Benzo Related Loneliness

[[fo...]]

Sorry about the loss of the cat - I like cats.

[[su...]]

Hi River Wolf,

Well, I'm 3 months out, and CT'd at start of Feb.

I still get this even now. I had just put it down to part of the standard depression/anxiety this stuff causes, but perhaps it's a separate symptom, hard to say!

Also, yes, re the separation from the universe/god/what you want to call it.

Yes, all faith in that area has gone on hold.

I have seen glimpses of it come back during windows, so I think it will all sort out eventually. It's just the time it takes that is staggering!

 

[[Ri...]]

Hi River Wolf,

Its so weird that you also experience this profound sense of loneliness. I have wondered so much where it has come from for me.

 

It is unlike any feeling ive had before. It makes me feel so vulnerable and has knocked my confidence so much. I think it must go hand in hand with the anxiety.

 

If I can truly tell  myself that it is a state induced by withdrawal then that would help massively. at the moment im just thinking its me all the time and the stage of life im at. Also going through this whole experience is not something you can just chat with your friends about, which makes you feel lonely.

 

 

 

Yes, all faith in that area has gone on hold.

I have seen glimpses of it come back during windows, so I think it will all sort out eventually. It's just the time it takes that is staggering!

 

For me, this loneliness was exactly proportional to my benzo taper.

 

As I got closer to being free, the loneliness decreased equally.

 

And the quality of the loneliness became less desperate, less frightening. As I got further from my jump, I began to feel love for life again.

 

Now, I feel wonderful.  This week was awesomely normal. Now that is a statement for you. Awesomely normal.

 

Only a benzo survivor could understand that. I felt normal - happy, enthusiastic, hopeful, peaceful - like I did before benzos.

 

No more suffering. OMG it feels good to not suffer.

 

 

You will be here too. The loneliness that you are feeling will pass.  So hold on, and know that I was desperately lonely and it went away, and your loneliness will go away too. - it is the withdrawal triggering your emotions. It will pass, and you will be happy again.

 

Just say no to benzos. 

 

 

River

[[sp...]]

Hello River Wolf.

 

Eight days out this is what I needed to hear.

 

Thank you.

 

spartacus

[[su...]]

Hi River Wolf,

Wow, I hope your WD is as easy as it kind of looks from that post!

To me, it's still going on, even now, 3 months out from CT, so Fingers crossed it all dies back to that orsum normality soon!

and, Yes, I know exactly what that means!!!

Over the last week, things have been improving for me, I seem to have come off a month long wave!

I hope I keep coming off it and not go backwards, that lonelyness is definitely tied with depression/anxiety, and I assume with the general mess we know as  WD

I can say to all of you that it does fade in proportion to the other symptoms.

 

[[Ji...]]

awesomely normal. yep, thats going on my wall. something to aim for!

 

I think BB is missing a trick in not printing t-shirts with some of these well loved phases on.

 

I must say that the lonliness is certainly worse when Im in a wave. Its hard to remember just how bad it has been during the first stages of withdrawal. some days its been crippling! no one should be curled up on a floor sobbing from a general sense of loneliness. It makes no sense to feel this in such an extreme way. Only withdrawal can be responsible.

 

Glad this thread was started tho and that others share this experience. we forget how much of our everyday emotions are directly related to those little neurotransmitters. You cant trust what your emotions do in withdrawal. its an induced state and WILL  NOT LAST!

 

(i'll be re-reading my own post tomorrow lol)

 

XX

 

[[ea...]]

I LOVE the t-shirt idea! We should start a thread about what to put on them.

[[Ri...]]

 

 

I wanted to see if I could hope to those people who are suffering from the loneliness created by benzo withdrawal by posting an update.

 

This post is about how my experience might help you to have strength and understanding to keep going through the dark emotional storm that you may still be in.

 

My experience of recovering from benzos wd is a preview of what is to come for you as you get your emotional and mental health back . . . so I wanted to post an update on the loneliness and despair created by my brutal withdrawal  –

 

It’s GONE!

 

 

Yes! . . . and does it ever feel good to be back in love with life again.

 

Whew, that was a close one! Living that close to the edge for so long – about 2 years - was just awful.

 

I just realized that I hadn’t even thought about the days of that deep dark loneliness that would not let up for a while now. I’m living my life, rebuilding my physical health and new career and it just dawned on me that I’m not lonely anymore. What a relief. WoW.

 

This is how recovery happens. I doesn’t usually drop is you lap like a check from the lottery – it comes in little small improvements. Yes, sometimes there are rapid waves that stay longer and longer, but my recovery has been slow and gradual -

 

and now I'm living in that state of being awesomely normal. 

 

 

I did not even notice that I was becoming less lonely. I just realized it was gone. And this will happen to you.

 

So if you are really struggling with sadness and loneliness, please hold on, and ride it out. Your relief IS coming. Hold on, you WILL feel love for life and love for yourself and others again. 

 

 

River

 

[[Ri...]]

I thought it might be helpful to repost the original post again here.

 

 

 

During my withdrawal, the loneliness I was feeling was unlike any kind of loneliness I had ever experienced. There was a very different quality to it, and I wanted to try and help those who are having trouble with this.

 

Many people mention how deep their loneliness is and how deep their despair seems.  I think what is going on here is that because the benzos are  chemical and electrical blockers designed to separate us from feeling our problems,  they also separate us from feeling connected to the deeper aspects of ourselves - some call it our higher - self, or Soul or Source. It would be easy to get into a discussion about the spiritual aspects of this, but here I wanted to focus on a more psychological approach. For those interested in a more spiritual and metaphysical based discussion, see a topic in Faith and Philosophy called Benzos and God.

 

I think this is why benzo-related loneliness has characteristics that are different from regular loneliness. We are chemically blocked from a fundamentally important aspect of our lives - the ability to feel - the ability to feel a connection to ourselves and to our life. Those with depersonalization and derealization know what I am talking about.  DP and DR was one of the hardest parts of withdrawal for me.

 

There is a haunting characteristic to the loneliness one feels from benzos. Besides seeming deeper and more consistent and of a longer duration, this kind of loneliness feels permanent and final.

 

I think one of the effects of being chemically blocked is a deep seated doubt that creeps in to us. We doubt it will ever end, we doubt that we can be happy again, etc. The doubt is a physiological effect of the drug.

 

From my experience with this, I think that if you are feeling this way, please try to understand that it is probably the benzos that is causing this

 

Toward the end of my taper, this loneliness went away as my ability to feel again came back. Now, that haunting loneliness is completely gone. I can feel Love for life again.

 

If you are  in wd and are feeling that deep, deep loneliness, hold on -    it will pass.    You will feel love again.

 

 

River

[[Be...]]

Thank you River Wolf, you are such a blessing to this forum with your soothing and hopeful words, when my world is bottoming out.  You always help me to calm down when you write so beautifully your experience.  I need the peace that you give. 

[Guest [Ce...]]

That's amazing, River Wolf, I'm so pleased for you.  It does offer hope to everyone also.

 

You do a great job on this forum - many people need to have hope kept alive for them and your recent posts on this thread do that.  Peace. 

[[mr...]]

The last few months, my mom has felt too lonely to be alone in the living room because she sleeps on the couch.

So, I have been staying and sleeping in the living room with her everyday.

I think this really helps her because she hasn't had those crying spells since I started staying with her.

 

 

[Guest [Ce...]]

That's great, mrtmeo, the support you're offering your mum is invaluable.  Good for you.

[[mr...]]

That's great, mrtmeo, the support you're offering your mum is invaluable.  Good for you.

I know so many have to go this whole ordeal alone, but I wish they all had someone that understood benzo w/d and could help them thru it.

If I wasn't handling my mom's meds, she would never get off this stuff.

 

[Guest [Ce...]]

She's very lucky she has your support - I'm so glad you're there for her.  Benzo w/d is such a difficult experience - if you haven't lived through it (or witnessed it) it's so difficult to understand.  I'm so pleased your mum has you.

[[mr...]]

She's very lucky she has your support - I'm so glad you're there for her.  Benzo w/d is such a difficult experience - if you haven't lived through it (or witnessed it) it's so difficult to understand.  I'm so pleased your mum has you.

I can't say I know what everyone is going thru because I never experienced it and my mom can't seem to describe her symptoms.

However, from everything and every description of people here, going thru w/d, I get a pretty clear picture.

 

[[Ri...]]

It is valuable to understand how and why this loneliness and fear is generated.

 

If you take the mystery out of it by understanding what is going on, this can reduce your fear level some.

 

You Mom is afraid not of anything specifically, but she is afraid because of the overactive amygdala - the fear center of the brain is generating irrational fear that we attach to something.

 

The trick is to understand how this works so we can have more personal power and less general anxiety.

 

I had to sleep with the lights on for over a year because I was so scared. I didn't know what was going on.

 

Knowing that you are experiencing an over active fear center helps to take this fear less personally.

 

When the loneliness and fear get bad, go back to breathing deeper and slower than normal. Try saying things to yourself like,  'I am safe for today, I am safe for tonight, I will make it through the day" , this is just a chemical storm in my brain'.

 

 

River

[[mr...]]

It is valuable to understand how and why this loneliness and fear is generated.

 

If you take the mystery out of it by understanding what is going on, this can reduce your fear level some.

 

You Mom is afraid not of anything specifically, but she is afraid because of the overactive amygdala - the fear center of the brain is generating irrational fear that we attach to something.

 

The trick is to understand how this works so we can have more personal power and less general anxiety.

 

I had to sleep with the lights on for over a year because I was so scared. I didn't know what was going on.

 

Knowing that you are experiencing an over active fear center helps to take this fear less personally.

 

When the loneliness and fear get bad, go back to breathing deeper and slower than normal. Try saying things to yourself like,  'I am safe for today, I am safe for tonight, I will make it through the day" , this is just a chemical storm in my brain'.

 

 

River

Yes, I know and understand what u r saying and would apply it to myself, if I had the problem.

However, no matter how I present it to my mom, she just doesn't understand it.

She always wants to think she has something else causing her symptoms.

She does sleep with the lights on all night too..

 

[[Be...]]

I'm glad you wrote this River Wolf.  The over active brain amygdala causes all this fear and isolated feelings.  Telling yourself everything is alright and there's nothing to be afraid of helps.  I'm always aware of it.  The only thing I can't seem to control are my dreams at night and then the fearful and depressing intrusives that pop in, though they're not as bad as before.  It's cold and snowy here and I had a dream last night that I was alone in a tundra and hiding in an igloo or cave to stay warm and looking out at the vast cold, sterile wasteland.  It was horribly lonely and depressing.  I've been trying to shake the dream all day.  I just try to keep busy and doing things during the day as best I can to fight back the demon of w/d. 

[[Ri...]]

Becks - I know those dreams - they are really scary.

 

What is happening is that your amygdala is producing this fear and even in dreams, this fear colors the subject of your thoughts.

 

The subject is the snow. In normal times, you may have a dream about skiing or making a snowman. But since this excess fear exists, it colors the snow with a terrifying survival based scenario where the scene looks sterile and scary.

 

The dream could have been about how the scene looked beautiful, clean and fresh, with a cabin with lots of heat and good feelings associated to it.

 

 

After your body chemistry returns to pre benzo functions, you will have nice dreams again.

 

I had an entire year of just awful nightmares during my taper. Every night. It was horrific. The days were terrifying from the anxiety, and I dreaded the nights because of the nightmares. It was an awful time of my life.

 

And now it's over. My fear level is normal and manageable.

 

This will happen to you too. Hold on ok? 

 

You will get your life back in time.

 

 

 

 

River

 

I

[[Be...]]

Thanks River, I never had these sterile lonely and depressing dreams ever in my life.  I just keep hanging in there every day waiting for the tide to turn.  Occasionally I'll have a good dream, but not that often.  I woke up at 7am this morning and felt good, but then lost my steam, got chilled from this cold winter weather and had to go back to bed to warm up.  Each day is such a depressing struggle even now.

[[Ri...]]

Becksblue -  You use the word sterile to describe your dreams. I felt that too.

 

 

I think the reason for this feeling of things being sterile is because we do not have access to the feeling of Love.  Sterile feels cold. Cold is the absence of the warm feeling of love.

 

Normally, we have access to our complete self – our ego self and our spiritual self – and we can feel this intrinsic current of Love that infuses our entire being. Some say that our true self is Love, and that as we make choices and decisions that take us away from this we literally create a world and a self that is removed from this original state.

 

 

Some scientists are suggesting that Love is the glue that holds the Universe together.  They say that this operates at an atomic level as well as at the cosmological level, and they are discussing concepts such as the strong force at the atomic level is actually a function of the motivating force of Love.

 

Since Love is such an intrinsic part of our being, it’s no wonder that we feel extremely disrupted – to the point of feeling like the walking dead -  when this feeling of love is absent as the benzo attenuates or blocks this love.

 

  We experience love through the emotions, and the benzos attenuate our emotions – all of them. I think that the reason we can feel fear through this blockage is that there is so much excess fear produced by the amygdala that it just powers its way past the blocking effect of the benzo.

 

The problem comes because the benzo is not selective with what emotions it blocks. It blocks our access to the necessary core emotion of love as well as the anxiety producing emotions. It is my belief that this blockage to our necessary core emotion of love is the root cause of why our withdrawals are emotionally difficult.

 

You will see in my signature and on my avatar references to the love coming back. This is one of the main indicators that I was recovering and that my life was coming back.

 

It feels great to be able to just sit and breathe and feel this love again. I want to tell those that are still feeling sad and lonely and in despair about this process so they hopefully can have something to hold on to.

 

 

I hope there is something here that you can use to gain some hope and strength to keep going when it is tough.   

 

 

River

 

[[Be...]]

That's exactly what it is River, the absence of love and the warm fuzzies and positive energy flowing through our minds and bodies.  Love has with it the feeling of an integrated and whole self with the connected awareness that comes from living here with supportive relationship with others.  Hell is not in some other place, it's here in our own minds and bodies.  I'm experiencing hell on earth.  I sat tonight in a chair and had a cup of tea and decided to try to be at peace and not afraid for awhile.  It was ok.  Then my mind got stuck again on the life I've got now and how far I've fallen and the isolation and everything I've lost from this devil drug.  This is Satan's candy, and I was enticed.  It's interesting that about 1.5 years ago after I got off the phone with the shrink that gave me these pills, I was staring out my back window and right in front of me was a huge 7 foot black snake.  Yes, that snake was that large to its tail.  I know what snakes symbolize and immediately made a connection to the snake and this pdoc, but not the benzo's at that time.  Both the conversation and the snake gave me a very bad feeling.  I just knew something was very wrong with what this doc was doing and I never forgot that incident.   

[[...]]

River-

 

I don't know why I have missed this thread for all this time. I can't tell you how grateful I am that you posted it! I have often thought about it myself but thought maybe it was just me

 

There is one thing that is worrying me though. I never felt this way when I was on Klon or even during most of my taper. Looking back, I can now see how numb I had slowly become during the 10 years I was on benzos. I was never scared of anything. I believe I still felt love, though.

 

I'm now 7 months out and although I've had a couple of windows, I'm more lonely and scared now than I ever have been in 58 years. As you wrote, the loneliness seems permanent and final and all-encompassing. Perhaps it's part of DR although I never related to having DR. Maybe that's it though because I feel like I've been cut off emotionally from everybody in my life. I thought of it as being cut off by an external force but perhaps it is deeper than that...and the block is inside of me. It almost feels like all of my loved ones are dead in a way....non accessible.. to me. I live alone which magnifies the problem I think.

 

Intellectually, I can understand that the effect of low GABA and high Glutamate on the amygdala and hippocampus but, while some of my s/x have improved (I'm even sleeping better), this feeling is insidious and is warping my thinking. I've gone from an independent, capable, self confident woman to someone who is on edge all the time. I cry a lot. Only for a minute or two but way too often. I cry out of frustration because I can't keep the pain at bay, as much as I try.

 

I know this is a very depressing post and I'm sorry. I needed to talk about it, though. Hopefully, someday soon it will leave me.

 

I just think it's odd that I feel this way this far out.

 

Rosa

[[Be...]]

Rosa, I know how you feel.  It's bad enough to live alone and then to have this benzo isolation/lonely/dead emotional feeling on top of it.  I can't even go out and socialize since I have agoraphobia and feel disconnected from people.  Plus, it's winter and cold outside.  I did drive my car around today which I enjoy doing, but everything around me seemed disconnected and sterile.  Like I'm in a glass bubble or something.