I thought it would be so easy.
Happy hour had become a habit over the years, in part fueled by interdose withdrawal from the clonazepam I took as prescribed. I didn’t correlate the buzzing and burning inside of my chest, or the increased pulse, or lightheadedness, with the medication. All I knew was that a glass of wine, or two, or three, took care of those sensations. Besides, I rather enjoyed the buzz and looked forward to it. Until, of course, I realized that I focused way too much attention on five o’clock rolling around. I stopped drinking and decided that it was time to stop that little pill I swallowed every night per my doctor’s instructions. I thought that getting off of my benzo would be easy. Why shouldn’t it be? There was no way my doctor would have kept me on a medication that would have been a nightmare to stop, right? (Ha Ha.) So, per my doctor’s instructions, I cut one-quarter of my dose and went about my business, happy to be getting med-free.
Doctor’s don’t understand benzos.
It only took a few days until I was hit with brutal benzo withdrawal symptoms. Still not benzo-wise, I kept cutting. In one month I reduced from 1 mg of Clonazepam to .5. I was terribly debilitated. I could hardly walk, the dizziness and the depersonalization were overwhelming. I experienced anxiety, panic, pain, insomnia, you know, the usual symptoms. My doctor didn’t know anything about benzo withdrawal, so, like most of us, I turned to the Internet for help. Surely someone knew something about these meds. I found a few websites and benzo buddies. Even with all that I learned about how brutal withdrawal could be, I was still (naively) hopeful that I’d get off without suffering any more than I already was. That changed as the months went on and on, and I became bedbound, unable to take care of the most basic necessities of life.
Sure I wouldn’t heal.
More than once, I hit a wall where I knew for certain that I would never heal. Whatever thin string of hope I had held onto, was seemingly gone. I’d pen rather long and rambling emails to my family informing them of my imagined permanent disability, or worse, my wishes for the songs to be played at my funeral. I mean, I’d hit rock bottom and there was nothing in this world that could lift my spirits. I finally got tired of being in that pit of despair. I knew I had to find a way out.
Job got quite an answer.
I figured the best way to cope with hopelessness was to study what other hopeless souls had done when they were at the end of their ropes. I read the story of Job over and over, hoping to find a secret key to climbing out of my despair. What I learned was life-changing. When Job had had his fill, and finally snapped, he asked God why He was suffering. God didn’t answer his question but instead asked His own. “Where were you when I laid the ground foundation for the universe?” I took this to mean, “Are you God?” With that in mind, I stopped asking “Why me?” That question only kept me stuck in the problem, focused on my misery. Instead, I began to do my best to trust God and to ask “What can I do to serve you? To serve others. To get through this day?” I asked, “How can I hold on?” What and how became my way out of my hopelessness. They were the steps I needed to take towards the best medicine in the world: acceptance, gratitude, patience, and the very best, in my opinion, service.
The radical new way.
Putting aside any religious implications of Jesus, let’s think for a moment what He taught. He turned taught that the way to the kingdom of heaven here on earth (to me that means peace and tranquility —love) is found through going downward, not upward. It means being last, being of service. It means dying to self, to stepping away from the ego. When I began to practice that, in baby steps, of course, hope returned. I no longer focused on my dire medical condition, my emptied bank account, my lost career, or the hundreds of other things that had weighed so heavily on me. I stepped out of my world of misery and entered into a new world of acceptance and peace.
I vowed I would be like Joseph.
Job’s story was motivating, but there as another story that helped me. I often thought of Joseph, the young man whom God promised a life of leadership and power. Yet he was sold into slavery and then thrown into jail for many years. What went through Joseph’s mind as he sat in his cell year after year? Did he curse God as I had done? I don’t think so. I think he held onto God’s promised and waited for God to deliver on that promise. I decided that I’d do the same. God had closed the door for me and had not yet opened a new one, so I praised Him in the hallway. I couldn’t see what was ahead, but I did my best to be grateful for exactly where I was and what was going on around me.
Hope is a learned response.
For me, hope was a learned response. It didn’t always come naturally or easily. I had to use my heart to find a way forward, for my mind —my thoughts— would tell me horrible things. But my heart held onto love, or at least onto the idea of love on the days I couldn’t feel love, and that kept me going. I knew, on a cellular level, that love was all around me, and that I was going to be okay—that I WAS okay—no matter what was happening. Just like Job and Joseph were okay through their ordeals.
It’s okay to have our moments.
When we lose hope, it’s okay to fall apart for a little bit (as long as you don’t hurt yourself or others!). Even Jesus had His moment in the garden when He felt overwhelmed. He was so distraught that God sent an angel to minister to Him. We are only human, and this long, frightening and exhausting journey of benzo withdrawal can be overwhelming. You can be a puddle on the floor so to speak, but then rise up, dust yourself off, and find a way to distract and to open your heart a bit more to let the love that is in the present moment fill you. And know that in the not too distant future, you’ll be graced with your own blessings, just as Job and Joseph were blessed. Learn from their practice of acceptance and humility. Learn from the great lesson that Jesus taught: letting go of the ego. Learn too, His one commandment to love! It is in love that we find our greatest peace and joy. It is in love where hope is reborn over and over and over again.
Mornings With Jenn.
It’s official! Mornings With Jenn will become an ongoing support group. We are having so much fun together! I even gave a benzo-wise, one skillet cooking demonstration one morning. If you’d like to join for the remaining of the month (2 weeks) for 35$ sign up (this link we will take you to my Soul Reminders site) here: MORNINGS WITH JENN Or, sign up for next month ($69 for a month) when I post the new payment portal in a few weeks.
Podcast with D. E. Foster.
D. E. Foster asked me to be interviewed for his podcast. It should go live on Wednesday, April 18. It was a genuinely good time spent with D, and I look forward to doing more podcasts with him in the future. He is truly dedicated to the benzo community. His professionalism and wisdom add much to our community. His website is benzofree.org. Check it out.
I can relate with this 100%. The worst despair came for me after I had become educated on benzos ( from this blog, of course) and it became clear I was healing (never mind the Hell of going thru withdrawal without knowing what was happening for 4 months). Up until that point I had maintained this forced, pretend faith that tells you never to question God, only trust and believe. It worked as long as I was noticing consistent improvement. As I approached the one year anniversary, I got hit with a wave that sent me back to square one. I started questioning everything, my faith was shattered. The burning question was, ‘will I ever actually be better?’ This was repeated nearly every two months up to my two year anniversary. It appeared that I may have permanently destroyed myself, and the thought of that was too much. I thought God was supposed to protect me? Being Baptist (and African-American), fellow believers were of little (absolutely zero) help, because they immediately went to taking about hidden sin in our lives that causes suffering. It was your stories of your struggles with belief that helped me through it. I am slowly emerging on the other side completely transformed in my belief. Thank you for being unafraid to address belief, many people will erroneously correlate it with religion and be offended, but with benzo withdrawal, you had better find something to believe in, even if it’s just the ‘greater good’. This blog is like a precious gem.
Thank you for another fantastic post that I can relate to so much!
Joshua, I could not have said it any better. Almost 58 months for me and still cannot feel God’s love. I’ve begged, pleaded, bartered, bargained, and yes, sadly, even threatened, and still dead as a door nail inside. I’m trying to be as patient as Job, but come on! Almost 5 years. I can’t help but wonder what I must have done in my life do deserve this tortuous hell. I feel like I have permanent brain damage. Is there anyone else this far out that can identify with this? Anyone? Thanks Jen, for another great post.
Thank you, Jen. I am tapering again, after getting off cold turkey from 6+yrs of Klonipin 4MG daily. I was accidentally put on valium last May after a major spinal cord surgery, which was a big mistake, I was only on 3 pills for 10 days. Now I am tapering Hell, I hope my withdrawals don’t last long after my taper is over with. Do they still last? I was finally healed 18 months the first time
I love you so much for sharing your journey with us. Thank You so very much. I hope I heal again so soon.
Hi Angie ..yes I can it’s been eight years for me and I have horrible vision issues static vision double vision and many others..some got better but I also felt God had left me but now realized He was always with me..silence doesn’t mean He doesn’t hear you ..He wants you to trust him..like job and Joseph..He’s taking you through a journey to show you who you really are and what He wants you to be ..I blamed Him to then realized I’m the one who took this pill and I ,messed up big time..sometimes wanting to be drugged to forget my pain..but Hes a God of second chances…He will come through in His time not ours…like we all say in withdrawal it’s timming…Jen even said she’s a better version than she ever was before..we’ll never be the same again …we’ll be more understanding of people suffering more kind loving and happy to be on the other side of this…it’s surely not easy and some days for me are gloomy..but I chose to trust God..I really have no other choice I can’t do it myself no one can help me..I hope it’s soon for all of us…oh what a happy day!!!! ❤️
Angie, I can definitely relate to that feeling. Especially being out several years, it’s crushing to think it may never get better. Jennifer is a great example that it DOES get better even if it takes a very long time. She’s years out and if you’ve followed her for a while, you’ve seen her have vicious setbacks. I remember this blog being shut down a while back as she went thru a very rough period. Benzo withdrawal twists your reality in so many ways, I think I have PTSD from the process. I’m anxious about things that could possibly make me anxious. One strange thing that has helped is taking pains to try and note the tiny improvements that happen over time. I’m headed into three years and even though I still get hit with horrible anxiety or benzo belly sometimes, I started making it a point to note that, hey at least the room isn’t spinning this time or something, anything. It sounds ridiculous, but much of the improvement happens very slowly. As far as feeling God’s love, the withdrawal makes it hard to feel much of anything properly, let alone love or or any sense of being blessed. Know that that’s okay. You didn’t do anything to merit this suffering, neither can you do anything to earn God’s love. Having gone thru several months of withdrawal with no clue what was happening, I feel blessed just to have found this community and find out that I wasn’t alone. I remember that despair and literally go to tears thinking of those suffering alone. For a while the only thing that kept me praying was just to ask God to please help someone who is going thru this to find out about benzo withdrawal. That was the only prayer I could muster for several months. Take care of yourself the best you can, battle back as hard as possible against undue stress, eat clean and be gentle with yourself as Jennifer teaches. I found out I wasn’t doing that at all. Mentally I was being extremely rough on myself and the flare ups of my symptoms would make me pay big time. It wasn’t until I accepted that I was in a fragile state and began to act like it that I started to see some small improvements. I know very well there’s nothing I can say that’ll make it better, just know that so many of us can relate to what you’re feeling.
Joshua, I can relate to your post. My life has been turned around in praying for others; my compassion for the suffering of others, in whatever they suffer, Parkinson’s, prisontime, whatever. I see a young person obviously on cannabis shuffling unkempt down the street and my heart goes out to him. I grieve deeply over the consternation of my husband and large family, 4 kids and 11 grandchildren, that don’t get what has become of their mom, grandma. I was so happy in ministry while on meds….now there are so many health issues, and so few people who know to support or direct medically. My hopes get so high on good days/weeks and I begin to believe I’m finally out of the woods and then I crash again. The hopelessness and despair is hellish. I’m trying to break a lifelong habit of rearranging, figuring out how to do things better to alleviate frustration/pain etc. I have strong faith in the goodness and plan of God, and then another crash comes. But it’s not left brain answers that work, it’s a right brain thing…all the illusive things of life – peace, peace, contentment in what is, trust in God, not methods, steps, or more information necessarily. Focusing on loving others with the same kind of love you’ve received from God and learned to give yourself – respect, honor, gentleness, acceptance, patience, that’s the way. A very narrow, straight way like Jesus taught. So contrary to our human nature. God help us!
Lynne and Joshua, thank you so much for the encouragement. I am thrilled to have a positive report today. Yesterday I felt the presence of God down deep in my soul and spirit for the longest period of time, yet. The Holy Spirit prompted me to look up the different types of love the Bible speaks of, so I did. Things started to penetrate my heart and then I felt like playing some Christian music on my Alexa. My brain chose Guy Penrod, specifically the Revelation Song. My heart burst wide open! I was in love with Jesus again, for the first time in 4 1/2 years. It was absolutely amazing! I kept the song on loup mode for 8 hours until I was so drained from praising that I had to go to bed. I was afraid, a little, that it would all be gone this morning. It’s NOT! ( I had gone from “God is my whole life”, to a full blown, unwillingly, atheist, who hated the very mention of His name). I knew God was the missing link in my recovery but I could not connect to Him in any way, shape, or form. So my only choice was to try and wait, sometime impatiently, for my brain to heal some more. I would get what I called “God windows ” off and on, like once every 6 months, but they always closed after a few hours, and then I was back in what I felt was literal hell. (Total and everlasting separation from God). There’s nothing like a a trip to hell to make you know that you dont want to spend eternity there! I choose this day to believe that God knows what He’s doing and it’s all had a purpose. I don’t see the full picture yet, but I’m positive that He will reveal it to me when it’s time!
Angie, that’s so wonderful. Thanks so much for sharing. That gives me great hope. I went thru my own atheist periods in the depths of my cold turkey. I love how you call the little moments of hope ‘God Windows’, that’s exactly what they feel like.
Helen, you’re so right, the ups and downs are vicious. Sometimes I ruin my good moments worrying how long it’ll last. What you’ve discovered about how the process works is so true, it causes you to appreciate the simple things in life so much more. I can’t tell you how precious basic mental peace has become to me after such horrific anxiety. I literally crave it now and have begun actively seeking it out. That’s something I never did before and I feel it was one of the lessons God allowed me to learn from this. Anything that doesn’t naturally tend to peace has no place in my life now. I’ve always been sort of a loner so I didn’t have the problem of breaking relationships with people as I really have no friends beyond my wife and kid, it was mainly just jealously guarding my mindspace and being cautious of the things I focus on. It’s very difficult to do and I fail often but when it works and I see that I’ve avoided some grief that I might’ve otherwise encountered all the drudgery is worth it.
Joshua, I like your take on these things, somehow you are able to frame what you have to do and what you’ve been taught through a more positive frame than I do naturally. I struggle with the stigma of it all, and my self concept takes a beating whenever I cannot engage with my family. It like it sets me in a double bind – I want to so badly, but I’m damned if I do.
May I ask how long you are out? Did you or are you fighting with other physical health issues besides withdrawall? It’s a spiders web to know “what is causing what”, that endless spiral go around of symptoms….like food sensitivities, Candida, small intestine infections, Leaky Gut, diabetes, heart desease, etc…all the inflammatory diseases which generate symptoms so similar to what we call waves. I’m wondering lately, if what I first dubbed as “a wave”, could rather have been understood as the symptoms of food sensitivities, Candida, small intestine infection, Leaky Gut, diabetes, heart desease….etc. Good thing there are functional doctors around that can sort that out better than I can. All the best to you.
Joshua, all your comments just bless my socks off!! Thank you so much. It is wonderful beyond words, to be back in the arms of Jesus! As much as I tried to believe it would someday happen, I had great doubt. It took 5 years for this vessel to be stripped and emptied in preparation for this new life He’s giving to me. I’ve been in utter awe of Him for 5 solid days now. It’s not going away this time! Thank you Jesus! During the 20 years I was on Klonopin, the drug took more and more of my life from me, especially feeling dead inside and the dumbing down it did to my brain. I had been a Christian since I was 9 and grew up with a minister for a dad. At about 50 years old I remember asking God to grow me up; I was tired of feeling like a baby Christian, probably due to the Klonopin,and I became an arrogant person, thinking I knew all there was to know about being a Christian. Be careful what you pray for, because sometimes He answers prayers in very unexpected ways. And so my journey began…. 5 years ago. I still have many physical symptoms, but I don’t care. All I ever asked for, in the last 58 months, was to be reconnected with God, and He has answered my plea! By the way, I’m 65 now and felt like I had wasted 25 years of my life. I do not feel like that anymore! I know first hand what a miracle is. “I” AM A WALKING, BREATHING MIRACLE!
Helen, I’m two and a half years out. I was on Ativan for 8 months. That stigma you mention is horrible. Particularly when no one seems to understand what’s made you sick. I makes you seem aloof or self centered and it leaves you frustrated to not be able to handle basic interactions. In my worst waves I have crushing anxiety at just trying to put thoughts into words. I had to develop a system for letting my wife know when I’m not feeling well, so she doesn’t ask me basic questions like what should we eat for dinner; decisions of any sort make my chest feel like it’s going to cave in. My first symptoms were BPPV and gastrointestinal horrors (benzo belly), the first two weeks after I cold turkeyed, I thought I had food poisoning. Over the next several months I took rounds of antibiotics, had scans and tests for nothing. I just knew there was a parasite or a tumor or something. Jennifer’s terminology is very helpful. She says our central nervous systems have been damaged. That is really the best description for it. Benzos have the ability to completely augment our perceptions of reality while we’re on them, it takes a considerable amount of time for our brains to adjust back to normal after being in contact with something so potent. The effects are so wide ranging that sometimes the greatest battle is remaining convinced that your symptoms actually are withdrawal. I’ll be praying for your continued healing.
Angie, just hearing your words bring joy to my heart. I’ll be praying that you continue to feel God’s presence with you as you heal.
Hey everyone! My heart is so full it’s just spilling out everywhere! Don’t even know where to start, so I won’t even try just yet. When I began to feel something good and different going on in my brain, I did what I felt I was being led to do, and that was to put some music on. I have loved music all my life, until Benzo withdrawa. First came the loathing of every kind of music,especially Christian music. Then I was able to listen to secular music, but only songs that I’ve liked over the years. Music is very therapeutic and healing. I don’t know if this will help anyone else but I have had the song Take My Life, the Guy Penrod version, on loup mode, all day, for a couple of days. I can’t tell you how much it has helped my brain, to start my day with uplifting music. And since I live our in the country and I just happen to have 5 or 6 days completely to myself, I can crank it up as loud as I want! And I can’t sit still! I’m constantly moving about the house, literally dancing! It has changed me in so many ways! God is faithful!!
The song “You Never Let Go” by Guy Penrod is also VERY encouraging for those who are looking to God for strength and also for those that used to, but found youselves doubting even the very existence of God, like myself.
Helen, I agree with you. When I started to address my adrenal fatigue issues, I started to feel better! That was the one thing I hadn’t looked at until 2 months ago. I was shocked when I found a ton of information on Adrenal Fatigue syndrome and realized it mimics Benzo withdrawal. I think my adrenals must have crashed when I was about 40, and caused me to be diagnosed with GAD and put on Klonopin.
Joshua, thanks for sharing part of your story. I know how devastating it is to not be able to relate as we used to. But the time comes eventually for us to step out. I’m in a place now, where I need to take hold of my life, and relate in spite of the anxieties and fatigue. When I do, I feel so much more empowered. Praise God. I can also multi task in the kitchen too.
Speaking of gastrointestinal issues, you were lucky you didn’t have overgrowth of candida, infectious bacteria (SIBO) and Leaky Gut. I was in excruciating pain when I came off my meds and if it hadn’t been for testing specifically for these conditions, I may still be in pain. But my gut has healed, thank God.
Everyone, have a happy Easter! The Lord is with us, who would’ve thought that a lamb could rescue the souls of the likes of us?
Amen you guys God is faithful..!!!He’s always there even when it feels so dark..He is the answer and yes in withdrawal nothing makes sense your brain is all over the place.but God got us through and He will continue to do so…we will be better than we ever were before…transformed into the person God always knew we could be.!!!..sometimes we Learn this through pain and suffering which is definetly withdrawal..that is a place I’m greatfull to be comming out of .!!!the deepest darkest crazy place I’ve ever been in..!!every day keep your eyes on Him. And listening to music is praising Him and amazing things happen..!!thx you guys for all your words of wisdom..this is a really good post thank God for all you guys…one day we’ll be on here posting our recovery!!! God bless….❤️