Nasty wave! Not knowing what the next day brings is terrible

[[Di...]]

I’m going through a really nasty wave of symptoms. I’m 16 weeks off from Xanax after a 2 year taper from 2mg. I was on for 20 years.

It started with crazy GI stuff a couple of weeks ago. I just got through some constipation and still dealing with terrible gas / bloating and discomfort.
 

I'm not sure if I’m just really tired of the GI stuff or if my mental situation is actually changing. My cognition is fuzzy at best and it’s kind of hard to communicate. I’m pretty irritable/grumpy. My sleep may actually been improving, but it’s not helping my mood. I know that the gut is central to all of this and I just want to feel good.

I’m actually getting some restless leg stuff that I never had before.

Maybe one of the worst parts of this withdrawal is that you just don’t know what the next day or the next minute has in store. 

Ugh, just blowing off steam I guess 

[[Br...]]

Hi @[Di...] - You've nailed one of the hardest parts of benzo withdrawal, the unpredictable nature of it. Withdrawal takes a path that zigs and zags, and symptoms appear and disappear, fade and intensify, all with no pattern and often with no discernible cause.  You have every reason to vent.  

A lot of us are still dealing with rough symptoms at 16 weeks out.  I was and I remember how hard it was - some symptoms seemed more manageable but others had popped up that made me miserable.  Gradually I healed and those awful symptoms went away.  It takes time.  It takes longer for some of us than others.  We have to dig deep and assemble a bag of coping techniques to get through it.  You have a lot of healing under your belt at 16 weeks, and more ahead of you as you continue moving toward recovery.

[[Pi...]]

On the flip-side, nothing will teach you acceptance as efficiently as going through this process does, because of that unpredictability. You never know what's coming or what to expect, so you learn how to live in the moment and take things as they come. Symptoms disappear suddenly, they return suddenly, old ones out, new ones in, none of it predictable. You don't know when things may worsen, but you never know when they may suddenly get better either.

Acceptance is one of the skills I've picked up by going through this that I'm grateful for because now I don't worry too much about what's in my future, I just stay grounded in the moment. Once you can do that, nothing can really shake you too much.  Having said that, sometimes you just gotta have a moment and vent.  That's part of it too. 

Cheers,

Pickl

[[...]]

@[Di...] this may not work for everyone, but it worked for me and always has. When my legs get jumpy, I read that if you take a regular bar of bath soap, I use dove but I don’t think it matters and put it in between the sheets down by your legs, it will stop this. I do this and I have done it for years and if the bar gets real worn, just scrape it off a little bit with a knife to expose some new soap every now and then because it has something to do with positive and negative ions and their charges but that’s all I know so please don’t ask me any more questions, but it seems to work for me and always has for restless legs that we’re not related to this. So with that said, I hope it still works for me if I get the restless leg thing going on soon we’ll see. we’re all rooting for you hang in there.