Doing much better but need help

[[ha...]]

I experienced rather harsh withdrawal symptoms after only 5 weeks of continuous use (xanax). First few weeks were torture. Few more weeks of waves and windows. Now for last week things seem to have plateaud.

 

-I had one wave this last week, but I have been having these annoying heart palpitations for most of the day everyday.

-My left hand still shakes, but mostly in morning.

-I get intrusive thoughts at times.

-Still depressed, but brain fog is getting better.

 

I'm in college and will be graduating in May with a bachelors degree. However, I feel like it will be very difficult for me to jump into a career feeling this way. Don't ask me how I returned to school in withdrawal it is only by a miracle and sheer stubbornness to finish. I have been reading success stories. Many of them are encouraging, but some of them are scary.

 

I'm 7 weeks benzo free and doing much better, but I still get this fear that these symptoms will never go away, or at least will stick around for months even years. Any encouragement or advise would be helpful. Thanks.

[[Ch...]]

Your sig line doesn't show your Xanax use, could you add that please?

I think it may be hard for some of us to imagine so much suffering from such a brief amount of time used...yet here you are, suffering and asking for us to help....so here goes...the good news is that you are young and healthy...however, you are under a huge amount of stress which resulted in your being prescribed Benzos for long enough to have physical changes...the other good news is that you got off them and should recover, just not as fast as you would like.

You haven't said anything about how you have dealt with stress and anxiety previously in your life, and as you have discovered these are not going to go away....and pills are not the answer in the long term...but oh, boy, they sure give immediate gratification initially, especially Xanax, don't they?

I have become a big advocate of both CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) and MBT (Mindfull Behavior Therapy) and neither one involves long term class for a lifetime of new coping skills.  I wish it was available when I was young, or even told to me when I was introduced to Benzos...

I don't know how you got off the Benzos...what kind if any taper you did...so some will advise you to consider re-instaing and conducting a slow controlled taper while you learn new coping skills and give your body a chance to redevelop the GABA A system.

I wish you well, and hope other ppl chime in, and adding the above info will help ppl help you.