5 weeks out BUT.... Need advice bad.

[[Wa...]]

I need some advice here folks. At my 5 week benzo free point I had what I can only describe as a psychotic break. It was unendurable beyond anything I have read on this forum. I have difficulty describing it only 'demonic possession' comes to mind and I don't really know anything about that or even believe in it. I was paralysed but able to move, vision almost gone unable to do anything with a pressure cooker in my head tremors etc and it almost broke my mind and would have but I took 1.5mg clonazepam in desperation or it was the funny farm strapped to a cot for dead sure. I slept for 11 hours and the afterrmath the next day required 10mg valium to keep a grip.

 

Anybody had anything like this? Have I blown it? Am I back to benzo hell as I needed a further 0.75mg clonazepam 2 days ago as it seemed to be coming back and it petrifies me.

 

My doctor is very suspicious and will send me for a brain scan which I want too as prior to any benzo I was having a lot of benzo-like  symptoms. This will take some time to organise. Of course like any doctor she knows less about benzos than anybody here.

[[Pa...]]

I'm sorry to hear you had such a horrible experience, but I'm glad you were able to pull yourself out of it and sleep.  I'm not sure what caused it, but I hate to see you taking anymore Clonazepam and Valium, it's a slippery slope from here on out.  I know you were desperate, but the event has passed and hopefully you can go back to being benzo free.

 

I'm not sure what your Dr will think of it, but it probably won't hurt to find out if there is a medical reason for what happened to you.  Whatever it is, it can't be helped with a benzo, can it?

[[Pe...]]

You pretty much described my whole first and second months after I took my last benzo at a Detox down in Florida.  I am glad I flushed all my benzos before I went.  I'll be interested to see if your brain scan shows anything.

 

As I said the psychosis started while I was still at the Detox facility.  It was terrifying.  Here I was in a strange place with people I barely knew several states away from my home.  The day I left I had to have someone bring me through the airport to my plane in a wheelchair.  I would have never found it on my own.  I didn't understand what anyone was saying to me,  I couldn't understand any signs I read, I couldn't function at all physically.  It was by the grace of God I made it home.

 

But the nightmare didn't end there.  The intrusive thoughts, derealization, and utter complete physical disability continued and escalated it made me helpless like an infant.

 

Thank God for my husbands love and understanding.  Thank God he believed me, it was all so incomprehensible.  We thought I would come back from Detox healed.  We were in total shock.

 

At 3 months the psychotic symptoms started to decrease, and stopped altogether at month 4.  I still have many many symptoms, but those psychotic ones were rough.  Soooo glad that's over with.  I too described it as like demon possession.

 

Thought I would share all that with you so you could see that this does happen to other people and also that it does go away.

[[Ma...]]

Thanks for clarifying this Perseverance...when you responded to one of my posts I thought you were saying that the psychotic crap ended after a month and I was feeling discouraged.  The way you felt on the way home from detox is some of what I am experiencing every day.  As weird as it sounds, I'm so glad to hear you say it!

 

God bless you!

Mary

[Guest [Tu...]]

If the benzos helped, then I imagine it was just some intense withdrawal episode and not a psychotic break. I started a c/t back on April 2 and have had a couple of very similar episodes where I was about to lose it and took a couple of "rescue doses" to ease the insanity. Pamster is right in saying it's a slippery slope, because while it helped me get through a rough period, it also left me highly at risk of reinstating, or finding a reason to reinstate.

 

Starting Wednesday, May 25 and going until Tuesday, May 31, I have four major life events going on. I've pushed to be benzo free as long as possible. My benzo of choice was the long acting, long-half-life Valium, so I'm taking very small doses of Xanax, which is stronger than Valium, IMHO, but has a much, much shorter half-life, so it's out of my system sooner. I don't like having to do this, but I couldn't have done these things without some temporary help, and I picked what I thought to be the lesser of all evils: single, short-term rescue doses. I'm through three of the four events, but the fourth one is the big one. I'm living on unemployment and I have to go in and present my "job search log" and my resume and discuss my job-search plan at 9:45 a.m. Tuesday, May 31. I HAVE to be fully functional thing. If I blow it, I could lose my unemployment, and then I'd really be "up the creek."

 

So, Tuesday afternoon if all goes well and I keep my unemployment, I will resume my c/t. I didn't take anything yesterday or Friday, so those were days 49 and 50, but any day when I take even a tiny dose doesn't get counted. Hang in there. Coming off this stuff is the hardest thing most of us have ever done. I've spent many afternoons in bed just counting the minutes, afraid that reality was slipping away from me.

 

Hang in there.

 

Jac in Tucson

 

This was me yesterday on Day 50: