How do I help my family understand BWS?

[[AP...]]

Hello, I'm a short-term user in the middle of my taper. My parents have been so helpful and I don't know how I'll be able to repay them after this is over. I am concerned however, that they don't understand BWS. My mom is convinced that I'm thinking negatively when I say it'll probably be at least several months after my last dose before I feel normal again. She tells me that since my psychiatrist says it shouldn't be all that long, I should believe that over what I read on the internet. The thing is, I'm not ruling out the possibility that I'll recover pretty quickly or that things will start to trend upwards fairly soon after my last dose. I know this does happen (and mostly to people who never needed to find this site) but I am just bracing myself for suffering so that I can handle it. Also, she doesn't get that the worst case scenario is actually that I'm not recovered for YEARS, not months. So my question is, how do I help my parents understand the reality of benzo withdrawal and how it differs from other drugs? They are both capable of scientific-mindedness so they'll be able to grasp it all, the problem has just been the amount of trust they put in psychiatric medicine.

 

Side note: For whatever reason this experience has cured me of social-phobia. I can't enjoy this yet obviously but I look forward to life after this. Also I have experienced windows during the taper, I was at one point wondering if it would just get linearly worse until I'm completely off. Just wanted to throw in two positive things there.

[[To...]]

There's some good articles out there you might show your family. Have you seen this one:

 

https://www.benzoinfo.com/2020/04/20/one-year-off-benzodiazepines-a-doctors-journey/

 

Dr. Huff describes her own fight with benzo withdrawal and discusses the how it takes time to heal after jumping. There are many other good ones. Also, David Powers is a benzo coach who went through it too. He made this video for people to show their families:

 

 

Hope these help. Good luck!

 

Tom

 

[[AP...]]

Thanks so much!