Personality changes

[[Ba...]]

This happened to me after starting klonopin years ago. I became a different person.  Not myself at all and my behavior was not me.  Did this happen to anyone else?

[[Cr...]]

Hi Barbara, a big welcome to Benzo Buddies.

And yes, a change in personalities can happen with various forms of psyche meds. When your emotions are dulled the way you react to world around you changes. Our personalities could be defined as how we react to the world around us.

Sometimes the changes can be for the good, especially under severe circumstances, but more often than not people experience shifts in their personalities that feel foreign to how they originally perceived themselves.

Coming off meds can be scary not just because of the withdrawal symptoms, but because we became so used to our current medicated personality/sense of self that we forgot who we were before we got on the meds and are afraid of what's underneath.

If you read through the success stories on this site, you will find that for the most part people are very happy with their benzo-free personalities after recovery from withdrawal.

 

Edited May 16 by [Cr...]

[[Ba...]]

Thank you so much for responding. I very much don’t remember who I was before benzo. I don’t feel like myself and I’m not sure who I am.  I took klonopin for 23 years. I’m trying to get back to me, whoever that is. 

[[...]]

1 hour ago, [[B...] said:

Thank you so much for responding. I very much don’t remember who I was before benzo. I don’t feel like myself and I’m not sure who I am.  I took klonopin for 23 years. I’m trying to get back to me, whoever that is. 

@[Ba...], i remember who i was before benzo. I'm not sure my personality changed on it but i lived in a kind of hiding, wasn't interested much in what was going on around. I wasn't depressed but like no big thrilling desires. Then i hit tolerance and a nightmare began... It was too painful to care about personality. Now i'm 14 months benzo free and however hard it all was, it's been really returning to myself. I think i'm back)

I think, you're the same your own self but a little muffled with benzo. And it's sure reversible!

 

 

 

 

[[Ja...]]

Higher doses of benzo will dull your personality,.I think there’s a fine line,but this drug is so hard to find that with depedance,.I know 1 thing the withdraw interferes with your personality even worse though,.and I noticed another thing on a lower dose and when the withdrawal isn’t hitting,you get a little taste of that personality under the benzos.

[[si...]]

8 hours ago, [[B...] said:

This happened to me after starting klonopin years ago. I became a different person.  Not myself at all and my behavior was not me.  Did this happen to anyone else?

Hello Barbara,

 

Wow! Super cool you wanna come off. If you have taken Clonazepam for 23 years, what dose was you on? I think we do all become different through time, no matter what.
But i feel the same: my years with diazepam and clonazepam have cleary slowed and dampened my mind. Somehow. And i can so much relate to you, when you said you dont remember or know who you was or are. I have no clue; i just feel this is not really me.
I did notice though, or with help from friends: that i became more dull and indifferent.
There was a time i would have never cared so little or said such things: like now!

All the best in discovering yourself!
Are you already getting tapering or planning to?

 

 

[[Le...]]

My reactions to everything were dulled. That included your reactions to other people and how you cant really relate to them anymore. the only things left for me was irritation and anger. I did develop hyperacusis within months too. makes it very hard to be pleasant.