I can't do this anymore

[Guest [Fa...]]

My mind has tortured me long enough.  My brain races and loops every second of the day.  I can't distract from it.  The hyperawareness of thoughts makes me feel trapped in my head.  They overpower everything I do.  Monitoring every thought, feeling and emotion I have.

 

They gave me Zyprexa in the hospital and now my mind is telling me I'm back to square 1.

 

I took seroquel for a week 2 separate times over the past month and now my mind is torturing me that I came off it too quick.

 

I've been taking remeron for a month and now I dont know what to do about tapering off it because I think its making my obsessions worse.

 

I don't know what is causing what anymore.

 

They say in order to survive this you need to distract.  I can't distract.  I am trapped inside my own thoughts. 

[[ea...]]

Not an option,

I am shortening your name only to be more positive. I know exactly how you feel. I went through the same darn thing. I was forced to go cold turkey off a thirty year habit of nightly benzos. Utter hell ensued. Intense, really weird, really scary symptoms for over a year. Good grief, I even hallucinated for about a month.

Yes, you are told to distract BUT I also know that at your stage, that would be difficult to do. Was for me too, way back when. At your stage you only want to endure another minute, maybe only a few seconds. This IS awful, and you are not imaging it all. Benzo wd can be like this for some, and it seems cold turkey people DO have it worst, but I can also tell you some taper people have it just as bad, but for extended periods of time.

At your stage, all I could do was sit on my sofa enduring minute after minute. NO peace of mind whatsoever. I lived in utter hell for many months, and I still don't know how I held on. I do know my extreme paranoia about doctors prevented me from reinstating. And I am GLAD that I was, because if I had reinstated I would now be dead. I know that with my entire heart. Benzos had a really good grip on me back then.

Something I learned my first  year out was to no longer rely on pills to make me feel better. Pills had only harmed me. I was given Seroquel for terrible insomnia. It did not help at all, nor did Remeron, nor did anything else. Turned out I had only ONE thing to help me: NOT TAKE PILLS AND HEAL FROM ALL OF THEM. Back then, I would take about 12-14 pills a day. Now, I take just 4, and all of them is for essential hypertension which I have had ever since I was 25. If a doctor tells me to take some drug now, I do NOT just do it. I consider the risk factors.

Listen. I do know how awful you feel. You feel out of control. Benzo wd does that, because you ARE out of control right now. But time will fix this. Time is your best friend now.

Distraction does help, but at this stage you need some other sort of distraction. Something really silly and simply, if just to get your mind OFF benzo wd for a minute or 2. Doing this really does help you, NAO. Find something really ailly and tedious to do. Coloring books? Puzzles? I met a guy who unraveled a heavy piece of twine, slowly and carefully. How weird, but it did work for him. I strung teeny tiny beads for months. Distraction IS going to help you, but you have to find something you sort of enjoy for it to work.

Please don't give up. You will heal.

east

[Guest [Fa...]]

37 Views. No responses? What kind of support forum is this?

 

I am going to reinstate and hope for the best.  If not I'm going to CBT.  There is no holding on in my situation.  I've read every post on here pretty much and no one is as bad as me.  If they were, they did a good job at not expressing it.

 

 

 

 

[[Fi...]]

37 Views. No responses? What kind of support forum is this?

 

I am going to reinstate and hope for the best.  If not I'm going to CBT.  There is no holding on in my situation.  I've read every post on here pretty much and no one is as bad as me.  If they were, they did a good job at not expressing it.

 

I'm sorry you are having such a terrible time. Reinstatement worked for me but, there are many who report it not working for them.

[Guest [Fa...]]

It would probably work but from all the stories I have read on here my mind tells me it wont.  How long after being off did you reinstate?

[[4a...]]

It is so heartbreaking to read so many posts when desperation leaps off the page.  Please hold on.  All I can write is to tell you to please hold on and remember you are in charge of you and you make the best choices for yourself with the information you have.  If you feel you need to do something for yourself then follow your deep down instincts. 

 

I did a taper so I am not versed in a situation such as yours.  At my worst, about 6 months after my last crumb of ativan, I remember having the worst 18 to 20 hours I can ever remember having.  I literally felt the devil in my room throughout the long night and there was no place I could go.  I just wanted the pain, spinning room, nausea, trembling, tinnitus to end and I counted the seconds to count the minutes to wait until I thought my son might be getting up to go to work.  At 5 am., I called him to tell him how horribly frightened I was that the devil was here to take me.  He had a colorful drug abuse background and he told me to call him any time.  He just talked calmly to me and told me he loved me and he would fight the devil himself to protect me.  Somehow, I imagined my son fighting the devil and it struck me funny.  It seems weird to write and I never told any person.  Only my son knows.

 

When I someday have my strength and wits again, I will gladly come back to help others fight the devil in whatever form he takes.  For some of us, he takes the form of benzos.

 

Please, take heart.  Take love.  Take support wherever you can get it.  It is here somewhere waiting to be discovered. 

 

Blessings for all of us are sure to come.

[[Fi...]]

It would probably work but from all the stories I have read on here my mind tells me it wont.  How long after being off did you reinstate?

 

If I remember correctly (see my signature for the approximate time frame) I c/t'd from valium not knowing there could be any consequences. I had most of the symptoms identified all over this board and elsewhere. I couldn't work nor support my family. After about 6 weeks of that, my doctors reinstated me on Xanax. I successfully raised my family and retired. About a year or so ago, I tried to w/d from Xanax .. that didn't work for me and I suffered similar symptoms to my c/t from Valium so, I up-dosed & I don't regret doing that because I am once again living a good life. Best Wishes!

[[ja...]]

Hi Dear!

 

Oh my heart aches for you right now because I remember this being me!!

I did a c/t off of 40 mil of Valium and within 4 days wrecked ! I went to ER 6 x in 8 weeks begging for help ! They always pushed Ativan in my IV and relief came ! This shocked my brain beyond human expression!

 

Let me start by telling you I AM HEALED!

 

I used to be here from 2010 and it took me about 15 months to find actual relief and see true healing! I was left with about five symptoms from over 80sxs 30 mental 50 physical bedridden for three months housebound and struggling and suffering through every minute of every day!

 

Please hang on sweetheart and know it will stop! You are Strong! So much stronger than you could ever imagine!

 

Life will be so good again this I promise! I wish I had someone to tell me that when I was left alone for 7 months gripping into life alone! No one understood what I was going through not even me I didn’t have this site yet or a person I could hold onto! As my sxs came I had to keep telling myself No matter what I’m seeing and going through I WILL MAKE  IT! And you will to!

 

I will pray for you ! Hang in sweet friend❤️

 

[Guest [Fa...]]

I'm happy that worked for you Fi Addendum. I'm 9 months with not even a second of relief.  Stuck on remeron now. Severe psychological torture. Reinstating probably wouldn't work and if it did it would be short lived.  I only have xanax.  Can't tolerate clonazepam and I am a ultra rapid metabolizer of valium.  I'm screwed every way possible.

[[so...]]

FINAO,

 

You’ve taken lots of drugs to mitigate symptoms.  I know how hard this is, but taking drugs to make the symptoms go away usually isn’t a long term solution.

 

I know you feel like throwing in the towel.  We’ve all been where you are right now.  I am not fully recovered, but I am down to just a couple of symptoms, so I know a lot of healing has happened.

 

We all have to make our own decisions.  You need to do whatever you have to do to survive, first and foremost.  If that means reinstating, stabilizing, then beginning a slow taper, do what you think is best. 

 

Sofa

[Guest [Fa...]]

Sofa,

 

I was forced into hospital because I was having extreme urges for weeks. All day everyday. I didn't want to take the drugs but was pretty much forced.

 

I'm going to try and fight through this without reinstatement. I doubt it would work for my situation anyway

[[Li...]]

37 Views. No responses? What kind of support forum is this?

 

I am going to reinstate and hope for the best.  If not I'm going to CBT.  There is no holding on in my situation.  I've read every post on here pretty much and no one is as bad as me.  If they were, they did a good job at not expressing it.

 

One thing I wanted to mention... I remember when I was really early on and I would make so many posts about the mental hell that I've had to endure and still do to some expect during waves. I always used to feel the same way, that no one has it as bad as me and I can't relate to anyone else. It always seemed like everyone had more control and they never quite explained it as in-depth enough for me to be able to relate and I always managed to convince myself that nobody else understood or had it as bad. But then my fiance brought to my attention that even when I was at my absolute worst, when I would make posts it almost always came off as though I was more together than I actually was and it didn't translate through my text that I was as desperate and defeated as I actually was in real life. I think this goes for a lot of people.

 

I don't think this is a cakewalk for anyone and people suffer from a myriad of different symptoms. Especially when it comes to the mind. Withdrawal can heavily mimic the absolute worst of OCD, even in people that have never suffered from OCD in their entire lives. I was one of them. The hyperawareness of thought and hypervigilance was something that I struggled with while I was still on the benzos, but never before taking them. I had no idea what was causing me to feel like my mind was going insane, until I discovered that I had potentially kindled myself multiple times from stopping/starting the benzos and jumping on and off different SSRI's/SNRI's to treat mild social anxiety (Doctor's are lovely, aren't they?) and it damaged the hell out of my receptors.

 

It took me a really long time to be able to start coping with the crazy mental shit. I find myself getting lost it in even now when I fall into a wave and convince myself that I am absolutely screwed because I can't control my thoughts and the hyperawareness of them forces me to monitor each and every thought, along with every sensation that the thoughts create as they come in. Incredible stress, fear and terror that seems completely automatic and nothing to do with my own reaction to the thoughts when my mind automatically switches into that mode during waves. It's all a part of withdrawal and more people suffer from it to varying degrees than you think. A lot of people don't know how to describe or explain their symptoms, so they just sum it up as "mental insanity," they are all just another form of hypervigilance and intrusive thoughts brought on by extreme chemical anxiety.

 

You're not alone in this, it's the anxiety talking. The best thing you can do is acknowledge that this is withdrawal monkey brain and accept that your mind is going to be in shambles with thought hyperawareness. I've come to find that trying to figure it out, ruminate and find ways to fix it, treat it, understand it.. They all just further fuel it and make it worse, the added fear causes your brain to fire even more and monitor even more. It's all just shitty receptor damage, but it does get better. And the further out you get, the easier it will become to find that acceptance and get out of that strangehold that your brain has you in. It's not anything you can force, it just happens as you heal with time.

 

Distraction is key. Find small things to make minutes easier. You're not going to find anything that's going to make you feel incredible or at ease. The point is to find something to constantly be doing to take just a little bit away from your focus. Hang in there.

[Guest [Fa...]]

Hi LiveAboveIt,

 

You always do a good job at calming me down and knocking so sense into me.  The damage benzos do affects everyone differently and everyone is suffering in their own way.  When you feel on the verge of losing your mind every day it's hard to think rationally a lot of the time.  I need to get off this Remeron and back on track.  I felt a lot of relief from one dose of Zyprexa so that tells me everything I am going through is benzo damage and it's going to take as long as it takes to get back to where I was before.  I'm praying that these earworms and looping goes away so I can just deal with the hyperawareness.  I try and explain to everyone around me that I am not only dealing with one psychiatric disorder but 4 different ones, or at least the symptoms mimic psychiatric disorders.  I know OCD feeds on reassurance so I need to try and stop doing that. Also freaking out and trying to find the solution makes everything so much worse.  Thanks again everyone for helping me out.  It means a lot. 

[[ea...]]

Live and Failure, you two have made some really great points. zi was struck by something Live said, how her posts did not reflect how truly awful she felt. I felt the same, exact way and I wrote a post on my current Blog about just this. You sense you need to fake it, so you do it, and in the long run it WILL help you, but its a real leap of faith to keep faking it when you feel SO awful.

 

Failure, and I hate your using such a negative name! So I will rename you as Option! I had looping music that lasted a very long time, plus looping thoughts. In the beginning I really HEARD that weird music. It sounded like a group of men singing in a choir. I have never been religious but that is what I heard for a long time. Over time it morphed into this weird, goofy tune that seemed to change according to my mood. It changed pitch or tune but it remained with me a very long time. Maybe because I am a nurse, I know what this was and didn't worry about it but it WAS annoying AND scary. But reality is this is normal for benzo wd. Some people are just "blessed" with this weird stuff, and many have NO idea it can even happen.

While ON benzos for thirty long years, my health, both mental and physical went downhill, slowly but surely. The last, maybe, 1t5 years, I was told I had severe depression, anxiety, that I was a borderline personality and a bunch of other stuff. I bought into this as I had NO idea benzos can CAUSE this. One I got off benzos, ALL of my old mental and physical symptoms got SO much better. Amazing that benzos can caused this much damage, but I am here to say it can and sometimes does.

east

[Guest [Fa...]]

Hi East,

 

My name isn't negative.  Maybe you are reading it wrong?  I can't relate to the looping but I do have a unique case of earworms where everything I read and write loops in my head.  Including conversations and a negative inner dialogue.  There is nothing that can be done but to hold on and try and not let it increase anxiety anymore than i already have.  If one of the 4 mental symptoms I have goes away I will able to have some hope that my brain is capable of fixing itself.