The Long Hold Support Group

[[To...]]

BigBangFan, Stut 55, Heathcliff, GreenCup, SufferingSixty, Gingermint, Mary5588

 

Thanks for your thoughts on my ritalin story. I was originally freaked out about going on it and did not really understand how it worked. I also insisted on the lowest dose possible.

 

If I can only get stable for awhile, I can try backing off and seeing if there are any ill effects or taper required. Right now, I am hesitant to change anything for fear of it sending me into the depths again. I know this, I will not be escalating the dose. It is quite possible that it is losing some effectiveness, as I am regressing somewhat -- but, a lot of this is also about having more stress in my life. (And of course, normal everyday stress is magnified a thousand times, let alone the big things)

 

I just hope that the ritalin is not adversely affecting regenerating my GABA receptors.

 

[[He...]]

TMB,  I tend to agree with Stut, Heath and Green about the ADHD and ritalin.  It pulled you back from the brink and has given you some slight relief and that's wonderful.  Still, if you truly have ADHD I think it is because of acute withdrawal unless you had it before.

 

May I suggest you look up Dr Peter Breggin.  He is on You Tube and has several books.  I have read his "Medication Madness".  He is a psychiatrist in New York who has been warning about all psych drugs for 30 years.

You may be able to find some information on ritalin, and how, when the time comes, to taper off of it.  He has strong opinions about it but also says benzos ate the hardest to get off of.  It was reading his advice that convinced me to make a small updose to the last dose I felt good at.

 

Heath,  I'm so sorry to hear of your loss.  The death of a beloved family member leaves one bereft.  It takes time passing, a lot of time, to begin to move past the sadness.

 

Hi ginger mint,

I didn’t see you much before but now I am seeing more of you. I’m glad you are here! Your advice is very wise and spot on.  Thanks for you kind message too.

I hope you will stay with us on this forum.  We’d love to see you here a lot!

 

Heath

[[He...]]

GREEN CUP, MARY, BEGOOD, STUT GINGERMINT, SUFFERINGS SIXTY, TMB, GOLLY DID I MISS ANYONE? You are all so kind!

Thank you for your condolences. I really appreciate all of you. My husband is very sad but he is doing ok. I’m ok too.

 

Begood, what a beautiful quote! I love it.  Thank you!

 

Be well everyone!

Heath :smitten: :smitten:

[[Aj...]]

I’ve decided to cut a small amount.

 

On day three now - muscles are cramping more but trying to stay calm about it.

 

Will then hold until symptoms are back to where they were prior to cut.

[[Gi...]]

 

 

Hi ginger mint,

I didn’t see you much before but now I am seeing more of you. I’m glad you are here! Your advice is very wise and spot on.  Thanks for you kind message too.

I hope you will stay with us on this forum.  We’d love to see you here a lot!

 

Heath

 

 

Heath, thank you for your kind words.  I'll be around.  I read here every day silently cheering everyone on.  We are all in a fight we never expected, against a formidable enemy, but as strong as it is, we are stronger. 

Adjusta, good luck with you cut.  I hope any symptoms are shortlived. 

[[Aj...]]

Thanks!

 

I’m not up to reading much atm. I hope everyone is getting through each day.

 

Has anyone heard from Valley yet?

[[To...]]

My wife is utterly emotionally and physically exhausted with dealing with my sh*t. I rely on her for so many things. A lot of times it is about handling daily issues that I blow up to be catastrophic events and that take hours talking through and convincing me that they are not going to end in disaster, making pone calls to the doctor's office or to the insurance company.

 

We were supposed to meet with a realtor to list our house but she is here crying and will probably cancel the appointment for today (we need to downsize and move esp. since I haven't been able to work for over a year and the forward prospects of working again are in doubt). This is in itself a crushing stressor (we don't know where we are going to live, we have decades of possessions to disposition and I am in such a limited state).

 

She has chronic health issues to deal with on her own and has carried me on top of all that. She is unable to work either.

 

Somehow, I am going to have to figure out how to suck it up and be less dependent. I don't know what that looks like and am not sure whether I can fake it or otherwise reach down and deep and find new power.

 

It is killing me to see the suffering that my suffering is causing.

 

When it rains it pours.

 

 

[[Su...]]

My wife is utterly emotionally and physically exhausted with dealing with my sh*t. I rely on her for so many things. A lot of times it is about handling daily issues that I blow up to be catastrophic events and that take hours talking through and convincing me that they are not going to end in disaster, making pone calls to the doctor's office or to the insurance company.

 

We were supposed to meet with a realtor to list our house but she is here crying and will probably cancel the appointment for today (we need to downsize and move esp. since I haven't been able to work for over a year and the forward prospects of working again are in doubt). This is in itself a crushing stressor (we don't know where we are going to live, we have decades of possessions to disposition and I am in such a limited state).

 

She has chronic health issues to deal with on her own and has carried me on top of all that. She is unable to work either.

 

Somehow, I am going to have to figure out how to suck it up and be less dependent. I don't know what that looks like and am not sure whether I can fake it or otherwise reach down and deep and find new power.

 

It is killing me to see the suffering that my suffering is causing.

 

When it rains it pours.

TMB,

reading your post and realizing all that you've been going through is a heartbreaker... I am sorry that you and your wife are going through such a difficult time as a result of this poison.

I don't know that you're looking for "advice"at this time but part of what I heard is the way that our thinking gets distorted with anxiety.  There are ways of limiting that, managing that, that may be helpful.  I've found that my mind plays some tricks on me!

But for now please know that there are a bunch of us, I 'm pretty sure I can speak for others here who have your back and have a real sense of what you are going through....

Thanks for this honest and heartfelt post...

SS

[[Ma...]]

My wife is utterly emotionally and physically exhausted with dealing with my sh*t. I rely on her for so many things. A lot of times it is about handling daily issues that I blow up to be catastrophic events and that take hours talking through and convincing me that they are not going to end in disaster, making pone calls to the doctor's office or to the insurance company.

 

We were supposed to meet with a realtor to list our house but she is here crying and will probably cancel the appointment for today (we need to downsize and move esp. since I haven't been able to work for over a year and the forward prospects of working again are in doubt). This is in itself a crushing stressor (we don't know where we are going to live, we have decades of possessions to disposition and I am in such a limited state).

 

She has chronic health issues to deal with on her own and has carried me on top of all that. She is unable to work either.

 

Somehow, I am going to have to figure out how to suck it up and be less dependent. I don't know what that looks like and am not sure whether I can fake it or otherwise reach down and deep and find new power.

 

It is killing me to see the suffering that my suffering is causing.

 

When it rains it pours.

 

I feel so badly for you both.  How hard that must be on both of you, I can't imagine.  I hope some things change to ease up the suffering.  Lots of good thoughts headed your way :smitten:

[[St...]]

Hi TMB l really feel for you both and it is hard to watch someone you love suffer.You are going to have to dig deep and try to find ways of dealing with your withdrawal symptoms.You are stronger than you think and you can do this.

    Stut X

[[To...]]

SS, Mary5588, Stut and all Long Hold buddies

 

I am humbled by the support that I get from this group and grateful. I am very conflicted at times by all my posts of late being posts of woe. I was always the strong one throughout life (even while on benzos for so long)  and now I need others to just make it through. It is a very uncomfortable feeling for me.

 

I post here because you understand why these terrible things are happening. That's what a terrific resource that BB is for me.

 

 

 

 

[[St...]]

TMB looking for support is alien to me and l am sure most of us feel the same.Sometimes we all need extra support so think nothing about it.When you are feeling better you will be able to give support and guidance to others.Keep posting and hopefully we can help you in some small way.

    Stut X

[[ba...]]

I saw a post by someone who didn't know what to do and felt stuck, this is for them (can't find it now) and all the other buddies. If you can find anything usefull in my "blog," take it.

 

Sit down, take a breath, start fresh. The past is gone, it's a new moment in time, right now.

 

Your first issue is stability. Stability means a fairly predictable pattern of waves and symptoms, it does not mean you feel good most of the time. Once you are there, then you can evaluate cutting.

 

Micro cutting is an excellent way to determine if you can do with less, I employ it often to determine if I am ready to reduce my dosage. I have also learned through experience that I need several months, not weeks, to reach stability every time I cut.

 

Additionally, each cut is it's own story. At times, I have been able to make large cuts without the bottom falling out, at others it has to be micro cuts.

 

My advice to you is to set your mind to be patient, and come into an awareness that you are moving forward, always, no matter how horrible you feel. On the worst days, you are making progress, it just hurts like crazy. An analogy is someone training to be a boxer. With each practice, they get hurt, sometimes badly, but their skill level is always improving. It is a long haul to reach the goal, full of pain, discouragement, despair and fear, but the focus is the goal, not the pain. They are always making progress, learning from mistakes, and finding new skills through experience.

 

Whenever I have felt stuck, with no idea what to do, I pull out my toolbox: yoga, meditation, mindfullness, physical therapy, listening to music, distractions that allow me to get very caught up in what I am doing and focus on that. I will still feeel the agony, but it is not so pervasive. I am as focused, if not more, on my experience of dancing to music as well as the withdraw. There are many good books on meditation and mindfulllness, reading them and pacticing various techniques helps. I listen to Claire Weeks lectures when I am really overwhelmed, she is very good at reassuring us that our symptoms are not going to kill us, we can get through it.

 

I encourage you to start a search for material, activities, and practices that calm you down, and start experimenting.  You will be accomplishing 2 things- your mind will be on something besides how bad you feel, and that alone is a step away from our hyper focus on fear and pain. Additionally, you will discover that many people suffer, if not from withdraw, then neurological disease, fybromyalgia, cancer.

 

Pain is a fact of the human experience.

 

There is so much material and many practices on living with pain.  Other people suffer greatly as we do, and those who have found a way to live with it did it through  discipine, practice, and big picture thinking. Additionally, by having many options in your toolbox, and continuing to add more, you give yourself the resources you need to see and experience the pain in a different way.

 

It is up to you to try as many things as possible to discover what works. One thing I do that is so absorbing I can push the pain into a small area of my awareness is building rock cairns. Another is daily yoga. The range is infinite-you wont know what works until you try as many things as possible.

 

Here is a quick exercise. Rub your palms together hard and fast for a good 5 minutes. You can do it, 5 minutes can seem like a long time, but trust me. After 5 minutes your hands are hot. Put them on your face. They will be very tingly and burning. Is this not the same thing we feel in our faces from withdraw? It is. Yet, the heat and tingling in our hands is not scary. Now think about that. Why do we perceive the very same pain as energy when it is created by us in our hands, and overwhelming agony when that physical sensation in our faces from withdraw?

 

Is it because we have a sense of control? Is it because we are perceiving the feeling in the hands as energy, non threatening and something we can tolerate? Can we start taking that perception to our physical withdraw sensations?

 

We cant change our withdraw pain, but we certainly can change our relationship with it.

 

Do things your afraid of. For example, feel frozen to the chair like you cant breathe and your head is going to explode? Go wash the dishes. By engaging in any kind of activity that contributes to improving our personal space, or getting things done while in a bad place builds tremendous confidence. Washing those dishes was AWFUL, but you did it while in intense pain, and survived. You really can do things after all in this horrid state.

 

You need the experience of doing things when your mind is telling you that you can't to come into a place where you experience the withdraw as not all consuming, but a nuisance that you can work around.

 

One of my practices is to, "Do things afraid" This really builds confidence. Another is "Do it even when you don't think you can."

 

In order to live with the pain, we have to change our identification with it, our fear of it, our avoidance, and how much time we devote to thinking about it. Notice I said THINKING about it, which is different than feeling it.

 

Medication alone will never make us feel ok. To cope, we have to employ as many tools as we can to deal with withdraw.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[[St...]]

Great post baddove lovely to see you back again. I hope you are doing well.

  Stut X

[[ba...]]

:smitten: :smitten: :smitten:

[[Ji...]]

Hi baddove

 

Lot of wisdom.

 

❤️

[[Ma...]]

SS, Mary5588, Stut and all Long Hold buddies

 

I am humbled by the support that I get from this group and grateful. I am very conflicted at times by all my posts of late being posts of woe. I was always the strong one throughout life (even while on benzos for so long)  and now I need others to just make it through. It is a very uncomfortable feeling for me.

 

I post here because you understand why these terrible things are happening. That's what a terrific resource that BB is for me.

 

TMB, we love y too

[[Ol...]]

I saw a post by someone who didn't know what to do and felt stuck, this is for them (can't find it now) and all the other buddies. If you can find anything usefull in my "blog," take it.

 

Sit down, take a breath, start fresh. The past is gone, it's a new moment in time, right now.

 

Your first issue is stability. Stability means a fairly predictable pattern of waves and symptoms, it does not mean you feel good most of the time. Once you are there, then you can evaluate cutting.

 

Micro cutting is an excellent way to determine if you can do with less, I employ it often to determine if I am ready to reduce my dosage. I have also learned through experience that I need several months, not weeks, to reach stability every time I cut.

 

Additionally, each cut is it's own story. At times, I have been able to make large cuts without the bottom falling out, at others it has to be micro cuts.

 

My advice to you is to set your mind to be patient, and come into an awareness that you are moving forward, always, no matter how horrible you feel. On the worst days, you are making progress, it just hurts like crazy. An analogy is someone training to be a boxer. With each practice, they get hurt, sometimes badly, but their skill level is always improving. It is a long haul to reach the goal, full of pain, discouragement, despair and fear, but the focus is the goal, not the pain. They are always making progress, learning from mistakes, and finding new skills through experience.

 

Whenever I have felt stuck, with no idea what to do, I pull out my toolbox: yoga, meditation, mindfullness, physical therapy, listening to music, distractions that allow me to get very caught up in what I am doing and focus on that. I will still feeel the agony, but it is not so pervasive. I am as focused, if not more, on my experience of dancing to music as well as the withdraw. There are many good books on meditation and mindfulllness, reading them and pacticing various techniques helps. I listen to Claire Weeks lectures when I am really overwhelmed, she is very good at reassuring us that our symptoms are not going to kill us, we can get through it.

 

I encourage you to start a search for material, activities, and practices that calm you down, and start experimenting.  You will be accomplishing 2 things- your mind will be on something besides how bad you feel, and that alone is a step away from our hyper focus on fear and pain. Additionally, you will discover that many people suffer, if not from withdraw, then neurological disease, fybromyalgia, cancer.

 

Pain is a fact of the human experience.

 

There is so much material and many practices on living with pain.  Other people suffer greatly as we do, and those who have found a way to live with it did it through  discipine, practice, and big picture thinking. Additionally, by having many options in your toolbox, and continuing to add more, you give yourself the resources you need to see and experience the pain in a different way.

 

It is up to you to try as many things as possible to discover what works. One thing I do that is so absorbing I can push the pain into a small area of my awareness is building rock cairns. Another is daily yoga. The range is infinite-you wont know what works until you try as many things as possible.

 

Here is a quick exercise. Rub your palms together hard and fast for a good 5 minutes. You can do it, 5 minutes can seem like a long time, but trust me. After 5 minutes your hands are hot. Put them on your face. They will be very tingly and burning. Is this not the same thing we feel in our faces from withdraw? It is. Yet, the heat and tingling in our hands is not scary. Now think about that. Why do we perceive the very same pain as energy when it is created by us in our hands, and overwhelming agony when that physical sensation in our faces from withdraw?

 

Is it because we have a sense of control? Is it because we are perceiving the feeling in the hands as energy, non threatening and something we can tolerate? Can we start taking that perception to our physical withdraw sensations?

 

We cant change our withdraw pain, but we certainly can change our relationship with it.

 

Do things your afraid of. For example, feel frozen to the chair like you cant breathe and your head is going to explode? Go wash the dishes. By engaging in any kind of activity that contributes to improving our personal space, or getting things done while in a bad place builds tremendous confidence. Washing those dishes was AWFUL, but you did it while in intense pain, and survived. You really can do things after all in this horrid state.

 

You need the experience of doing things when your mind is telling you that you can't to come into a place where you experience the withdraw as not all consuming, but a nuisance that you can work around.

 

One of my practices is to, "Do things afraid" This really builds confidence. Another is "Do it even when you don't think you can."

 

In order to live with the pain, we have to change our identification with it, our fear of it, our avoidance, and how much time we devote to thinking about it. Notice I said THINKING about it, which is different than feeling it.

 

Medication alone will never make us feel ok. To cope, we have to employ as many tools as we can to deal with withdraw.

 

SO SO good. Thank you  :smitten:

[[Aj...]]

One of my practices is to, "Do things afraid" This really builds confidence. Another is "Do it even when you don't think you can."

 

I think that depends.

 

Before reinstating I was becoming phobic of everything. My body, touching paper, clothes, vegetables, all aspects of cooking - knives, the food, the heat, the sizzling etc. I was forcing myself to take deep breaths and sit flicking book pages or trying to be in the kitchen near cooking food and it just made things worse and worse.

 

I am used to forcing myself to do things I don’t think I can due to 22 years of illness. It doesn’t always work out well.

 

You have to know when it is a good time to do these things and when it is likely to cause further damage.

[[Aj...]]

My wife is utterly emotionally and physically exhausted with dealing with my sh*t. I rely on her for so many things. A lot of times it is about handling daily issues that I blow up to be catastrophic events and that take hours talking through and convincing me that they are not going to end in disaster, making pone calls to the doctor's office or to the insurance company.

 

We were supposed to meet with a realtor to list our house but she is here crying and will probably cancel the appointment for today (we need to downsize and move esp. since I haven't been able to work for over a year and the forward prospects of working again are in doubt). This is in itself a crushing stressor (we don't know where we are going to live, we have decades of possessions to disposition and I am in such a limited state).

 

She has chronic health issues to deal with on her own and has carried me on top of all that. She is unable to work either.

 

Somehow, I am going to have to figure out how to suck it up and be less dependent. I don't know what that looks like and am not sure whether I can fake it or otherwise reach down and deep and find new power.

 

It is killing me to see the suffering that my suffering is causing.

 

When it rains it pours.

 

I’m so sorry.

 

I feel like that about my partner. I love him so much and prior to reinstatement I was just crying and saying I want to die but I’m too scared to kill myself. He came round here after work everyday to that for months. I planned my funeral and have him the details of everything that would need sorting if I died. I put it all in a folder and gave it to him. The whole thing was utterly traumatic.

 

I just felt heartbroken for him - the thought that I had done this and that he would be grief stricken.

 

We both rent private flats. We have no housing security. He works but is nearly 60. We will never own our own place. Despite 22 years of illness I always thought I would find a way to get well enough to get back to work. I though getting off the diazepam would help with that. Now I am further away from that than I was before.

 

It’s so hard to deal with the loss of hope.

 

I try to hang on to the fact that we love each other and care about each other but that doesn’t help with the stress of insecure housing and feeling so horrendous all the time.

 

I really feel for you.

[[To...]]

Ajusta - we will land on our feet and so will you. For us, now, it is about finding a more modest home. It seems overwhelming how we will possibly get done what needs to get done and transition to another place. It will probably take two moves - first to a temporary place - then on to something permanent.

 

For people who are well, moving is considered one of the biggest stressors in life. For those of us challenged by benzo w/d, it feels impossible.

 

I'm sorry to hear about your situation and how far down in despair and trauma you had fallen. You are right about you and your partner loving and caring for each other is a key strength to hang on to. 

 

We must not lose hope. I wish for you the strength to get through this, for you and your partner. He sounds like a wonderful person who you can count on to be there for you.

 

[[Aj...]]

I don’t know how you will cope with moving. Is there someone to help you both. There is no way I could pack stuff up.

 

I hope you are right about us all falling on our feet.

 

I am having a bad day today.

 

Hopefully tomorrow will be less frightening.

 

 

[[Su...]]

SS, Mary5588, Stut and all Long Hold buddies

 

I am humbled by the support that I get from this group and grateful. I am very conflicted at times by all my posts of late being posts of woe. I was always the strong one throughout life (even while on benzos for so long)  and now I need others to just make it through. It is a very uncomfortable feeling for me.

 

I post here because you understand why these terrible things are happening. That's what a terrific resource that BB is for me.

 

Yes humbling to accept support.... I wonder how many of us here are the "caretaker/giver" types that support others but ask for  little from others. 

I know I've sure had to stretch that "asking for/ accepting" support muscle this past year.  And i remember that we need to be able to do both give and receive.

TMB that you write your woes is good for all of us I believe. It sure helps with that feeling of being all alone in this, at least for me.

So keep writing and i hope that things ease some soon.

:smitten:

SS

[[To...]]

I don’t know how you will cope with moving. Is there someone to help you both. There is no way I could pack stuff up.

 

I hope you are right about us all falling on our feet.

 

I am having a bad day today.

 

Hopefully tomorrow will be less frightening.

Family and friends will help with some things. Have 2 grown sons, one which we will get little to no help and the other will do the best he can around his challenging work schedule.

 

I'm sorry about your struggles today and hope you get some relief asap.

 

It feels at times like we are barely able to hold on. I guess we all have to believe we are going to land on our feet to have any chance to get through this. Hang in there Ajusta.

[[To...]]

SS, Mary5588, Stut and all Long Hold buddies

 

I am humbled by the support that I get from this group and grateful. I am very conflicted at times by all my posts of late being posts of woe. I was always the strong one throughout life (even while on benzos for so long)  and now I need others to just make it through. It is a very uncomfortable feeling for me.

 

I post here because you understand why these terrible things are happening. That's what a terrific resource that BB is for me.

 

Yes humbling to accept support.... I wonder how many of us here are the "caretaker/giver" types that support others but ask for  little from others. 

I know I've sure had to stretch that "asking for/ accepting" support muscle this past year.  And i remember that we need to be able to do both give and receive.

TMB that you write your woes is good for all of us I believe. It sure helps with that feeling of being all alone in this, at least for me.

So keep writing and i hope that things ease some soon.

:smitten:

SS

Thank you, SS.

 

I am trying to power through. The support I get here is critical. I know I am not alone....