More Evidence: We all heal! Ready to live again after 21 months.

[[...]]

So this is where I come,to get a few words from finallyjoining, for comfort again.Thank you. :thumbsup:wendy

 

 

Me too, her words always inspire when I feel like giving up like now. Or everyone will get better but me. It's just taking so long and gets more scary IMO 

 

Happy New Year Linda 

[[Fi...]]

Oh, I know, you guys.  I'm painfully aware you are both struggling.  All I can do is repeat that I really do think you'll see full healing.  Can't say when.  My own healing was so rollercoastery that it's not like all those months were completely lost.  It always made it so hard when I'd crash again after reaching a place where I really felt like okay, this is it, I'm well.  But I'm glad I made the most of the times when I felt good because looking back, it makes the whole time thing seem like less of a waste.  Marj, I know your story more closely than I know Wen's.  You have managed to hold down that job all this time.  And be there for your kids.  That's not nothing!

 

Both of you, all of you, just try to take each day the best you can.  See how far you can get in working your own little program of healing, whatever that entails.  Do what you can, give yourself credit for it, and refuse to beat yourself up for what you can't do.  Don't overthink whether or not you will ever get well.  you will and that's all there is to it. 

 

You're strong and you're brave and you  can get through this just like so many other strong and brave people have before you!

[[Fi...]]

Not sure why it's on his Progress log and not here, but people should check out River Wolf's lovely New Year's update.  I would like to echo completely his words, that the main thing to do to get through this involves one word: survive. Just keep yourself alive so that you'll be around for the joy of your life as a healed person. 

[Guest [mu...]]

Thanks for that, FJ! It's so good to hear that even though you've felt healed for awhile, you continue to notice improvements. Happy New Year!

[[...]]

Thanks Linda, your encouragement has always been lapped up. The anhedonia, I'm glad you mentioned it because it makes my life feel so bla and I know that's not true. I just had an appraisal at work, the job that I have to drag myself to every day, having to convince myself daily that I can go. Well it was really good. My line manager said what a grand job I'm doing. Well I feel I barely scrape by, so you would think I'd be on the ceiling. Well no, I'm still bla, and the appraisal itself was like a white knuckle ride (used to love those too at one time). Heart racing, anxiety, can't breathe I just have lost so much of myself, so for you to say the anhedonia goes gives me hope, thank you. I used to be fun loving. Maybe not sleeping for ages too is contributing. Yes it's survival.

 

[[Fi...]]

Hey, that's great you got such a good appraisal!  It just goes to show how interior this whole horrid thing is.  We just don't look that sick!  And that's what makes it so hard for others to understand.  They cannot understand the mental anguish we fight on a moment by moment basis.

 

But yes, absolutely, if you were a fun-loving person before, you will be again.  These drugs cannot destroy our basic personalities.  Everything you had going for you before is still there, waiting to be reawakened.  Maybe the anhedonia is one of the weirdest things and most difficult, because it completely eclipses your normal feelings of pleasure in everything.  I remember going through this during a depression half my life ago (caused by my not making any estrogen at all at age 30!) When I came out of it, as this time, it was almost like a religious experience.  You don't even realize how much pleasure you're taking in every little thing in life until it's stripped away and you take pleasure in NOTHING.  Then, when it comes back, how you savor the sweetness of each moment.

 

To endure this hard time, along with Megan's admonition to distract, I would say to make a conscious effort to feed your brain only positives.  Whatever you look at, whatever you, listen to, whatever you read--try to think of it all as little bits of positive medicine.

 

Stop beating  yourself up!  Be nice to yourself.  Give yourself permission to put yourself first and yes, Marj, I mean ahead of your mother!  When I got well and it became so clear that my mother never DID try to get a grasp of what I was going through or believe in me, when my brother actually DISINVITED me from Christmas because of all this, well, it was the most freeing thing ever!  I don't think I realized how much I was sort of "carrying" my mother and her needs all these years, trying to be the good daughter.  Okay, you guys, I give up!  And it's working for me!  My husband was appalled when my mother actually tried to get him to join her in complaining about me, and when my brother pulled this pompous "disinvite," he calmly  told him off, in writing, saying I was the bravest person he ever knew.  Wow.  This was like magic.  Being reminded I am brave is what I longed to hear through this whole ordeal, but mostly I only had to tell it to myself!  I'm just telling this story here because it made me realize how much I was letting my concern about my mother impede my healing.  I think so many of us women are always knocking our lights out trying to take care of others. 

 

You, Marj, always sound like somebody who is heroically soldiering on while berating yourself every step of the way.  Please be nicer to my friend Marj!

 

This Mary Oliver poem has been posted here before, but I'm going to post it again.  A friend, not a BB pal, sent it to me and I've ended up sending it in cards to different women friends because I think it really speaks to all of us who are always trying to take care of others at our own expense.

 

WILD GEESE

 

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

 

Now, every time  a flock of wild geese goes over (which is a lot, right here in the Willamette Valley flyway!) I get this good little hit in my brain and think, "You do not have to be good." 

 

Don't worry about being good.  Just live through this. 

[[...]]

Oh Linda,  that is so beautiful  :smitten: So many  :'(

 

Thank you xx

[[Fe...]]

Finally joining- do you mind if I ask when you started to turn a corner, feeling noticeable improvements?

I know healing time is not linear... I'm just curious- I just hit 11mo after a C/t in detox for Opiates and Benzos.  I'm still in the thick of it.

 

Thank you !

[[Fi...]]

Hey Feather--

 

Sorry for the long delay in replying.  I'm not on here much anymore due to enjoying my new "well" life.    I can't really give a useful answer about turning a corner, because my whole healing was so entirely rollercoastery that I thought so many times I had not only turned a corner but was finally well.  And then I'd crash all over again.

 

Interesting that you came off of both opioids and benzos as I did.  It's not always easy to tell which symptoms are from which, but in the end, it doesn't matter.  All that matters is hanging in there until you get through it.  Which you will!  I am a firm believer in the power of the brain to heal once it's free of drugs.

 

Try to take the best care of yourself that you can.  Feed your precious, healing brain as much positive stuff as you can find--soothing music, beauty in whatever you look at, nature etc.  Keep testing yourself to see if you can manage some exercise and push yourself just the tiniest bit.  So many times I would be completely crushed by depression but if I could drag myself outside for a walk around our forest path, darned if I didn't feel better by the time I got back to the house.  It's actually kind of magical.

 

Refuse to beat yourself up with blame.  Steer clear of people who cannot be kind to you.  Be kind to yourself as if you were a beloved sister.

 

I know it's hard to believe you'll ever feel well when you're so deathly ill, but you will.  The power of the brain to heal is miraculous. 

[[Go...]]

I have been off Benzos for 11 weeks and it is still pretty bad. I want to taper off The opiate I take for pain, but the Dr thinks I should wait until I'm a little more stable from my Benzo withdrawal. My main withdrawal symptom is depression and terrible muscle pain. I have two kids getting married this summer 6 weeks apart and it was suggested that I wait until the last one gets married before I try to get off the opiate(Tramadel ). Question- do you think it's harder to get well from the Benzo while still on an opiate? Also,how long did it take to feel better from the opiate withdrawal? I've been on the opiate for 9 months. Thanks !

[[Fi...]]

Godschild—

I see from your signature you have really been through the wringer.  Good for you to try to get off all these stuff and be well!  I can’t really tell you what to do because we are each so different and I don’t know how it will go for you.  I think the only guarantee in any of this is that it will not be easy and there WILL be suffering.

 

I so relate to your wanting to be well before your kids’ weddings. For me it was trying to be perfectly well for the birth of my first grandchild.  I didn’t make it.  But, in the end, it was okay.  We are just not in control of how everything will play out, and the ability to accept that reality is key.

 

I honestly don’t know how an opioid taper would go AFTER having gone off the benzo.  I did it the other way around.  I was on a solid dose of Oxycodone for thirteen weeks and then, when I realized I had to get off of it, I tapered to nothing in three weeks.  I felt like I had a horrid case of the flu for a couple of months.  But then I still wasn’t getting well and it finally occurred to me (no help from doctors) that maybe my Xanax was part of the problem.  This was 8 months out from going off Oxycodone and I cold turkeyed my small dose of Xanax the day I figured it out.  I simply did not want to take one more crumb.  It really hit the fan for me at that point, so that makes me feel that if you are this far off the benzo, going off the opioid might not be nearly as bad.

 

I can only say how it went for me.  My attitude is that I didn’t want my brain stewing in this stuff one day longer than it had to.  I wanted to get to the place of clean wellness as fast as possible and have more good years on the other side.  I’m afraid I don’t see long, drawn-out tapers as a way to avoid suffering in the end.  I can’t guarantee doing what I did will get you well faster, but then your doctor can’t really guarantee that more months on your opioid will be good for you in the end either.

 

I’m sure as a mom you’re wanting to do what’s best for your kids and all, but in the long run, you really need to focus on your own healing and let the timelines of their lives unfold as they will.  I have a friend who has never been able to get off of her Vicodin because once those grandbabies started coming, it was just not a good time to worrying about tapering.  Guess what?  There’s never a good time to take a huge break from life to get well.

 

The way I see it, the best time  to start getting well is now.  I’ll be rooting for you however you choose to pursue this.  If you want all my details, I wrote out my painful, rollercoaster healing in my book, Accidental Addict.

 

Good luck and God bless.

FinallyJoining

 

[[no...]]

I have been off Benzos for 11 weeks and it is still pretty bad. I want to taper off The opiate I take for pain, but the Dr thinks I should wait until I'm a little more stable from my Benzo withdrawal. My main withdrawal symptom is depression and terrible muscle pain. I have two kids getting married this summer 6 weeks apart and it was suggested that I wait until the last one gets married before I try to get off the opiate(Tramadel ). Question- do you think it's harder to get well from the Benzo while still on an opiate? Also,how long did it take to feel better from the opiate withdrawal? I've been on the opiate for 9 months. Thanks !

Hi Godschild  I would definitely wait until your stable with the benzo before you try taper Tramadol as its not just an Opiate its got an SSRI'( antidepressant drug) built in to it as well.

 

 

 

Love Nova xxx  :smitten:

[[Fi...]]

New Years 2018 Update

 

People get understandably upset when they hear that former benzo survivors have suffered drastic setbacks many years after declaring themselves well. Maybe being in the clutches of benzo brain even gets them to speculating in dire terms over all the people who no longer check in.  Is it because they don’t want to admit they’re sick again?  Or that they gave up and reinstated?

 

I want to be a voice of reassurance and come back to say that no, this is not necessarily the case. I wrote my success story at 21 months and, like just about everyone except Lost Dog (!), I still had a lot of  ups and downs to go on the path of healing.  But beyond that point, it was more a sense of noticing continued healing rather than feeling dragged back into the pit.

 

The thing is, life goes on, and always has challenges. I’m now 52 months off of Xanax, and in these past couple of years I’ve published two books, and two new grandbabies have been added to my life, all four events delivering joy, but also plenty of triggering drama.  Our central nervous systems do take a long time to repair and help us handle stress, and many a time I’ve thought, wow, THIS is where I want to be taking a Xanax!  Of course that won’t be happening.  You couldn’t pay me to take a crumb of that poison.  And I’ve lived through it and continue to get better and better, my mind and memory becoming clearer and sharper than I thought possible at my age–66 now.

 

Once you’ve made up your mind you will be drug free, you can only heal, probably not linearly or as fast as you’d like, but you will heal.  I firmly believe our brains and bodies were designed to want to heal and will, given time.

 

So for those of you still in the trenches, look for those positive signs of healing and grab onto them.  Take good care of yourself.  Take care of yourself as you would of someone you loved very much who needed your encouragement.  Give your brain the positives of beauty, sunlight, fresh air, exercise, soothing music and wholesome food.  Endeavor to protect yourself from negativity in whatever form it intrudes into your life.  Turn your back.  Walk away from it.  Walk toward the light.  I know it seems impossible—it did to me—but someday, if you stay the course, you will be well again.

 

I wish you all well.

 

Love, FinallyJoining63

 

     

 

 

 

[[Ma...]]

FJ - Thank you for the encouraging, well written update! Marc

[[no...]]

New Years 2018 Update

 

People get understandably upset when they hear that former benzo survivors have suffered drastic setbacks many years after declaring themselves well. Maybe being in the clutches of benzo brain even gets them to speculating in dire terms over all the people who no longer check in.  Is it because they don’t want to admit they’re sick again?  Or that they gave up and reinstated?

 

I want to be a voice of reassurance and come back to say that no, this is not necessarily the case. I wrote my success story at 21 months and, like just about everyone except Lost Dog (!), I still had a lot of  ups and downs to go on the path of healing.  But beyond that point, it was more a sense of noticing continued healing rather than feeling dragged back into the pit.

 

The thing is, life goes on, and always has challenges. I’m now 52 months off of Xanax, and in these past couple of years I’ve published two books, and two new grandbabies have been added to my life, all four events delivering joy, but also plenty of triggering drama.  Our central nervous systems do take a long time to repair and help us handle stress, and many a time I’ve thought, wow, THIS is where I want to be taking a Xanax!  Of course that won’t be happening.  You couldn’t pay me to take a crumb of that poison.  And I’ve lived through it and continue to get better and better, my mind and memory becoming clearer and sharper than I thought possible at my age–66 now.

 

Once you’ve made up your mind you will be drug free, you can only heal, probably not linearly or as fast as you’d like, but you will heal.  I firmly believe our brains and bodies were designed to want to heal and will, given time.

 

So for those of you still in the trenches, look for those positive signs of healing and grab onto them.  Take good care of yourself.  Take care of yourself as you would of someone you loved very much who needed your encouragement.  Give your brain the positives of beauty, sunlight, fresh air, exercise, soothing music and wholesome food.  Endeavor to protect yourself from negativity in whatever form it intrudes into your life.  Turn your back.  Walk away from it.  Walk toward the light.  I know it seems impossible—it did to me—but someday, if you stay the course, you will be well again.

 

I wish you all well.

 

Love, FinallyJoining63

 

   

Hi FJ  Thanks for the update I often wonder how your doing and congrats on your new grand babies  May you grow ever stronger and well done getting a couple of books out there as well Wishing you continued healing.

 

Love Nova xxx  :smitten:

[[ri...]]

Congratulations fj, your story is really inspiring and I hope to be on the other side with you one day. I do have a question. Did you suffer from extreme anxiety and agoraphobia during your recovery? Sometimes my anxiety gets so bad that I can’t leave my bed. When I can, the agoraphobia then hits when I’m outside. I don’t know how this will revert itself. I’ve never been this way, only started when I hit tolerance. I don’t know who’s to make myself better when I can’t really do anything for myself at this point.

 

I also used Xanax as a sleep aid and at times where I was stressful. Never again will I touch that evil drug and now I can sleep fine without it!

[[Ch...]]

Congrats on the babies and books, FJ...happy to read that you're doing well.  Those healing bumps get fewer and fewer as the years go by...

[[Fi...]]

Thanks, guys.

 

Rickatu--looking at your signature, it sounds to me like you're actually doing really well.  Your dose of Xanax and length of time taking it fairly closely parallels my own.

 

I don't think I even realized how agoraphobic and anxious I was until I got better!  But I had other symptoms like fatigue and various  pains and stiffness that were hard to imagine ever disappearing.  But that's the beauty of all this--they do  go away, all the symptoms.  If  you didn't have anxiety before this, you won't be an anxious person once you've healed.

 

I worked on just relaxing into the faith that anything that was going wrong with me was just withdrawal and I would wait it out.  It was freeing in a way, giving myself permission to NOT see about a doctor's appointment etc.  Saved myself a ton of money and anxiety this way.

 

It's actually pretty miraculous how well it's possible to feel after having such horrible symptoms, and my healing involved no special diets, supplements or other drugs.  Just time and patient self-care.

 

If you've already got your sleep back, you are probably somebody who will be feeling better sooner rather than later.  Isn't it amazing how we taught our brains to think we needed Xanax to sleep when we most assuredly didn't? 

[[Ar...]]

Thank you for sharing your healing journey, once again.  Your posts always give me the much needed hope I need to get through one more day.  I can tell I am healing, just not there yet.  On Christmas Day, I thought I was completely healed, only to have a wave surface.  Your honestly about "we will all heal" resonates with me.  Wishing you much joy and love for your life. 

[[Fi...]]

Thanks, Rosie.  I can't tell you how many times that happened to me, the feeling I was finally, euphorically, completely well, only to be smacked back down.  It's so hard!  The only comfort was thinking that at least having these windows was                                            more to hang onto than the poor folks who were insisting they never got the slightest windows at all.

 

This illness is unlike any other in the non-linear progression of healing, and that's what makes it so hard for others to understand.  And  how can they when we can't understand it ourselves? 

 

Faith, patience, positivity.  Remind yourself your only assignment is to simply live through another day.  Just don't quit before the miracle.

[[Fi...]]

A couple of weeks ago, when I mentioned on a member’s post the benefits of exploring the mind/body connection  to help in healing, he asked for a list of my recommended books.  Here they are, in an abbreviated form which should be enough to let people find them if they’re interested:

The Body Keeps the Score,  Bessel vanderKolk, MD

 

The Great Pain Deception, Ozanich

 

Rewire Your Brain, Arden

 

Spark, Ratey

 

Total Recovery, Kaplan & Beech

 

Unlearn Your Pain, Schubiner, MD

 

A User's Guide to the Brain, Ratey

 

You Are the Placebo, Dispenza

 

I decided to re-read Spark! myself.  It’s been two or three years since I first read it and thought it was great.  The way it explains how helpful exercise can be in helping with anxiety and depression was heartening then, but now I’m finding it even more relevant to healing from benzos.

 

Here’s how I see it: going through benzo withdrawal is a horrible experience for the people who have found their way to the Benzobuddies board.  If the symptoms weren’t bad enough, the social isolation so commonly experienced leaves people feeling depressed, anxious, and traumatized.  At some point, it seems that people can slip from being sick from the actual effects of benzos on their brains into being sick from being sick.  The experience itself is literally sickening. When you have random pains in different parts of your body, this is your brain misfiring pain signals, not something wrong with that particular part of your body.  And studies show that chronic depression actually alters the composition of your brain, and not in a good way.

 

But you don’t have to take this lying down. What’s needed is a re-wiring of the brain to stop the endless loop of negativity that feeds on itself and furthers the depression that can produce actual physical pain. And by that I mean this is not “all in your head” pain.  It’s real.  You feel it exactly the way you’d feel somebody swinging at you with a baseball bat.  But the pain originates in your brain, not the hurting place.  It is has moved way beyond the sort of pain that serves as any kind of useful warning.

 

The author of Spark! is not anti-medicine, but he acknowledges the many side effects and presents encouraging studies showing aerobic exercise to be even more effective than meds in taming depression and anxiety.

 

Obviously, people in acute sometimes cannot exercise, but as soon as it’s at all possible, it’s beneficial to start taking those baby steps toward reclaiming your mind and body.  The good news is that our brains WANT to heal, and given time, they will.  And also, you are not powerless in this.  Taking action to devise your own little healing program can jump start the process.

 

In following the stories of fellow buddies, I’ve noticed that those who suffered, healed, and then beat it out of here were often those who thoroughly bought into the idea of speeding their healing with exercise.

 

I recommend reading Spark! on a Kindle while riding a stationary bike.  What could be better than feeding this hope into your brain as you take action toward your own healing?