How do you get interested in life again?

[[do...]]

During this time I am doing small things during the day and that's about it. I would like to do more and be interested in life again and have some kind of goals and such. Not much interests me though. Things I used to be interested in don't interest me. Plus I have no balance in my life right now.

 

Any suggestions?

[[pr...]]

This will end if you do not take anymore of the poison..and you will return to your normal self..It is healing, but I prefer to think of it as rebalancing of the GABA receptors and Glutamate receptors...Yours will rebalance too....but it takes time.

[[Co...]]

I'm 13 months out and still have little interest in life. I want to do things but still can't. Most of the things I was interested in before are out of my head. It sucks, I know.

[[Mi...]]

Dolphin, same here even though my symptoms are lessoning I really have no desire to do anything....    It sucks but I started something a couple weeks ago and it has helped a little bit.  I have a 10 & 14 year old.  I have a must do reminder sheet for them everyday.  You know the simple things like, make your bed, brush your teeth ect...  Well, I made one for me and yes it sucks but guess what I feel a little more like myself....    I have been pretty much house ridden with these symptoms so you can only imagine what I looked like lol.  I used to be a hair stylist and apart of my job was my appearance.  Well, believe me you would run in the other direction before you let me help in your appearance, lol.....      Anyways, I have about a 3 hour to do list everyday and it really truly has helped.    Here it goes lol,    make bed, and brush teeth.  Even if not hungry and yes even if I think I may come back up.  I start the day with a protein fruit smoothie.  I walk 2 miles on my tread mill and then shower and get ready for the day as if I were going to work...    I know its silly but wow its helped a lot more than I thought.  This takes about 2 hours.  Then before hubbys home from work and kids from school.  I make myself do a stress relief and relaxation yoga dvd.  It was highly recommended to me.  The lady doing it is a psychologist who works on your fight or flight mechanism that I think we are all dealing with with the chemical anxiety.  Then I plan a healthy meal.    This all takes up half my day.  With everyones schedules coming and going I have 6 hours a day with no one home.  So I make myself commit to half my time.  Idk, it makes me feel more human I guess. And, the structure helps also.  I am 3 days away from 9 months and started this about 6 weeks ago.  I really didn't think it would help but in all honesty I think its what has gotten me through this past 6 weeks and has helped immensely......

 

 

[[Ch...]]

During this time I am doing small things during the day and that's about it. I would like to do more and be interested in life again and have some kind of goals and such. Not much interests me though. Things I used to be interested in don't interest me. Plus I have no balance in my life right now.

 

Any suggestions?

 

You will, dolphins.  The interest and enthusiasm will return with time.  It's a process.  I vividly remember thinking I'd never feel like doing the things I used to do...home improvement, socializing, etc.  I was sad that life as I knew it was over.  But I was wrong and it has all come back.  It was slow, very slow.  You have to wait for it to happen naturally but it will. 

 

The tricky part is to stay positive while we wait...

 

[[Sw...]]

Miss Jen,

 

Thanks for the reminder!  I will start my own daily to do list of what to do.  I have spent many months of just wandering aimlessly through the day.  I do not have children to care for just a patient (most of the time) husband.  I need a focus because what I used to do daily and for fun just has absolutely no pull at me anymore.  It's been three and  a half months.  One "window" of about 10 days now its back to the wandering aimlessly through the day for about a week.

 

I will start list and post it so that it will motivate me to keep going.  I became a Master Gardener before benzo withdrawal and made beautiful beaded jewelry, now I don't care if I see another bead again.

 

Dolphins 1 thanks for the kickstart, I know I'm not the only one who just feels lost.

 

 

[[do...]]

Challis you mention staying positive during this time. I don't know how to do that. Depression is all time high.

 

Jen and others thanks!

[[Se...]]

I too am desperate for all this to come back. It's been 2.5 months since school started, I began exercising each morning after dropoff, and I have made progress in little baby steps. But still the overwhelm rules, the lethargy is the driver, apathy the norm. Still feel like I am just coping, reserving my limited energy...

[[Co...]]

What I do now is just ride out my sx. It takes too much energy to fight it. If I'm super depressed, I just lay down watch TV and do nothing. I have the luxury of not having to work or do much else right now. Thank god cause I don't know what I would do if I had to work right now. So just try to deal with your sx the best you can and know that one day they will be hone.

[[wo...]]

TIME, TIME and more TIME.  It will come back to you.  I tried chasing it myself, but it WILL come to you. 

[[Fl...]]

You can't force it. It took me a long time but I have finally regained some of the passion I had for the things I liked and life in general. Benzos can ravage the CNS and it takes time for things to get back to normal again but it will happen in time.

[[al...]]

You don't...Life just becomes interesting again!

 

And all of a sudden you find yourself enjoying something....The first time I laughed...i mean really laughed hard was the best day of my life. I started to cry because I realized I hadn;t laughed for over 3 flippin years!!!!!!!!!!!! Books will be able to be read, social interaction will be enjoyable, You will want to chat on the phone, enjoy food and bit by bit, the world will seem like a nice place to be. It will come back I swear............you don't need to force it. I look forward to hearing bout it when it does....Keep at it, we are rooting for you! xo Bama.

[[do...]]

Thank you

[[pr...]]

Alabama & FG,

 

Thanks for both of your responses. Interesting how both of you say it can't be forced. To the both of you-- do you think there are things we can do to sort of give it a gentle nudge? For example, try to pick up the phone a little bit more and call a friend? Another thing that has worked for me, believe it or nit, is to listen to NPR. Just slowly ease back into life. I do agree that in general it cant be forced- that it sort of just happens.  But I'm wondering if we can do things to help along the way.  What do you think?

[[do...]]

Thanks Nama!

 

Frock great question. One I am always asking

[[pr...]]

But I'm wondering if we can do things to help along the way.  What do you think?

 

sometimes certain songs and music can just pull me out of it and into normalcy. i think it lights up part of brain somehow. i think it's a good thing. i haven't wanted to listen to music or even play or sing and i'm a singer/songwriter -- but there have been times when i all of a sudden came across a song and it just pulled me into some kind of normalcy.

 

[[al...]]

Alabama & FG,

 

Thanks for both of your responses. Interesting how both of you say it can't be forced. To the both of you-- do you think there are things we can do to sort of give it a gentle nudge? For example, try to pick up the phone a little bit more and call a friend? Another thing that has worked for me, believe it or nit, is to listen to NPR. Just slowly ease back into life. I do agree that in general it cant be forced- that it sort of just happens.  But I'm wondering if we can do things to help along the way.  What do you think?

 

I think it is really important to do things that feel normal, even if you don't feel that way. Have the radio on in the background, doing laundry, cooking something delicious, have a chat on the phone with someone you know is fine with you getting off the phone quickly if you feel crappy, going for a walk, going to the movies, having coffee with a friend,  etc....

 

I don;t know if these things actually help you recover or not. But I do know that doing them were important to me to keep me distracted, connected to reality and were markers of success for me along the way especially when I found myself enjoying one of them all of a sudden. If I wasn;t trying to do them than I wouldn;t know I was capable of doing them let alone enjoying them.

 

I will say this, I was constantly surprised by things I could do when I thought I was capable of nothing. And then when I actually started enjoying things I was capable of doing that was even better. But please don;t over extend yourself...baby steps. But challenge yourself gently, and you will feel so great if you accomplish something... even if it's just taking  shower one day! 

 

Bama.xo

[[Fl...]]

Interesting how both of you say it can't be forced. To the both of you-- do you think there are things we can do to sort of give it a gentle nudge? For example, try to pick up the phone a little bit more and call a friend?

 

Yes and no.

 

I think you should absolutely try to do things as you feel able, but don't push yourself too hard and don't beat yourself up if things don't fall into place. Exposure is a double edged sword during benzo wd and it is easy for it to backfire on you if you try to take on too much. You don't want to dig a hole and crawl in it and shut yourself off from the world (if you can help it) but at the same time it is easy to make matters worse by trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

 

You have to understand that this is a physiological illness. Your brain is physically recovering from a chemical assault. You may have mental symptoms but this is not a mental illness and cannot be treated as such. There is a psychological component to this and as you heal you will have more influence over that part of it but early on it is a very small percentage of the equation.

 

Keep testing your resiliency and keep moving forward but don't force it. It will come with time.

[[Fl...]]

I should note that for the longest time I simply had no emotions (no positive emotions anyway) and I couldn't enjoy anything. Eventually I started to realize that I was able to listen to music again which showed me that things were improving. I still do not have my full range of emotions but I am now able to enjoy certain things and my passion for business and socializing is returning.

 

I know this is all chemical because it's like a switch is being flipped in my brain. One day it makes me sick to my stomach to think about making a phone call because I simply don't want to interact with anyone, the next I am firing off phone calls and texts all day and making all kinds of business and personal plans that I wouldn't have even dreamed about this time last year.

[[Ro...]]

I'm with all the people that say that the feeling will just come back in time. I used to be a gym rat and pretty much stopped working out for a year and a half while going through this after working out consistently for 13 years! I tried to force myself to go to the gym many times but that never lasted more than 2-3 weeks as the desire and will just wasn't there. The rush I used to get from lifting just was not there and even the times I went the workouts sucked as I couldn't get into that zone that I used to love being in so much. The same goes for riding motorcycles. I hit about 170 km/have on my bike and didn't feel an ounce of excitement. So I stopped doing almost everything. I still went to work, cause I had to, and tried doing little things here and there like going to the movies with a friend or playing pool, to maintain some sort of normal but that was all I was able to muster.

 

Well, I've been off all Meds now for over 6 months and off benzos for over a year and 6 months and over the past 2-3 months my brain is back! I've been back at the gym for about 5-6 weeks now and the amount of progress I've made is ridiculous. I've also got a warning from a cop for speeding last weekend lol. Yeah, I got a little carried away but when you haven't been feeling that rush feeling for 2 years and suddenly do its a bit hard to control yourself. I've also started trying to get back into dating. Something I haven't thought about at all over the last 2 years.

[[pr...]]

Hell yeah, Roast! Your progress just made my day.

[[...]]

Glad to find this as well. The anhedonia has been the most frightening part of this for me. I had it to a degree before ativan, but I think the ativan and depression have nailed it deeper into me. Sometimes I don't know whether to treat the depression more intently if I can. Meds so far haven't been a magic bullet unless I haven't found the right one. A few folks are suggesting ECT. Also I think with the holiday season coming I'm expcting to feel even worse. Ugh. I hope the world opens up again.

[[al...]]

I should note that for the longest time I simply had no emotions (no positive emotions anyway) and I couldn't enjoy anything. Eventually I started to realize that I was able to listen to music again which showed me that things were improving. I still do not have my full range of emotions but I am now able to enjoy certain things and my passion for business and socializing is returning.

 

I know this is all chemical because it's like a switch is being flipped in my brain. One day it makes me sick to my stomach to think about making a phone call because I simply don't want to interact with anyone, the next I am firing off phone calls and texts all day and making all kinds of business and personal plans that I wouldn't have even dreamed about this time last year.

FG!!!! I am so happy to hear you have made such great progress...You are right, this time last year you couldn't have even dreamed it and here you are!!!! FANTASTIC! so happy  for you.

 

And just to reemphasize what we both said....at the beginning it is hard to enjoy anything, let a lone find motivation...in the beginning I was thrilled if I managed to take a shower and get out of my PJ's. But little by little you challenge yourself more and little by little you do more, and then one day you start to enjoy it. But don't PUSH yourself. The square peg in a round hole is a great analogy. Challenge yourself yes, but push....no. Save the pushing yourself for when you have the energy to do so and you actually benefit from it instead of being drained by it. As Roast so excellently illustrated in his story.

 

Once again YAY FG!

[[do...]]

Well I'm down here at the beach looking at the ocean just checking in with all of you. It's been wonderful to read all of your posts to find out what everybody else is doing. Today I attempted to get a few things done but I just didn't have the wherewithal to do it. So I just wanted to keep myself calm and calm myself down so I came down to the beach. I hope that is okay.

 

I just spoke with another friend who has been through this as well. She says you're just in survival mode. And need to just take care of yourself shower get clothes and just relax during the course of the day. And not do too much. For some reason something inside me is a driving force to try to force myself out of this to get well and yet I cannot come up with any answers I guess that's the most frustrating part of it.

 

 

[[wo...]]

This is just what I needed to hear today, my first day that I am wondering okay, so what do I do now?  I feel like the world has gone on without me for 2 years and now I want back in but am still fragile and scared but so anxious to get back.  I want to go out but it looks scary out there... do I push it?  it seems what you are all saying is be patient, don't try too hard to reconnect, it will take care of itself... is that right... my courage will increase and I won't be so scared?  I want to see my friends again but the phone call feels scary right now.  Does it really just happen without pushing too hard?  I hope so because I really don't feel like pushing it but I want my life back...NOW.