Benzo related recovery

[[Br...]]

@[Pa...] hello I was wanting to ask you about some concerning symptoms ive had for the last 7.5 months. I was using clozepham short term for 5 weeks. I went to the doctor after experiencing some stress and sleep issues they started me at the time on .5 at night and .5 during the day as needed. I quit ct at 5 weeks in due to them not helping with the sleep or stress Also I started feeling really depressed. I had some intrusive inner monologue that started while I was taking them and hadn't slept good in almost a month or so.  I had a panic attack and blacked out. I've since been dealing with memory problems ear worms lack of emotions other then fear and paranoia also ocd like over the whole situation the inner monologue is constant and earworms. keep looking for answers. Worried I triggered some other mental health issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[[Pa...]]

Hi @[Br...], it sounds like you're one of those unfortunate individuals who is facing a long recovery from a short time use of Clonazepam, I'm so sorry.  Most short time users can look at recovery in weeks and months, I hope yours will fit into that time frame. 

You're not the only person to experience these symptoms and fear they're dealing with a new mental health diagnosis, I too feared it.  My mother was schizophrenic and I just knew I had it too, but no, it was the drug.

The lack of emotion is very common, we feel dead inside, we can't feel joy or love, we seem to only be capable of feeling fear and other negative emotions.  The earworms, the paranoia are normal for this process, so the best thing you can do is distract yourself as much as you can.  When we focus on the symptoms, we feel worse, but if we can distract, for only a short while, we can get some relief.  Do you have tools you can use to 

Are you keeping track your symptoms and their severity?  I didn't do this and I sure wish I would have because my brain kept telling me I wasn't recovering when I was.  Sometimes the only way we can see we're getting better is to see it in black and white. 

[[Br...]]

Thank you for the reply and thoughtful words. I haven't kept track of them really persay but they are pretty much constant like from the time I wake up unitll I go to sleep. I guess that is the only symptom that got better along the way so far is that I do sleep most nights have really weird sleep like dreaming all night. I wake up feeling the same way everyday not rested feeling pretty early like 5:30 6am and usually the ear worms and monologue start as soon as I'm up. One other symptom I didn't mention is eye floaters seems they started at the beginning Also. Right from the panic attack foward all systoms started really. Hopefully in the coming months I start to see some kinda improvement. I find it really hard to distract with it all going on but I try to still. Wish I could listen to music again always have been a huge music person. 

[[Pa...]]

Distraction is so hard to accomplish when the things we've used in the past aren't available to us.  I couldn't read, watch TV or listen to music, heck, even talking to people was an effort.  I'm sure you've got the same problem, so what does that leave?  Not much that's as effective. 

I've heard other members talk about eye floaters, I didn't get them while recovering, but have them now because I'm old.   Mine were really dry though, I had to stop wearing contacts. 

I'm happy to hear you can sleep, even if its not the best quality, you can at least escape this for a few hours.  Keep looking for those improvements because trying to keep a positive mindset can be helpful for our recovery, got to keep that hope alive.