could someone talk to me? Suffering and discouraged

[[Ho...]]

Dear Friends,

 

I am at 18 months and a week and I am still suffering severely.  I can't function.  I can't even hear noises or hear my husband ask me a simple question without feeling anxiety or irritability that is too much for my system to withstand.  I am severely fatigued to the point that I can't hold my head or lower back up and when someone speaks to me I feel like I will crumble to the floor in weakness.  The fatigue is flu like and also with hyperness at times.  The symptoms are all mixed up. 

 

I woke up with painful irritability in my cells and then the anxiety came, then the depression, then the anxiety again, and I can hardly walk.  I don't know why I am trying to type this all because I have written my pain to you all many times over the last couple of years. 

 

I don't know if I should go to a doctor again and ask him to admit me and moniter me for a couple of weeks to see if my liver is bad or something.  I just don't know what to do.

 

I keep telling my husband that I have worsened but I don't get through to him because he has heard it so much.  We have gone to several good doctors over the last couple of years and they have offered natural substances and good diets and B12 shots and still I am so deathly ill and can't face people and so lonely and so frustrated because I need to be with others and participating in good things. 

 

My husband's elderly parents needed their roof shingled and house painted.  My husband was putting off the work because of how cycling ill I am with the severest of mood swings and fatigue and my bowels, head, eyes are in pain so much.  I asked him to please ask the church men to help his parents and to please stay with me, but it couldn't be worked out and so my husband was very persistent with me that I had to go and stay with his folks while he worked on their roof and I said I wouldn't go and was so full of fear, paranoia and anxiety and my husband was firm with me and he said he was tired of everything being all about me.  It is true.  This withdrawal has made me into the worst person alive and I am all over the place in moods and thoughts and confused and so dark and I just can't go on like this.

 

So I curled up on the floor so sick with fear as my husband urged me to get in the car.  It was awful and I just wanted to die.  I had to go and we have been there for days and I was a wreck, out of my mind with debilitating suffering depression and anxiety and mumbling over and over and rocking at times and bursting out crying and in depair and pacing and at times I would even cook or climb up on the roof and help some.  I was just trying to survive anyway I could. 

 

I had to force feed at the table while they all small talked about the paint colors they liked or the weather, or politics and it all bothered me and I wanted to scream out, "Don't you all know how much I am suffering and doesn't anybody care?"  They do care.  They understand as much as they can but they really can't understand what has happened to me.

 

My father-in-law said that if I would work hard that I would sleep better and feel better.  I worked at times and he thought I was doing great but I was suffering.  Anything I did that helped out just made everyone think I was doing better or getting better.

 

I had a rare lift one morning while we were there.  I woke up in nerve pain and fatigue and fear and as I struggled to brush my teeth it lifted and I felt like smiling and then I just had a lift and was able to hear the dogs bark without horrendous irritability and I could hear sounds and people talk and not feel fear.  I had some energy.  So I was able to function and could connect and was not depersonalized or de-realized.  I wasn't vacant and could be interested in the small talk.  I helped my parents-in-law a lot on that day.  They were happy that I was feeling better and my mom-in-law kept saying, "See you are well now."  I didn't want to say anything negative because I know how withdrawal goes and how we get hit so hard with symptoms after a little lift or window.  I was hoping with all my heart that this lift would be a turn for me and I would start doing better, but the next morning I was so sick with symptoms and out of my mind and couldn't face them and on and on and then the next day too. 

 

They couldn't understand it.  They were silent or just talked to me like nothing was wrong.  It was awful for me.  It was awkward.  They bit their lips as I think they wanted to tell me to just pull myself up by my bootstraps and be strong.  My mom-in-law told me to quit having my husband read to me on the forum and quit listening to these people because then I have it on my mind all the time and I just need to get on with my life.  She was compassionate but tired of me after several days and who can blame her? 

 

I don't know what to do.  I can't stand to see others move about so quickly and freely.  My dad-in-law is 80 years old.  He tried to work also and told me of his ailments and I listened and rubbed his back.  But he is interested in television, and reads on his computer and he hopped up so fast when he realized that he was late for a church board meeting and scurried about and drove himself to the meeting and enjoyed it all and came home with a big appetitie.  I made everyone banana shakes.

 

You see, they are all doing so very much better than me mentally, emotionally and even physically in ways.  I just can't take being around them because I am so depersonalized and severely suffering the depression, fatigue and so vacant and uninterested and irritable beyond what is human and discouraged.  I can't stand how I can't feel the love and joy and the interest and satisfaction and productivity to help them like I used to.  I lived for helping them and others in my family. 

 

I am 18 months and a week and I can look back over the last couple of years and more and see that I am feeling exactly the same suffering as I did way back then.  I don't know what to do anymore.

 

I opened my devotional book today and I had written a note there two years ago that said that this suffering was only a season and when I saw that note it reminded me how horrifically I am still suffering since I wrote that note.  My father-in-law was in the hospital with heart surgery at that time and I could hardly be there at the hospital suffering through the tapering at that time and now two years later he is healed from the heart surgery and I am debilitated and suffering still.  Yeah, I climbed up on their roof some but I was so sick and weak and made myself sicker doing that.  But I didn't want to stay in the house and hear the television that my mom-in-law was watching and those awful drug commercials that haunt me.  I didn't want to keep trying to be normal and hold the gutteral grief inside.  I couldn't listen to her talk about crafts and all the interesting things the other relatives were doing with their lives.  She wanted to make plans for the holidays and I just thought about how can I leave my family and get away from those who plan for fun?  It was all ripping me up inside and making the depression and anxiety and angst worse and worse.  What am I going to do?

 

It seems like after all this time I should know that I am getting better but I am as worse as I ever was or more.  Please, I have got to get some relief.  I am doing everything right to get well and everything that my friends here tell me to do to get well but I am suffering and doubting that this depression will ever lift along with all the other chaos in my system. 

 

My life is nothing but chaotic suffering day and night and I am force feeding to stay alive just to suffer.  I can't lay in bed all day because the drift offs shock me awake with anxiety and delerious thoughts and makes me out of my mind until I get up and babble sentences over and over.  I can't take naps or sit and drift off.  What do I do?  I need rest so badly.  When will my brain work right and let me go back to sleep when I wake up at night or in the morning and when will my brain let me take naps?  Please I have suffered this way for a couple or more years now.

 

I told my daughter on the phone last night that I don't know what do do anymore because I've gone over 18 months and still suffering and debilitated.  I am supposed to give her and her finance and engagement open house in the near future.  I want to do it because that is the way I always have been.  I loved planning and hosting and being hospitable all my life.  But I can't do it the way I am right now.  I just want to throw in the towel and take pills to numb all the cycling symptoms and so I can give my daughter a celebration.  I am so frustrated and hurt that I may not be able to give her this celebration and that someone else will have to do it for her.  This robs me.  I have been robbed over and over from these gifts and pleasures in life. 

 

I am wondering if I am wasting my time waiting on time to be healed because I still can't even get out of bed in the mornings to try to shower and carry on and the day just goes by and I suffer through it having to fake or be humiliated as my suffering shows.  I cry in stores or pace and babble in public sometimes and I try not to and hold it in and I just know how odd I am now and I am ashamed and scared.  I don't know what to do.

 

I am at home alone while my family is out doing all kinds of different things.  I just don't want to live this way anymore and can't feel that I am getting any better at all.  I don't trust myself to be alone and yet I won't go in the car with my husband and see normal life.  Please tell me what to do.  I am not right in my mind at all and feel worsened.  Please help.

 

I am afraid of the drugs and the pills that got me into this mess.  But I don't want to keep being so mentally, emotionally and physically so sick and out of my mind and travailing all day long hit back and forth by all these symptoms. 

 

Please, am I bi-polar or clinically depressed and need to stop all the waiting?  Even if I am, I am so very very scared of the drugs ( I don't like to call them meds because they all made me so sick in ways I have never been sick before).

 

Please please help me because I just don't know how I can go on another day being this out of my mind and so sick.  It seems I have gotten worse and worse mentally and emotionally.  Please please help me.  Thank you friends, Hope4us

[[ro...]]

Hi Hope4us,

 

I completely understand,you are not alone I too am just about 18 months off and still sick.I too thought I would be healthier by now.My symptoms still have the best of me ,I am worn out by the length of this nightmare.

I used to look at the calendar every day and mark off the days, now I hate the darn thing.

Time is the only anedote I hear from everyone,some heal in less than a year others like me could be much longer.But from what I have heard and those who are in the know of such things say even the worst of us HEAL IN TIME!

You will recover we all do just believe that because it's true.

 

Ron

[[sc...]]

Oh "Hope", how my heart goes out to you.  I am so sorry you are in so much pain.  Its one thing to go through struggles knowing that there will be an end, but when there is no end in sight it feels so hopeless.  I am blown away by your strength to have endured this crap for the past couple years. 

 

I don't know what I might say that would feel helpful except, "I know".  I said that in my head numerous times as I read your post.  I know how hard it is to show others those brief moments you are feeling well, when you know that it is just a matter of time before you feel awful again.  I know about the constant internal questioning that happens when we start to doubt if this is withdrawal or just "who we are".  I know about the depression, helplessness, and the despondency that you described so well and how lonely this experience really is.

 

You are such an incredibly strong person.  And although you feel that this will never end, it will.  You will experience life again.  You will hear the dogs barking again and feel their happiness.  You will connect with others again.  You will feel your daughter's happiness about getting married.  And despite their imperfect understanding of your situation, you will feel love for those around you again.

 

Although you feel so very, very alone right now, you are intimately connected with all of those people, including myself, who are going through this as well.  Thank you for having the strength to ask for help when you needed it most. 

 

You are in my heart, Scott.     

[[rs...]]

hope4us, I just read your post and want to applaude you for your courage. I'll just say the senior members here say everyone does recover. You have alot of time under your belt and have been through alot. I am only 50 days out today and it scares me to death to hear how long this horror can last. We all are going through this hell with you even though the circumstances are individual. Nobody understands this because they have never been through this nightmare. If your husband reads you posts then he must know the nightmare all of us are facing. I get the same response as you from people around me, " I would think you would be over this by now". Also the trash talking of people who don't have a clue. I think we all need to have a thick skin and just survive this the best we can.

 

I know valium and other benzos have been around for 40 years and never did I realize how dangerous and addictive they were. I can't believe any doctor in their right mind would prescribe such a life destroying drug and give no warnings of the danger. Any drug that changes the chemistry of your brain and tears apart your nervous system is just so sick.

 

hope4us I know this is a long battle but you are not alone. It is an individual fight that makes you feel so left out of life. I guess for most of us here it's a decision to either let these drugs tear us apart from the inside or put up the fight of our lives to get of this poison that was fed to us. Every doctor I've been to doesn't have a clue. I was in the hospital a year ago in renal failure. I had been tapering down after a seizure from xanax c/t. This poison caused muscle deterioration in me and the proteins flushing through my kidneys caused them to fail.

 

Please keep up the fight and know you are not alone. We all have our personal fight to live but I trully believe it will end one day. Take care of yourself and eat healthy foods and drink lots of water. Believe in yourself and you will make it through this. You are loved,rstuds

[[Na...]]

Dear hope4us I can understand your pain and I feel for you. I know time seems forever to be healed. But eventually you will get there. Benzo's have robbed up of our lives, yes but you will get it back again.I am 9 months benzo free and suddenly my sleep patterns have gone crazy. I am on bed waiting for the sun to rise. It's 5am. This forum has given me much hope when I thought there was none. Take care.

[[el...]]

I dont know when you had the B-12  shot?But that shot put me in withdraws so bad it added 3 months of benzo hell to withdraw time.the first time I tried to taper...Had to start all over again 3 months later...I did not take any pills they all made my symptoms much worse..So did the foods I ate...Im now 3months benzo free..I feel 75% healed..I was one of those people who thought Id never heal..But after 4 months taper,it was never a taper where I felt anywhere near normal..I was always in horrible pain...And could not function..Or just thinking about typing made my anxiety much worse..Its differant for all of us,but I do feel the post I read on BB saved my life..With out them I would have been lost...I just kept reading them over and over...I had no mornings,no nights,no days,no sleeping,no idea what time it was..Just suffering...Good Luck..Hang in there..Keep posting!

[[Ho...]]

Hi Hope,

 

I'm really sorry to read about your situation. It makes me feel like my situation (a return of withdrawal symptoms from a single benzo dose) is nothing when compared to yours. I know how hard it is to believe in the word "time"..but honestly...that is the truth. Time will bring you relief. I can't imagine having to endure so much and for so long. It truly speaks to how strong you are.

 

Something to keep in mind, you are 18 months out. A lot of stories that are similar to yours see HUGE improvement around the 20-24 month mark. For some reason "22" is a number that sticks out in my mind as having been a time of immense improvement for people.

 

Please hang in there and keep us updated. In the meantime, have you found anything that gives you relief by taking your mind off of everything or relaxes you? Some things that may help...hot baths, listening to audiobooks instead of trying to read them, journaling your thoughts..even sitting down with colored pencils and paper and just drawing anything that comes to mind.

 

Stay strong,

 

Yorba

[[Ho...]]

Thank you all for sharing with me and for supporting me with words of kindness, care and love.  I just clung to your words last night and again awoke to hopeless agony this morning although I must try to have hope that this will end.  It is amazing to me that you all can post to me and speak of hope and belief that the immense debilitating suffering will pass.  It is so difficult to believe while in the midst of unrelenting day and night suffering with rare windows, if any for us, that this will end especially as it has gone on for so long for some of us.

 

Thank you for saying that I am strong but I am not strong the way those of you who can post and say that we will heal and believe it.  I am a huge doubter as the days just keep passing and I think I am supposed to sense improvement and I don't.  I just get so scared that I am not going to heal. 

 

I push and push to get my mind off of it but how do I do chores in such slow motion pain feeling that every movement is so difficult and with all the mood swings and how do we get our minds off of it with all that going on?  I just haven't been good at that, but if you could see the things I try to do or do, then you'd say I am getting my mind off of it but the pain is there every breathe. 

 

I just hung on yesterday to all that my friends shared with me and I couldn't help but hope that I could wake up this morning and feel better but I didn't.  I just set myself up it seems.  So my husband said to let him read your posts to me again and I just bawled that I just wanted to feel better. 

 

I have to push through this day again with facing what my husband says I must do with facing others to help his folks, to try to be a mom to my son who needs our help with moving and I just want to lie down and rest but there is no rest in laying down either.  I can't stand everybody and am jealous and hateful inside for their normal and interesting lives and yet I miss them deeply and want to connect and be a part and be the cheer leader for them that I used to be.  I can't make myself feel the way that I want to and should feel.  It is just not there. 

 

Well, I could start going on and on about my symptoms but I have already done that yesterday although today's set of symptoms will be cycling and could be a different description of suffering. 

 

I hug you all.  You have all been so kind to me.  Please our Lord help us all.  Amen.  Hope4us

[[pe...]]

Just beginning my journey of going off, but you are a very strong, amazing person to have fought this battle for 18 months already.  I'm finding it's a battle not many understand.  I hope you get some relief very soon.

[[Ho...]]

Dear Friends,

 

Why don't I do something else instead of post here again obsessing about how vacant, depersonalized, apathetic, and so deathly fatigued and grieving about it and all that I have missed and continue to miss out on. 

 

Last night my mind and body were in a torment I can't even explain but I  didn't trust myself and thought I was going to do something harmful.  I had gotten in bed early to try to just sleep and not keep obsessing and feeling and thinking like I was going to do something harmful.  My husband said he would take some things over to our son and his new apartment and I said okay.  He left and I fell asleep but woke up soon and still fomenting in a way I can't describe but so fearful of myself and being so sick and tired of my suffering and debilitation.  I tried to just lie there but I couldn't.  I called my husband who just said the poison was making me think that way and he didn't want to come home really. . .I could tell.  I hung up on him and got back in bed suffering and trying not to think hateful and angry thoughts that my husband and all the rest of the world were visiting, watching TV, shopping, eating, etc. 

 

I didn't think I was going to make it through again trying to just survive the insanity in my mind.  I turned on the light and opened the devotional, "Streams in the desert" and read.  This is all I read and it speaks of much suffering and coming through it in many ways.  A lot of the time I cannot read it because I am so discouraged because I have read it so much hoping and clinging for a better day to come and it hasn't come.

 

It spoke of despairing and suffering and coming through a trial and having our lives spared and then having a new beginning.  It spoke of superficial people who have not suffered and how they say careless things.

 

Anyway, I read it and then tried to go back to sleep.  I had a fitful night of nightmares.  Does anyone stay haunted by their dreams and nightmares during the day because you can't get them out of your mind and it is like the thoughts of the dreams are bigger than the reality of being awake?????

 

I woke up so severely fatigued that I thought I was going to die of it.  How can I be this way after all this time?  Yesterday and today my husband has spent much time reading many success stories to me and reading of how others started to feel better in my time frame.  As soon as he stops I do not know what to do with myself.  I walk around the house aimlessly.  I cry and cry and mourn and mourn that I am not in my right mind and that the pain and symptoms and depression reign.

 

I went upstairs to clean the kitty litter and feed our cat.  The kitty litter was low and I felt anxiety because I would have to tell my husband that it was almost out and he would go to the store for it and I would only have the options of being forced to be alone or being forced to go in the car with him and I don't want to do either one and the anxiety hurts.  Then I felt anger because I can't even get in the car myself and go get it like a normal person and I used to be the most active person and never gave an errand or visiting with others a second thought.  Now I spend my days in fear, avoiding or force facing others and I suffer travailing all day long with all these mental and emotional symptoms. 

 

My heart is cut just seeing things around the house that are sentimental.  It hurts so badly the emotional grieving is killing me.

 

I came to write again because I don't know what else to do and after I write what will I do?

 

I'm lightheaded and then I have pressure, and then my brow and eyes are furrowed and then my eyes are wide.  I can't think and then the thoughts are just random about people.  My voice is monotone and I slur and then I break out in high pitched crying and then gutterally low. 

 

I can't do anything or face anyone and I am so lonely. 

 

I pray into frustration.  I try to be humble and surrendering in this suffering like I think that if I can just accept all this suffering that somehow it won't feel as bad and the oppression of it will lift or I will be more peaceful about it all and mature.  But I just go back to begging God for relief and feeling so despondent that I continue to suffer unrelentlessly.

 

So many posts express the same things I do. . .the unrelenting suffering of sorts, the crippling depression, and my days are really nothing but trying to do simple tasks that are meaningless like emptying a small trash can in the house, loading the dishwasher, clipping a rose, vaccuuming and I just don't want to do these meaningless things because they really don't even need to be done that much.

 

I still can't look at family photos or photo albums, or read or watch TV or look outside at the neighbors, as it all brings tremendous emotional pain as I am left out and walled off. 

 

Everytime I hear my husband walk in the house it vexes me because he walks with energy.  When he approaches me I feel a punch of anxiety because he might tell me he is going to run an errand or ask me a question about normal life that will make me so hostile because I can't feel any of it.

 

He remembered he had to get a haircut yesterday and he so energetically hopped up and said, "oh no I have got to go!"  I felt so left out of life and he left and I said to myself that I hated him and then I said to myself that I really didn't hate him and yet the feeling was immense and hurt so badly.  I tried to distract myself and go outside to walk but it didn't help me.

 

I think I am unable to battle anymore and every sort of stimuli aims to belt me with the negative emotions.  I can't feel any joy, love, humor, purpose still and I just don't know what to do anymore.

 

My daughter wants to have an open house engagement reception and I want to do it.  I am afraid that the cruelity of this ongoing condition I am in will continue to disable me and I will not be able to be the fun and creative mom I used to be and give her this event. 

 

It does not comfort me when others say, "Oh don't be hard on yourself and let someone else do it or your children just have to learn that you can't do everything for them, or just let it go, or you will see good in it later that you couldn't do it, or trust God that you must miss out and someday you won't be missing out or on and on. . . ."  You see, if I had one wish, it would be to feel better and to feel the joy in planning and giving this reception to my daughter.  I prayed to let it go, but I weep and weep over it. I can't do anything about my suffering or the timing of life events and I can't do anything about when and if I will get well.  This is sooooo cruel. 

 

You see, for the passed 3 years I have missed out on these precious times and this one is huge to me and I am still not well.  It makes me think to just take drugs to try to get some kind of coping back so that I can try to be a part of my family and life.  But what a nightmare these drugs would be. We all already know the horror of the pharmacuetical drugs.  Oh dear Lord help each one of us to heal and feel good again.

 

I can hardly make it through this day again.  I don't want to stop typing because I will return to wringing my hands, walking around aimlessly, looking around and not seeing, hearing only to feel anxiety or irritability. 

 

I am empty and yet so filled with pain.

 

Last week, I was suffering this way and I walked over to a place in our neighborhood by a pond.  I hate it there too because so many of the neighbors drive back and forth during their fun and busy days.  But I sat there.  a neighbor was going to the grocery store but she turned around and stopped her car.  My back was to her.  She called out to me and got out of the car and said, "Hey you want to go to lunch and a movie?"  I told her I wished I could and she wanted to ask me many questions and I did not want to explain really. 

 

You see, I know her story.  She has been on these kind of drugs for many years and she and her husband switch them around.  Frankly, I have wanted to avoid her because I didn't want to have a life of pills for years and years and it all is so scary to me.

 

But a few months ago, I saw her walking and I could see that she was suffering.  I began to pray for her and I told the Lord that I knew that something must be going on with her medications.  She has conditions and on so many pills besides the poisons.  In my heart I have wanted her to be able to get off the poisons and one time I had emailed Benzobuddies to her because her husband was taking a benzo sporadically and then he wanted to get on an antidepressant.  I was tapering at the time and felt responsible to try to tell them.  But they have taken these poisons and even drink and eat unhealthy and I don't know how they can function, but they do.

 

But like I said, I saw her walking and suffering one day and so I was praying for her.  Then when she stopped to ask me to lunch and a movie I was so scared that she would tell me something I didn't want to hear like I should take some poisons or something like that.  But instead she told me that she had gotten off and was doing well.  It just didn't take her very long.  I prayed with her and prayed for her husband.  She said she had been on the different poisons all those years and they didn't help and she told of many negative things about them and the doctors.  I felt like this was another confirmation to me not to ever take any benzos or antidepressants ever again.  I am horrified of them anyway because of what they did to me then and now. 

 

But at the same time I was really really discouraged because she felt so good.  She was all dressed up and pretty and enjoying going to the store and had been to get her feet pedicured.  How could she just get off all that poison in just a few months and feel great and especially when she drinks liquor and eats fast food?  How could she feel so much better when she was on so many different poisons at the same time?  She isn't even traumatized like the rest of us going through this protracted withdrawal. 

 

I am so traumatized by the many months of these constantly changing all consuming horrific symptoms.  Please, I just don't know how to keep going and yet there is no option but to keep suffering and hoping that it will end.

 

Like I said, my husband read hours of posts to me and yet I just can't get it through my head that I am going to heal.  There was a post where a friend said that her husband and the forum had to tell her 100s of times that she would heal with time and patience.  That sounds like me.  She healed.  Dear Lord, please heal us. 

 

My husband is reading posts to me from all of you who are in my time frame or healed in my time frame. 

 

I am so very very ill and not in my right mind and my emotions are too strong and in human to bear and please, can you all just write to me again.

 

This is very very long.  I don't have any thing to do or any where to go to find comfort.  I am comfortless.  I asked my husband to kneel with me and pray and yet feeling hopeless as I pray day and night under my breath just trying to survive another day or I have asked him to pray with me 100s of times and I have asked others to keep me in their prayers.  This does feel like hopeless agony as another day without any sign that I am getting better is now in the late afternoon.

 

Please please write to me again my friends and please share with me again.  I will cling to your encouragements for a day and then tomorrow when the suffering crushes me, your encouragements will be gone.  It seems that I can't hang on to your words of encouragement for very long anymore. 

 

I am afraid that I won't make it as time drags on and on.  Please write to me.  I am a beggar and really not a good friend.  But if you were with me, I would hug you all.  Hope4us

[[Po...]]

Dear Hopeforus,

 

I cannot relate to everything you are going through because I am holding my taper.  I tried to get down and couldn't make it, so giving myself some time to heal this far. 

 

I will gladly be a friend to you and listen to whatever you are going through.  I had enough withdrawal symptoms to know how terrible it can be.  I can't tell you it will get better from personal experience because I'm not there.  I know that I read threads and posts every day trying to come up with some magic formula to get us all through this.  I feel so discouraged for you and others that are so far out and still having problems.  I am going to be 68 years old.  It scares me that this is what life could be like when I am 70.  That is why I am holding and trying to get it together again.  I have to be honest, when I read posts from people that far out and still suffering I wonder if that's really where I want to be.  I know that this is depression talking, but it makes one think.

 

I do know that during this time we need all the love and encouragement we can get.  Just keep typing, I will keep listening and will be giving you virtual hugs.  I know you are a strong person going through a really tough time and sometimes "faking it till you make it" just doesn't work.  Sometimes you need to just have a good cry and release all the pent-up emotions.  I know this does help me.

 

Just realize you have one more buddy that is praying one morning you will wake to a beautiful sunrise and the clouds will be gone forever.

 

Hugs     

Popcornlady

[[...]]

Dearest Hope - oh lrittle angel i am so sorry for your pain.  i completely relate to all that u said.  it is so extremely uncomfortable that even facing one more day seems unbearable.  i have had a rough go of it and i am in my 4th month out now.  i honestly wish i could take some of your pain from you because i am in a window right now.  and i just want to tell u that I KNOW u will get thru this.  i do not know why it is taking this long for you - there are things in life that we never get the full picture for - but for some reason this is your path.  BUT PLEASE TRY TO KEEP BELIEVING.  it is so hard to believe when that indescribible pain is present tho - soo just believe that i believe.  you will heal;  i have been clean and sober in aa for 27 years - and know of so many people who struggled for a long time - but if they hold on they get well.

just keep talking yourself down from the beat up; the fear; man it all seems so silly to me now when i look back - i totally relate to getting crazy over kitty litter - but those things do not matter - u just taking it easy and getting thru this is all that matters.  AND YOU WILL SWEETHEART.  I KNOW YOU WILL.  YOU WILL.  PLEASE KEEP BELIEVING THAT.  yes u r a miracle; you are brave; to have endured this nightmare for this long - phew.

i don't know if this is a possibility for you but i got strong prayers to pray over me.  when they did it  put me into instant windows.  just putting that out there hun.  it was hard to call them - did not know them very well but it's been really helpful.

 

i couldn't do anything extra either.  it's all ok.  it's just part of it.  i am thinking of you.  keep holding on dear one.

[[pe...]]

(((hugs))) I can hear the pain in your post.  Never lose hope that even in your darkest hour, God cares.  He hears your pain.  Keep crying out to Him and pouring out your heart.  All you need to do is to take a minute at a time right now...little steps to get though each day.  Praying God will open a window for you.

 

[[te...]]

((((((((((((((((Hope4Us)))))))))))))))))), I'm still tapering, but want to tell you that you are an inspiration and a heroine. I pray that you will be better and better soon. Love, T2

[[dr...]]

Hope,

 

I know what this agony feels like, though I don't know what it feels like to endure it for as long as you have. I can tell you that I have spoken with many long termers and a few recovered people that have seen people heal much farther out. Pasquale (SP?) made a recovery at 17 months off and when I spoke with him he said his 16th month was one of his hardest months. It could be right around the corner. I feel so bad for you but know you are not alone. I was once living with my girlfriend in our own apartment and attending college and working. That was 5 months or so ago, not I am sick in bed wishing I was dead from this drug that has torn apart my life and my soul. I give you so much credit for staying alive through this. You are an inspiration to me hope. Although your husband may be a source of pain through envy you should thank god that he stayed with you through this. It will bring you closer when you get out. I will say a prayer for you tonight. I hope we both make it out.

[[an...]]

Hope I don't know if this will help you or not but I feel just like you. You have a wonderful way of writing about whats going on. All I can say is my muscles are killing me so bad it feels like bone, the nerves just won't quit shaking and feeling numbing. I get very dizzy and lightheaded. I try to do some minor work and I have to sit down do to the weakness and making it hard to breath. About 2 weeks ago my ankles and feet are very swollen for some reason. I had blood work done Tues. and SAID IT WAS ALL GOOD. So how can we feel so sick when everything is normal but our bodies and mind. healing to you angel

[[Ho...]]

Dear friends,

 

Thank you for writing to me.  I pray for each of you after my husband reads your posts to me.  I would like to name you all one by one and write back to you but I don't want to leave anyone out and I might do that.  Some of you I have heard from for the first time and you all are so good to me.  A few of you post to me often and used to post to me on the personal posts and I hadn't heard from you but I still pray for you. 

 

I just can't believe how long this is taking for us.  I hadn't heard from some of you and so I had hoped that you were much better and I want you to be much better and so I hope we all can turn the corner soon. 

 

I am really really struggling with how long this is taking to hope to feel connected to everyone and everything again and for the symptoms that keep me so chaotically debilitated to subside.  It is really really hard to believe right now that I am going to get better and I fear that it is going to take many more weeks that will turn into more months and right now all I do is fret over how I do nothing but suffer and just don't do anything.

 

I am typing on my husband's lap top and make many mistakes on it but I am just to fatigued to correct the mistakes or care about them.  We are at his folk's farm again to try to help his 80 year old parents with repairs and they don't need me around being a zombie who cries and cries and frets as I cannot function but try to do for them.  I used to take really good care of them and got many chores done for them, cleaning the house, working outside, cooking and even cooking for neighbors in needs.  I would even help farm or just what ever was needed.  I can't even go to their little country church now, the one that my husband and I were married in 27 years ago or more.  I don't even know how long we have been married anymore as the thought of special moments makes me weep and sick.

 

I am typing because my father-in-law has been on the computer reading, my mother-in-law is reading the newspaper and my husband is reading.  My mom-in-law handed me the Better Homes and Gardens magazine and I can't even open it.  I can read but I haven't read in many many months because anything I read upsets me and revves the depression and anxiety because I cannot connect to anything pleasureable and all the articles in the magazine are about cooking, eating out, crafts, holiday recipes, plants and gardens, remodeling, docorating and all of the simple pleasures and good life and I can't feel any of it or connect to it.  It makes me feel awful that I can't feel any of it.

 

I do love my husband and I know that I am thankful for him and yet I can't feel the thankfulness.  I am ashamed that I envy his normal life and that he enjoys life.  We have been so close all these years and I had a lot of purpose in helping him in his work and being a wife and mother and now I have lost all of that and he carries on without me although he wants me to be well and join him in living life again.  So I apologized if I don't sound like I am thankful that my husband is trying to get me through this nightmare.  It has been a nightmare for him too. 

 

But even as I apologize about not sounding thankful for my husband, just now he got a little irritated with me because I asked him about writing on here and he was on the phone trying to listen to a recording about getting a new remote control for his folk's TV and when I asked him about getting on the forum it made him punch a wrong button and it hung up and he lost the recording.  He told me that I made him do that and he was aggravated.  I didn't say anything but I just said I was sorry but inside I was thinking that I wish I could trade places with him and that getting cut off the phone was the only thing that bothered me in this life.  I wanted to say that he doesn't have it so bad, but I didn't.  I just said I was sorry.

 

Anyway, he just got cut off again and this time it wasn't my fault.  I couldn't even deal with trying to dial the phone and talk to anyone right now.  He is able.

 

But he reads all the time to me on the forum and other places and other websites and he reads only a few things to me but he reads it all and so he knows how much we all suffer.  He knows as much as anybody can who has not experienced this prolonged withdrawal.

 

Friends, I can type and write, but I sure can't do much else and I awoke so very very sick this morning in a way I can't even describe.  Something like nerve pain, flu, grief, fatigue, fear, just all wrapped up together. 

 

I have sat all day, can't hardly eat, and just sitting travailing and severely depersonalized and derealized and no interests at all.  I can't move really and if I get up to walk it is okay but I have nowhere to go or do as my mind and body just won't tune in to anything around me.  When I force myself to try to do something I feel the moods even worse because I can't feel what I am supposed to feel, the good feelings. 

 

I am really paralyzed and the more I try to make myself break out of it the more I suffer.  I made myself take some photos yesterday when the depression was in my fatigued muscles and walking so difficult and it just made me want to give up. 

 

Last night my husband asked me if I would go with him to pick up groceries for his parents at a neighbors home.  I said okay because it would keep me out of bed a little longer.  I took down my ugly knotted hair and brushed it.  I told my husband in the truck that I wanted to pray that I could feel connected and good and we could have a sentimental date like we used to as young people so long ago when just driving around the countryside with a soda was a big deal.  I just wanted to feel good and feel connected.  But it hasn't come.  I took all of this for granted all of my life.

 

Anyway, we arrived at the neighbors home.  She is the nicest woman in the world and her life hasn't been easy.  I told my husband to be sure and hug her and thank her for picking up groceries for his folks.  He asked me if I wanted to hug her and I said no.  The depression robs as we all know.  But then I thought I should do what God would want me to and so I got out of the truck and then I locked ourselves out of the truck and it was running. So then I had to tell my husband and he called his dad for extra keys and thankfully he had a set.  So then we had to stay with the neighbor for a while and I couldn't stand the small talk and my body was so antsy and so I went outside on the porch just trying to make it through the minutes.  I got out of the truck because I wanted to hug her as a Christian and just made more problems. 

 

Then my father-in-law and son came with the keys and my son wanted me to ride back with him and the depression was so great I just didn't know how I could get through it.  My son used to like how humorously ornery I could be and he was playing music so loud in the truck and I used to feel it and act silly with him.  It was all making me so sick and in despair that I was suffering so in his company and hiding it the best I could. 

 

There was a broken tree in the dirt road and my son wanted to go get a chain and pull it out of the way and all I could think about was getting home and in bed where I wouldn't get relief but I could at least not have to fake.  He said, "Come on mom, let's pull this tree and drag it all around uptown," just joking and laughing and I said a feeble, "Okay," like I was ornery but I was so sick inside.  It made him laugh.  He doesn't know how I suffer.

 

Well I got in bed suffering and just despairng how everyday I suffer and cannot connect to my loved ones.  I started this all over today.  I don't want to stop typing because I will just sit and suffer and feel the depersonalization, depression and it all again.

 

Yesterday I tolerated all the small talk and felt left out the whole time but I tried to do my best.  Today my father-in-law talked about this bluegrass band family with little children in the band that could really play well.  Everyone wanted to go see them perform at church tonight and my system churned with despair as I could not feel any of their interest, and planning for fun and how I would not go because so many friends would be there that I haven't seen in many months and am a wreck and look like a wreck and it all reminds me of how long I have been so mentally, emotionally, and physically disabled.  I am really really scared that I will not get better.

 

Anyway, they were all talking about it and I couldn't eat and I quietly excused myself and went off to rock and repeat things to myself and I just couldn't take it and I cried.  They just kept on visiting because they know there is nothing they can do for me.  I try to control the crying but it is so  hard and it doesn't give relief when I cry and cry.  I get no relief.

 

My mother-in-law told me to keep typing because it keeps me occupied.  I read some of what I have written here to my husband and mother-in-law and they actually laughed and it is kind of funny that I locked us out of the truck while it was running and that my husband got cut off the phone. . . . but I still feel the deep grief and it hurt physically and I just don't want to go on anymore.

 

It seems deep deep down in my soul that I can feel that I will not get better.  The mental disablement really scares me and feels horrifically incurable.  I am so so very very scared of the depression never lifting and the depersonalization has been severe for so very long. 

 

Well another day is wasted on doing nothing but suffering and this is supposed to be healing.  My husband read a post to me today about a man ahead of me on time who is suffering with the severe depersonalization and derealization and what he wrote could have been me.

 

Well, I have to close now and return to a life where I am lost and disconnected and suffering like all of you are suffering.  It gives me anxiety to think about stopping typing because pain awaits me.  I try to hang on to the wisdom to wait for healing and yet I think something is so very wrong with me and I am not going to heal.  The days are so long and monotonously painful.  Please help.  I really really don't have the fortitude, fight or wherewithal to keep going but do I have any choice?  I just don't have it in me and I just break down now in front of others and my husband can hardly pull me through as I have made him into some kind of savior and that is so unrealistic.  I just counted on him to keep telling me that I would get better and really my dear husband is all out of breath and even if he says I will get better it just seems so depairingly hollow anymore but I try to believe but I have exhausted myself these last several days trying to remember all the positive stories of trials and how others get through and how God brings us through. 

 

Thank you again to everyone who has written to me on this thread and has written to me many times.  Those of you who have healed and the depression and depersonalization and fatigue and so many symptoms are gone, will you write and tell us all about it and give us hope one more time?  Hope4us

[[Po...]]

Dear Hope4us,

 

I think that you do not give yourself enough credit for the things you do.  You may feel that you are doing out of fear, but you ARE doing it.  I know that I don't like to talk on the phone either.  Everything seems so senseless and yet I know that they care about me.  I also let my husband do the talking when its possible.

 

I had a so so day today, kinda depressed this morning and had a good cry.  I am trying to hold so that life can be "normal" for me for awhile.  I honestly have no desire to taper right now.  I am too discouraged by the hell I see buddies going though.  At this point I would rather be there to listen to them and let them know that someone cares about them and who understands that at times you can just plain be angry and have permission to be that way. 

 

I don't know how I would handle what you're going through.  Yours seems to be one of the  toughest out there.  I read how some people "feel so bad" and yet they continue with daily chores, outings, etc.  I know that when things are really bad, there is no way I can do anything. 

 

And now to try to give you a little "hope".  I have read where one day someone wakes up, feels good and stays that way.  I can only pray that it will happen for you soon.  I do not claim to know what the plan is for us, what we are supposed to be learning, only that we have to keep praying for his grace in our life and to give us the strength to handle whatever comes our way.  I want so very much to be able to get out and go to church.

 

For some unknown reason, the weekends are the worst time for me. Probably because I think I should be doing something.  My husband and I are both retired (good and bad).  We so wanted to spend these years doing special things.  Well, who knows now.  Don't want to complain to you anymore, you have enough to deal with. 

 

Just know I am here for you,     

Popcornlady

[[do...]]

and B12 shots

Hi Hope,

 

I am in crap myslef and cannot think well BUT I remember taht I read that B is NO during WD! In fact, I tried to take a B-tablet and it sent me bats.

 

As for another question - no, you are not Bipolar.

[[te...]]

Hello Hope4Us,

I love what everyone here suggests. You Are doing things and that is a plus, even though it does not feel that way. Loved what Popcornlady had to say. Am so like her in that weekends, that are so looked forward to, are my worst as well. The very thought of going out and doing even half of what you've done & accomplished is impossible for me to do.

I must've missed something, but doublewave mentioned something about b vitamins. Are you taking any of those? If so, why not stop for awhile & see if it makes a difference.

Draklore, I am sorry for your agony as well. I remember posting on your losing a relationship thread. People who truly love us and really care, would not abandon us this way. I'm praying for you.

T2