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Anyone recovering from internet addiction of the Facebook type?


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Together with benzo addiction. Would be happy to find such a person. I deleted my internet account on one forum and the craving is terrible. Worse than benzos actually. This forum was more important than benzos. It was about gratification, virtual prestige, superficial companionship, this kind of thing.

 

I deleted my account in a second. In a second I realized how absurd it was. Do I regret? No. I was using it obsessively and compulsively. Could not use it in any other way.

 

Am suffering from severe CT. This is my second day without it. A nightmare. Will not restore my account. This internet thing was more important than benzos itself.

 

We use benzos to fill up the void within. This forum was better for filling up that void. I'm very scared to go back to heavy benzo use, cause I reduced them significantly. I replaced them with that forum. But it was destroying my life in much more horrible way than benzos. Much much more horrible.

 

Would be so grateful to find a person with a similar problem. Cause only one who went through it can understand it.

 

Don't ask me how many benzos I take. I can take 10 mg daily for the whole week, then eat 60 mg in a day. To escape into sleep from difficult emotions. I hate benzos. They ruined everything I used to be.

I lasted on that forum for a year. By pure chance. It completed the job of making me a shadow of my former self.

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[0d...]

Together with benzo addiction. Would be happy to find such a person. I deleted my internet account on one forum and the craving is terrible. Worse than benzos actually. This forum was more important than benzos. It was about gratification, virtual prestige, superficial companionship, this kind of thing.

 

I deleted my account in a second. In a second I realized how absurd it was. Do I regret? No. I was using it obsessively and compulsively. Could not use it in any other way.

 

Am suffering from severe CT. This is my second day without it. A nightmare. Will not restore my account. This internet thing was more important than benzos itself.

 

We use benzos to fill up the void within. This forum was better for filling up that void. I'm very scared to go back to heavy benzo use, cause I reduced them significantly. I replaced them with that forum. But it was destroying my life in much more horrible way than benzos. Much much more horrible.

 

Would be so grateful to find a person with a similar problem. Cause only one who went through it can understand it.

 

Don't ask me how many benzos I take. I can take 10 mg daily for the whole week, then eat 60 mg in a day. To escape into sleep from difficult emotions. I hate benzos. They ruined everything I used to be.

I lasted on that forum for a year. By pure chance. It completed the job of making me a shadow of my former self.

 

Estee, I would give up facebook forever for most things - candy, love, travel, sex, music, cats, benzos. Do I relate to you? Yes I do. I am having a terrible time giving up life on benzos. What I am doing is replacing the reduced dose with fitness. I have to admit, it doesn't satisfy in the way that benzos do. I need to seriously chill in life. I also have started meditating everyday. It helps but if I'm being honest, although I never crave benzos - it's like a part of me is dying and I don't know if I can cope without them. I know that is bloody ridiculous but that is how I feel. I continue to taper anyway.

 

I also have taken a lot of benzos to avoid emotion and to get to sleep.  I have realized that being a recluse who never sleeps doesn't suit me much. I wonder if I will ever be who I was. I feel for you.

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I read in a book by Maria Szalavitz "Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction", than the use of various substances is compulsory. She recovered from heroin and cocaine addiction.

 

I never thought I would become addicted to an internet forum in such a horrible way. I used to be quite accomplished professionally. Earned a lot. Before I suffed a complete burnout and breakdown in 2014. I was so scared to come back to work, I started using benzos. I had a nine year interval without benzos. Started with a tiny amount of Valium. All my life gradually went to pieces, which culminated in this behavioral addiction - the internet. Lost my job of course. Lost drive, motivation, everything.

 

I've been on Social Security benefits for three years now. I think the forum I am addicted to, which is a semi-professional one, was a kind of replacement for the gratification I got from my job. But it's only a SOCIAL MEDIA thing. There are cliques, virtual personas, virtual prestige. It was exhausting and extremely time-consuming.

 

Escape into sleep is terrible, cause sooner or later you have to wake up. I don't know how I'm gonna cope. This internet addiction made me neglect the house, myself, the cat. In the end it became even more important than benzos.

 

I'll try meditation. I'll try prayer, though I'm an atheist. But most importantly - I'll try action and bringing my life back to normal. I think if you once quit benzos and relapse - the relapse is 100% worse.

 

Benzos seem wonderful when you're off them and go through a crisis. But once you touch them, the honemoon doesn't last even a week. Then all the hell breaks loose. I think the brain actually never forgets. In times of crises, benzos become so terribly alluring.

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[0d...]
I hope you find freedom from both social media and benzos. :smitten: I hope you find a healthy validation that lifts you to your highest self.
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[13...]
Yes, I am addicted to a forum as well. It has taken over, sadly someone can easily tell which one. Being that "it" coincides with helping beat the benzo bull, it's a double edge sword.
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Couldn't agree more with Alimac.

I once deeply, to the point of falling into a deep depression, regretted not walking away from social media.

I now don't touch it [i don't count this forum, this has a definite, single issue purpose]

 

Walk away - do something, anything, else.

Pretend your computer can't access facebook etc.

I do totally empathise.

It is a compulsion.

It is a destructive compulsion.

Don't worry - the compulsion will go away more and more by the day, literally each day you are away from it the compulsion will go less, more quickly than you think.

Good luck.

 

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Thank you, slowlyimproving. I don't have access to that site. I deleted my account two days ago. And for certain reasons, it is impossible to set up a new one. Cause I would have to waste another year of my life. I cannot afford it.

 

Pumpkin2005: Welcome to the club. My internet addiction took 10-12 hrs a day and lasted more than a year. I didn't know this was a Facebook-type forum. I was lured there by a person addicted to alcohol. Wanted to help that person break free and drowned.

 

I thought that by progressively getting rid of Valium I will free myself from that forum. Did not work that way. Maybe if I did not use any Valium at all or 2 mg for sleep only.

 

Was trying to quit in October last year. Cause the whole year on that forum was a nightmare. My pdoc told me I was using it obsessively and compulsively. Yes, I have OCD. I CTed Seroquel (for sleep, tiny amount) and Ambien (in hospital) in the beginning of last year.

 

So to go back to those three weeks off the forum last October. I tripled my Valium intake. So came back there. But the pull was already not so strong. I was just afraid of Valium. In the beginning of this year, when everything (not my Valium use) was deteriorating, I started fantasizing about deleting my account. I knew that if I delete it, I would never set up a new one again.

 

Things came to the point when I cancelled my pdoc appointment 5 times in a row, cause I was glued to the internet. The house was neglected beyond belief. Me, the cat. That forum was all about competition, that's how I saw it. I don't know how much time it will take me to bring the house to order. I'm weak, a ghost of my former self. I was a very orderly person. Always used talk forums with moderation. I don't have a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. account. I avoided all this stuff like pest. One more thing: I blame both Valium and the forum. Don't know which is worse.

 

Now, whenever I fall asleep, I dream about that forum. It's painful, since in my dreams I know it's impossible to go back. But I also have a very strange sense of freedom. Freedom and utter despair. It was not life. It was an illusion. I wasted a year of my cat's life and my own life. My cat's wasted year of life is even more important in all this.

 

I'm writing here all the time like an alcoholic who stops drinking and has to do 90 meetings in 90 days. The thing I'm most afraid of is coming back to huge amounts of Valium. I'm terribly scared of that. Valium destroyed everything I was and that forum finished the job. I feel I substituted Valium with that forum. But there would be no forum without Valium. Chemical and behavioral addictions go hand in hand.

 

I only hope time will heal me. Time and action. When I look back I see how incredibly absurd, time-consuming, empty it was and that most people there are sick. I don't miss a single person there. But I miss the incredible "HIGH" it gave me. Escape from all feelings. There was no talk of sickness on that forum. Although at least 50% of people qualified to psychiatric treatment IMO.

 

Pumpkin, if you want to talk in detail, PM me. I certainly will not give the forum's name in public. And there is very little data available on the net about addiction to this particular forum, though there are tons of data on netoholism. I just want my life back.

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I deactivated all social media accounts back in March! I have a plan to go back in July. It's been life-changing to say the least! Sometimes I miss the interaction, but the positive gains have far outweighed everything. I'm free. Life felt very, very strange for the first month or so being off social media. Almost like an alternate reality. Maybe ACTUAL reality, which I was no longer used to. I had opportunity to see what was really important. Little things like, do I really WANT to do x,y or z or do I just want to do it so I can post about it and get likes, comments, and feedback?

 

~Isee

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Thank you, Isee. Your reply was very helpful. I was addicted only to this one forum. I deleted my account on Wednesday. I was so desperate I could not get up from bed, eat etc.

 

This is a very dangerous forum. I cannot disclose its name publicly. I guess some 25-50% normal people are not affected by it at all. I was not one of them.

 

I suppose about 50% are heavily addicted and their lives are on a steady decline. I have no plan to go back. To any kind of social media. I'm here only to defend myself against replacing this forum by an increased amounts of benzos.

 

I used to take 100 mg Valium at one point in my life. Was in a better state than during a one-year addiction to this forum. It gave me an incredible HIGH. Benzos stopped being important. I could cancel a pdoc prescribing benzos 5 times in a row, cause there was nothing that mattered. Only the forum and the high it gave me. I often compared this forum to heroin. Never tried heroin. Maybe it was more like a speedball.

 

This is DAY THREE. I started seeing my cat, her incredible sweetness and beauty. For a year it seemed like she did not exist. I couldn't hurt her more than by this addiction. I'm very slowly trying to bring my house to order. Cause I used the same fork and spoon for a week, without washing.

 

My house is in such an incredible mess, you cannot move around it. You can only get to my Mac, where the forum was. I used to be orderly beyond belief.

 

One pdoc told me: benzos aren't your chief problem. My problem is a compulsion to escape from reality. Maybe. That's how I see it at present.

 

I only hope to survive and continue decreasing benzos. And very slowly - come back to REALITY.

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Thanks for starting this post.  Upon reflection I was getting addicted to Facebook during my taper.  Somewhere along the line, however, I started getting "mad" at posts that were soooo wonderful and picture perfect.  I even got angry with people on FB that I didn't know but saw their postings through a friend's page.  OMG!  I think a lot of us can get suckered into thinking everyone else is so much better off than us. Additionally, we benzo people need time to readjust our brains to think logically and clearly and properly (emotionally).  It's another sad and exasperating symptom that the medical community is unaware.

 

While we are in taper, withdrawal, post withdrawal, our minds are very sensitive and determining reality on those posts and curbing our own mind's "wildness" in processing information can be a recipe for disaster!!!

 

I am glad this is being addressed here.  If a person can live without social media, then delete it (at least for now) and get on with healing YOURSELF.  Maybe even just realizing that FB does contain a ton of bullshit could help people "cut the ties".  I'm not saying all of the FB posts are stupid and elaborated but a majority are.  No one has the perfect life!

 

Stay on Benzobuddies.  We are the real forum.

 

 

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Hi Jeanermouse,

 

Congrats on getting off of benzos! I used to be without classic benzos for 11 yrs and my life was a paradise compared to what it is now.

 

Yes, there is such a thing as creating a "virtual persona". The more complexes people have, the more gratification and validation they want from others. They pretend to have ideal life. Those who have good lives don't usually need to show it.

 

This forum was much more worse than Facebook. I cannot disclose the name. It was all about fierce competition. Which ultimately was a great illusion, cause nothing there was real.

 

I'm quite competitive and I got drawn into it. This it the third day without this forum. I miss the HIGH it gave me. Only the high and the adrenaline rush. In reality, I wasted one year of my life on this forum.

 

I hope time will heal me. I'm not involved in any other forum, besides this one. I write here, cause I'm scared I will replace this forum I ditched by bigger amounts of benzos and I want to taper by all means.

 

I had no idea this forum was worse than Facebook. A friend lured me there. I wanted to escape after a month but couldn't. I was already addicted.

 

I'm very week and all I write is a bit of rambling. I feel as though I ditched heroin. Except I don't feel physical pain. I dream about this forum all nights. I dreamt about benzos maybe once or twice in my entire life.

 

This forum was also about a superficial companionship, but I don't miss a single person there. No one knew I was addicted so I could not communicate normally with those people. Addiction is the most important part of me and fighting against it the most important task in my life. It's sad, but that's the way things are.

 

I need time and action... to heal... to recover my life...

 

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I could of wrote this....for an whole year of my life I have become a couch vegetable just on my phone!!

It's to escape what benzos have done to my life.hace used it as a coping skill,but one that's destroying me in the process.i don't know what to do with myself if my heads not in my phone.so sad when I was a different person before benzos 😓

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The forum is such a comfort and I love all the people on here. I just wonder at times if it is really helping me to recover or is it increasing my symptoms by causing me to ruminate and focus on every little tweak, ache fatigue, etc. that come with withdraw.

I know for a fact that I can create fatigue just by what I am thinking about. Also, can exacerbate my symptoms by again focusing on them.

 

The brain and the imagination are unbelievably powerful. So, sometimes I wonder. What are actual symptoms and what am I creating with my thoughts!!

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Day 4 off the forum. Curiously, my page is frozen on my iPhone and on my iPad. The numbers are there. No access to the forum.

 

Can see how much I achieved during one year. In terms of numbers. The numbers were counted in several hundreds and thousands. How very gratifying.

 

What if it was money in the bank?

 

Still craving the high. Terribly craving the high. Still revisiting the forum in my dreams.

 

Starting to see the appalling reality of my appartment. Starting to see Kitty. We must get through this. Time.

 

Thinking of medical cures to alleviate this. Prozac increase? Must consult with pdoc. He's against. Probably does not make sense.

 

Valium will only make me depressed. Valium can only be a cure against utter despair. Escape into sleep. Will have to wake up sooner or later and face it.

 

I don't feel utter despair anymore. Only terrible craving. Will try to turn this craving into action.

 

One year of life wasted. How strange. One year of my Kitty's life wasted. Rather tragic.

 

Are we free from this? What's gonna happen next?

 

Will call my therapist later in the day. She's an anchor. I'm really scared. Why cannot I trust myself?

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Well, I miss my old forum so much.

 

I started obsessing about increasing Prozac from 20 mg. By 2,5 mg, like I've always done.

 

It will only create problems. Mood will lift, but I will not be able to fall asleep for the first 1-2 days.

 

Still I have no idea whether my 20 mg of Prozac is helping anything but my OCD.

 

Pdoc on Wednesday. He'll put up with my Prozac increase. He's always done. The question is if it makes any sense.

 

Already anxious about going out. Agoraphobia. Difficult to take a bath.

 

I'm able to do so little in the house and this is devastating.

 

This forum was a 12 hrs-a-day distraction. I just felt like I did not exist. I dealt with over 2K ppl. Something happening all the time. 24 hrs a day. I felt as though I was working. I was useful cause I was giving "likes".

 

Two people from the forum wrote to me if I'm through with it. They're in so deep they probably think it's impossible.

 

What can I write them. That I'm desperate? I will not write it. Will not write at all. I don't want them to know.

 

Did not even have the strength to call my therapist yesterday. I don't pay her. I'm an intruder. She helps me, cause she "likes me". She remembers me from the times when I was not on Valium, working, functioning. From before 2014.

 

I have a friend to whom I can write. In my native tongue. Easier. But she's not addicted to benzos. She's not addicted to any forum. She's got work. She's at work.

 

Benzos increased again to 40 mg/a night. I guess the only thing that can help me survive is decluttering this appartment. It goes so slowly. I turned it into a total mess during a year of my addiction to the forum. Trying to taper. Waking at night in terror I will not fall asleep.

 

Kitty's teeth. Many months of neglecting them, cause only the forum was important. Two days of washing them. Should be the third day today. Is it still possible to save them? Or is the bacteria from the plaque already attacking her internal organs? She's my life. Cannot imagine life without her.

 

OK, I'm lazy. I'm wailing. I'll probably delete this post. It doesn't make sense to talk. To write. I wasn't talking on the forum. I only wrote stupid, monotonous, superficial comments. It was great. I hated it. But it was great. My parents taught me to never ever trust anyone.

 

Yes, they are highly accomplished. Except that we're a pathological family and we don't talk. I went through the worst parental abuse imaginable and I'm disabled.

 

Cannot work anymore. Work was my life. My father always said ppl don't look at me. They diagnose me.

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