be the result of intense anxiety. Since benzo withdrawal causes cortisol surges, this makes sense - cortisol is the stress hormone involved in the flight or fight reaction.

 

Some folks have found some relief with mindfulness, as this helps with anxiety. It doesn't make the dp/dr go away. It simply helps me accept it, and makes life in general less scary.

 

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Claire Weekes, Jody Whitely all have great guided meditations on YouTube. Anything to calm the mind at this point is appreciated.

 

This is one by Mooji. His meditations deal with how to handle very intense emotions without losing your mind. Dp/dr, even though it masks itself with a type of mental anesthesia, is very intense. What Mooji explains is how to survive surges of anxiety and intensity.

 

 

It's really hard to accept this state of mind, but I'm learning not to dwell and analyze it. By struggling, I found myself getting so very exhausted! By taking a role as a rather indifferent and a bit curious "observer," I've been able to relax even during the most intense waves of dp/dr. Just let it flow through, knowing that eventually, I'll wake up from it.

 

Hope this helps.