Vent here

[[Es...]]

@[Ja...]

Hehe, I sleep abot two hours at night. Then sit here, start writing and feeling so sleepy... All my ambitious plans go to hell. Then I'm asleep again. These meds are powerful, especially fluoxetine. I'm afraid I hit complete tolerance with the diazepam and it only exacerbates my insomnia.

[Guest [...]]

A big rant. This might get moved to a new thread and that's ok if mods do that I understand. It's a horror show this morning.

I started a new medication for the Lyme, it's an anticoagulant. It can help with alot of things such as getting rid of fibrin "nests" to help move along toxins and meds through the blood stream. The supplement (Lumbrokinase ) is very very expensive but I'm hoping it's working as I feel a nasty herx/flare the last few days, coincidentaly when I started the med. I hope I start to feel more relief and not back to the usual "baseline".

This has been too long of a road physically, mentally and financially not to mention dealing with withdrawal and weaning off psych drugs.

I have a f/u with my Lyme doctor in October and my mother will be accompanying me. A friend of the family went through this and suggested IV treatment at the beg of summer, I'm scared of the cost and the ultimate failure as I've done so many treatments protocols with zero hope. I'm tired of funding this disease to get my quality of life back. Now my 2nd lyme physician is scratching her head.

I should be investing in other things that need my attention (and some things that are fun to experience) but I can't, if I do them I feel guilty. I feel my life at 38 yrs old is going more backwards.  I'm not just going to accept it anymore and say it's just another bump in the road because after a while that isn't helping me. Something is really wrong. I don't want to lose my new apartment, I can't lose my job those are the only 2 good things in my life and I feel are getting jeopardized. 26 years of my life now of feeling ill and 4.5 of those years treating thinking I'll finally have my life back and there are zero changes, only worse.

I'm watching my family, friends and coworkers moving on with their lives and I cannot catch up. I thought at 38 my life would be alot better. I can barely work fulltime but have to and want to for distraction. I'm too sick to be a parent, I'm too sick to be in a relationship.

WHEN'S ENOUGH TRULY ENOUGH?

 

[[Ca...]]

That shit wrecked my CNS and wrecked my life. 7 yrs, still a freakin' nightmare. 

 

[[Hu...]]

I've been feeling pretty alone in this whole benzo withdrawal suffering story.  Surely this forum is very helpful, but

Is there some kind of penpals topic here?

Edited October 24, 2023 by [Hu...]

[[An...]]

I wish I could go back to being 23 again before Benzos entered my life and do my life over. God, I miss my youth so much. 😁I had so much energy and enthusiasm for life then.

[[Id...]]

It’s triggering you don’t need to read it:

I’m crying so much because I can’t be coherent enough to ask for a better help even on here. Then I cry because I don’t even know if that can be helpful in my case. I don’t want to finish homeless to avoid homelessness I should ask for disability but for that I need doctors I can’t even come near a psychologist  help because, even if I could talk again, they will diagnostic me with all kind of craziness because how much traumatized and unstable I am. Last one (benzo “specialist” too) tried to convince me the excruciating pain that crucified me on the floor I was in when first put on benzos WAS A LIE I MADE UP TO HAVE AN EXCUSE TO BECOME AN ADDICT GETTING HIGH ON BENZOS. 

I think this cover my rant.

and if I can double the rant I should take so much diazepam to stabilize and I see people begging to know how to split a single drop. And I understand them very well because I have be kindled so much by specialists that I understand that. 
 

I think is enough. Thanks for letting me say this 

[[Ed...]]

I don't know where to post this, but today I'm having vivid, agonizing flashbacks of painful moments from my past, from long ago to recent - so excruciating that I tried desperately to stay in bed asleep all day by taking benadryl because just being conscious was becoming unbearable. But the flashbacks became nightmares and kept waking me up in extreme anxiety.

Vivid flashbacks are one characteristic of C-PTSD, a disorder caused by constant abuse and neglect as a child, which I've dealt with most of my life, and for decades I've been in and out of therapy, which was only partially helpful - psychiatry is only now recognizing how permanently life-wrecking it can be and developing better ways to treat it. So up to now, I have depended on benzos to hold back the pain. And now tapering from xanax is only making me more susceptible to the flashbacks, making them more frequent and intense. But if I don't taper off benzos entirely, the new, more effective therapies can't be administered.

The holiday season has always been the most difficult time of the year for me because, growing up, I never had a good Christmas. My mother was an alcoholic who always got her drunkest and cruelest on Christmas, and my father would often spend the whole day at someone else's house. He often failed to put any presents under the tree for me and my two siblings, and mother would give us gifts like underwear, rummage sale clothes, and school supplies (though my father was a Lt. Colonel and we weren't poor), while she complained about the real gifts we got or made for her (which she would later brag about to friends on the phone, but never to us). Once she chewed me out for stealing money from her to buy her a beautiful solitaire ring, which I had saved for all year. And another Christmas, she shot me in the thigh and I spent the day in ER. This is all coming back as clear in my mind as if it just happened.

I guess my dysfunctional upbringing impaired my ability to ever make really close friends - by the time I graduated from high school, I had been moved to 15 different schools (by now I wouldn't be surprised if you thought I was delusional or lying - I wish I were).

My pets - my dogs and my cats - were always my one refuge, my one dependable source of unconditional love all my life. I've been blessed with some of the most wonderful furry companions. But yesterday was exactly two months after the death of my last companion - my amazingly intelligent, incredibly affectionate cat, whom I had been blessed to have with me every day for 18 years. But the flashbacks of his last few days in October - the terrible seizures he had, the days I sat crying next to him on IV at the animal hospital, the last two injections that the vet made as my old buddy lay in my lap, his head slowly sinking as he passed away...leaving me completely alone. This painful moment keeps replaying in my mind like a looping video that won't stop - the moment I lost my very last loved one.

I never got to know any of extended families. My relationships long ago were disastrous trainwrecks. My dear younger brother killed himself two decades ago, my younger sister got lost in illegal drugs and disappeared from my life...my one close friend has Alzheimer's and doesn't know who I am now...my neighbors are all involved with preparation for Christmas with their families....

I can't remember ever being so totally alone. With only painful memories as company.

I so appreciate being able to say all this to someone. Thank you.

 

[[WU...]]

@[Ed...] I hear you. I'm more or less on the same page. The holiday season has always been a huge trigger, coupled with the darkest days.  Terrible childhood too, can't even be bothered to list the details, subsequent poor relationships. And I also held my ageing cat while she was put to sleep after terrible seizures. But you know what, I wouldn't want to be anyone else. I am a sensitive person, I have a heart, I care. I can't help it if others don't seem to have these qualities or I don't seem to meet the ones who do. And seeing the neighbours coming and going, having to rush around and buy stuff they don't need doesn't interest me one bit, so I don't envy them. 

Having spent many Christmases alone I now view this time of year as natural hibernation, like the big bears in their caves. But while they sleep there is much going on inside them, I wonder if they dream?

When those God-awful memories appear I recommend not making any attempt to stop them. Just say to your brain, OK let's have them, give me everything you've got, let's have it all out in the open. The amazing thing with this practice is the memories just sort of fizzle out on their own, as if they don't have the same energy when you stop resisting them.

There are many in the world just like us, alone, and the holiday season doesn't cater for us. Being cynical, is it because we won't be spending our money on presents so we are not worth bothering with ? Ha, ha.  

Anyway, I saw your post and wanted to respond as a fellow person alone. I intend to spend as much time as i want sleeping and pondering the universe over these coming days, and thinking of all those bears in their caves doing the same.  Take care 

[[Br...]]

Hello @[WU...] and welcome to BenzoBuddies!   We encourage you to start your own thread with questions about your situation on the Benzodiazepine Withdrawal, Use & Recovery forum or Benzodiazepine Taper Strategies forum. Please let us know how we can help you.

[[Ed...]]

48 minutes ago, [[W...] said:

@[Ed...] I hear you. I'm more or less on the same page. The holiday season has always been a huge trigger, coupled with the darkest days.  Terrible childhood too, can't even be bothered to list the details, subsequent poor relationships. And I also held my ageing cat while she was put to sleep after terrible seizures. But you know what, I wouldn't want to be anyone else. I am a sensitive person, I have a heart, I care. I can't help it if others don't seem to have these qualities or I don't seem to meet the ones who do. And seeing the neighbours coming and going, having to rush around and buy stuff they don't need doesn't interest me one bit, so I don't envy them. 

Having spent many Christmases alone I now view this time of year as natural hibernation, like the big bears in their caves. But while they sleep there is much going on inside them, I wonder if they dream?

When those God-awful memories appear I recommend not making any attempt to stop them. Just say to your brain, OK let's have them, give me everything you've got, let's have it all out in the open. The amazing thing with this practice is the memories just sort of fizzle out on their own, as if they don't have the same energy when you stop resisting them.

There are many in the world just like us, alone, and the holiday season doesn't cater for us. Being cynical, is it because we won't be spending our money on presents so we are not worth bothering with ? Ha, ha.  

Anyway, I saw your post and wanted to respond as a fellow person alone. I intend to spend as much time as i want sleeping and pondering the universe over these coming days, and thinking of all those bears in their caves doing the same.  Take care 

Welcome to BB, @[WU...]. I am very glad you're here!

What a beautiful message you have just written to me - at precisely the right time to lift my  weary heart out of a very dark place. This is such incredible serendipity.

I am deeply sorry that you also had a terrible childhood, poor relationships - and dear God! - lost your old cat in the same way I just did, after she'd had awful seizures. So very sad. And alone at Xmas. So much like my life! We have genuine mutual empathy.

It's clear to me that you're a sensitive person with a tender heart, and you really care. Your words about the rest of the world are immensely bolstering to me. I've long known rationally that your attitude is the right way for me to think, but it's hard for me to make my emotional self remember this.

Have you read any Elaine Aron and/or Ted Zeff regarding HSPs (highly sensitive people). Your Taoist alias - the ideal of a truly sensitive, caring society - suggests to me that maybe you have.

I will try to let those God-awful memories loose in my mind, hopefully to fizzle out. I have to admit that the thought is daunting, though, and I can't promise not to cry (withdrawing from xanax has made that all too easy to do now).

My infinite thanks,

@[Ed...]