who do you 'tell'?

[[wh...]]

wondering what you guys do in the case of telling/not telling family and friends what you are going through? i am quite a private person, and given the unbelievable nature of this benzo nightmare, i have not told a soul. i kinda have the feeling that most people will not understand anyway, as most DOCTORS don't. this of course makes it difficult when you feel like crap. i can just hear it..........funny, you don't look sick???

[[sh...]]

Sometimes there will be others who simply can not or will not understand what we're feeling. With that said, I've told many people in my life and while they don't understand, it's always good for me to at least get out how I'm feeling. Is there any friends that you would feel comfortable telling? Finding BenzoBuddies was one of the best things of my life, but it always helps to interact with live people.

[[sw...]]

You know, I worried about it a lot in the beginning and then found that it was really no big deal.  I think in this day and age pretty much everyone is familiar with the concept of being sickened by medication.  I pretty much just explained I got perscribed some medication that it turned out that I never needed in the first place only for it to make me sick to stop so I had to gradually reduce my dose.  I have yet to meet a person who couldn't wrap their mind around that.

[[Po...]]

I have told my close family.  I have tried to explain to them, because I don't do a lot of the things I used to love doing.  My best  friend passed away from cancer a couple of weeks ago, so I don't have her to talk to anymore.  I don't tell my neighbors, I just fake it.  It's your journey and you don't have to share it with others unless you want to.  

[[sw...]]

You know, I worried about it a lot in the beginning and then found that it was really no big deal.  I think in this day and age pretty much everyone is familiar with the concept of being sickened by medication.  I pretty much just explained I got perscribed some medication that it turned out that I never needed in the first place only for it to make me sick to stop so I had to gradually reduce my dose.  I have yet to meet a person who couldn't wrap their mind around that.

 

Actually, I'll go a step further and say that most of the people who I told about it seemed a hell of a lot more knowledgable about it than my perscribing doctor.  My two favorite insightful comments so far have been (in discussing my clonazepam), "wow, it almost sounds like you're coming off valium, or something" and "so, have you started having hallucinations, yet?" (that being compared to my doctor's "I don't see how this could possibly be withdrawal").