This last wave of sx really knocked me off my feet. Literally. I spent more hours in bed or curled on the couch than I did walking or gardening. I was sinking fast into despair, fueled by “what if thinking.” “What if I never get well.” “What if I am always in pain?” “What if I can’t work fulltime ever again?” “What if I never find a partner to love?” “What if my family gets tired of me being sick?” “What if my friends stop coming by?” You get the idea.. what if …. [insert something negative]… happens.
I’m going to do my best to switch over to “how thinking.” How can I help myself recover?” “How can I manage my pain level every day?” How can I bring in money without taxing myself too much while I am healing?” “How can I dismantle all the barriers I have to love?” How can I minimize the chance of my family getting compassion fatigue?” How can I reach out to my friends so that they want to come over?” You get the idea.
I am slowly pulling out of the wave. I still have a laundry list of sx, but I was able to walk a few blocks today without feeling like I am having a stroke or otherwise dying. I am grateful.
I am also going to Pray, Visualize, and Actualize.
I am going to pray for my body to heal. My God is a big God. I trust God can heal me. Then I am going to visualize me working in an Innovation Garden at Yahoo, Google or Apple. Next, I will actualize that dream. I am going to think of HOW I show the high-tech firms the power of an innovation garden.
Thanks all for letting me sit on the pity pot last post. I had my pity party, now time to do my best to shift back into gratitude. I have four amazing children. I have a fabulous garden that brings me great joy. Both of my parents are still alive and helping me. I have dozens of friends who love me. They bring me food, plants to put in the garden, and even give me my contact lenses so I don’t have to buy them! I have the best cat on the planet. 🙂 My legs work even if they are weak. My arms and hands work. I can see. Hear. Taste. Smell. I am grateful that I can write again. (I was sooo worried I had lost that ability!) I can work a computer again. I can drive short distances. It’s not the life I was accustomed to, nor is the life I had dreamed about. But it is my life. I am grateful for what I DO have.
Ok, gotta scoot. I am off to my art studio (another thing to be grateful for!) to paint then off to drive to Half Moon Bay to interview for the chance to be accepted into the Master Gardeners class come January. I hope I get in!
Love you all so much. Thank you for walking through the shadow of the valley of death with me. Keep walking. One day, we will ALL be on the other side of this illness.
Jenn
Jennifer:
You will never know what an encouragement you have been to me, and I am assuming 1,000’s of others. Thanks so much for sharing your life.
Jenn – you are an inspiration….thank you!
Lisa
Thank you for your sweet, kind words. I am just another bozo on the bus, trying to figure this shit out. 🙂 I stumble, fail, scream, cry, tell God to fuck himself…. but… I KEEP GOING!! And I know God loves me even when I am a whining, cursing mess.
I want others to know that there IS hope.
I don’t think life is meaningless. So I keep trying to make meaning out of this nightmare and the only meaning I can find is…love. To love myself. To love others. And to love this life, even it is frayed and torn.
Keep fighting the good fight.
We will all make it to the other side.
Jenn
Thanks Ruth. I appreciate your kind words. Keep fighting. It has to get better, right? 🙂
So encouraging!! You are on the right track. We all are in that valley of the shadow of death at one time or another. We sympathize with you. We are there too!!! Thanks for all your encouragement. You have not lost your writing ability!!!
I think we were in the same place last week as I was asking myself all of the same “what if” questions that you mention. I appreciate what you’re saying about switching to “how can I” thinking. This is what I intend to do. This is such a frustratingly long and difficult process we’re in.
Dear Jen….. You are an encouragement to all of us! Funny….. just before reading your post I had a good talk with myself, and a longer talk with God, about changing my way of thinking AND looking for the good things in my life and being thankful for them. I do have so much to be thankful for, always dwelling on the bad is causing me to have a dreadful outlook on life. God never promised me a life without trials…HOWEVER He has promised to walk with me and on some days carry me. Hope you interview goes well and you get excepted into the classes you want this winter!
Keep the blog posts coming. Really feel your pain as well. It only validates where many of us are in this crazy disorder. Without this validation we would all be taking anti depressants and living the zombie world existance. Or worse. I have had my share of setbacks and keep on trudging along. We will all be healed one day. Love Peace and Faith.
Dear Jen
I am so glad I have found your blog. I have no one in my world here in Montana who has or is going through benzo w/d. Not one of my friends understand or keep in touch anymore. My Mom
Can’t begin to understand but she is 87 and I try to not burden her as she gets very emotional. My husband is an angel but this is dragging him down….he is 69 and I am 67. Not how we thought we would be spending our “golden years”.
I was given Xanax, Effexor and then klonopin in february of this year to get me off the Xanax…all by trusted doctors and a hospital stay in a horrible psych
Ward of addicted criminals. I was on the Xanax 4 mo, Effexor 3 was, klonopin 1 mo. Iwas told and I believed I would be well in “weeks”. My worst symptom is very high anxiety followed by muscle tremors and rapid heart rate and some insomnia. I am so fearful about my age, my future and if I will ever heal. I have been off everything now for 5 months after only a 3 week taper because I was in tolerance w/d immediately.
Thank you for your blog, it means so much to me. I never knew I could suffer like this but after reading your comments and others I understand we are all suffering. Thanks again and god bless you.
Karen
Dear dr.Jenn
Having a horrible morning. Not much sleep and fears setting in. A lot of waves of anxiety. My muscle tremors back in full. I’m having such a difficult time accepting symptoms and the fact that I am having this hard of a time after only 5 months on benzos and only a few weeks on antidepressants. But I think my biggest fear is my age and how many years I have left. Also my poor husband is going downhill fast, he says his heart is Breaking for me and it just hurts to not be able to help. We both blame ourselves for listening to our doctor and believing what she told us but there’s no going back, is there. I pray but am feeling very lost and hopeless. I have no real breaks in my symptom anymore.
Hope you are doing better today. God bless.
Karen
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Dear Dr. Jenn:
I just spent a bit of time reading your blog. My story is similar to yours, in that I had a doctor tell me that Klonopin was “no big deal” and that I could “take it like candy.” He wrote prescriptions for 3 months at a time (illegal!) and he agreed to see me every 3 months! With the help of a REAL psychiatrist, I slow-weaning for almost a year and took my last dose on 8/1/13. I had no idea about the horror that I would experience in terms of the terrible symptoms! Truly, I don’t know how I survived it.
I’m writing to you because I see that you are still struggling with all kinds of pain at over two years. I was fortunate in that the universe sent me some very good people. I started getting infra-red treatments. I did several foot bath detoxes and drank tons of water to try to flush the toxins out of my blood. Perhaps the biggest change has been to my diet: I’m now eating only organic foods. I’m gluten-free, sugar-free (except for those that you get from fruits) and dairy-free. I use a juicer to get maximum nutrition from vegetables. I mention this because before I changed my diet, I could actually taste the toxins in my food. I’m wondering if you have experimented with your diet — because my muscle pain quieted down significantly when I stopped eating gluten. And I NEVER had any pain before! I was a dancer and a gymnast and a very physically fit person.
I’m in the throes of withdrawal myself, and I find myself looking for information – even though it sometimes upsets me. I hope that you continue to post as you heal. And I have faith that you will eventually heal.
xoRASJ
I dont eat gluten, sugar, caffeine, alcohol or any processed or prepared foods. I eat whole, mostly organic foods and I juice as well. Diet plays a role in this for sure, but it is not the only factor. I believe those of us who got hit the hardest have a genetic component that made these drugs very dangerous to take. All any of us can do is to eat as healthy as possible, avoid stress, rest, exercise as much as our bodies allow, and hang onto hope that we do recover as the veterans ahead of us tell us that we do. I am still very much in the thick of it. I painted a canvas yesterday and got hit with the full body tingles, weakness, etc. etc. etc. Woke this morning deep in the woods again…. its SO very hard to keep going when the moment you get a little bit better, you get slammed back to the mat. Sigh.
Dear Dr Jenn,
Thank you for your blog. I have found it a real comfort as I was healing from withdrawal from Valium that was prescribed after I had back surgery. I know that you have probably researched anything and everything but I did notice that you are involved with art and are painting. Have you considered the impact of the paint fumes and other art supplies? I only ask because I found that being around any type of chemicals, including paint and even certain papers, really set off my symptoms- I would start to shake and twitch. It is easing slowly and I am not so sensitive now but I did have to steer clear for quite some time while I healed. Also, please take heart because I do think that we improve more after each set back-that seems to be the case for so many.
Thank you sooooo much for your response! I’ve been responding all over your blog. I am currently GF, sugar-free, caffeine-free, alcohol-free. I’d like to try to reintroduce dairy in small amounts. My Pdoc is very encouraging. SHe all: “You’re going to feel much better in 6 months…” but I don’t know how she can say that when there are so few “success” stories. Or maybe there are more “success” stories, but people are just private about sharing them online.
All I can say is THANK YOU for having this page for people to visit. You are a source of inspiration. I hope you don’t leave the blogosphere entirely, but I love the idea that you are well enough to be able to pursue life more full-time.
xoRASJ
Jennifer, I’m sorry to hear that the side effects are still occurring. I think it’s over two years since you come off benzos. If that’s right then, wow, it’s a long time to put up with side effects!