Making decisions can be overwhelming for people experiencing benzo withdrawal or BIND (benzodiazepine-induced neurological dysfunction). And it’s not just the big decisions that trip us up; even the small day-to-day decisions, such as what to wear, can feel overwhelming. Indecisiveness is a common benzo withdrawal and BIND symptom. It comes from having a dysregulated nervous system affecting our thoughts and feelings. We don’t have as much access to our prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational, logical, life, and love-affirming region. Instead, our thoughts and feelings are fueled by our limbic system— the threat detection region. And the limbic system is lousy at making decisions, except for quick reactions for survival. It doesn’t care if we wear a blue or green tee shirt.
How do we cope with indecisiveness in benzo withdrawal or BIND? With lots of compassion for ourselves!
- Knowing that decisions can be emotionally challenging while we recover—normalizing the symptom— can relieve us from some of the stress and strain they can cause.
- Avoiding situations that require big decisions with high-impact consequences can be helpful. (I’ve had clients who thought they had fallen out of love with their spouse and wanted a divorce, but when they healed, they realized their negative feelings were driven by benzo withdrawal, and they were incredibly grateful that they hadn’t dissolved their marriage as they were still very much in love!)
- Reminding yourself that “state drives story” is helpful. The state of your nervous system will fuel and flavor your thoughts. In our default state, the parasympathetic ventral vagal response called the “connect” state, our thoughts will be positive. Our thoughts will be negative in the “protect” state, fight, flight, or freeze. In withdrawal and BIND, we are more often in the protect state, hence negative thoughts. That means we might second guess or emotionally beat ourselves up over our decisions. Please do your best to observe the negative thoughts and let them pass.
Besides being indecisive, other odd symptoms can be experienced:
- Time can feel distorted. One client thought that she was stuck in the 1970s. Another felt that everything was in slow motion.
- Favorite foods can become repulsive.
- Songs can get stuck in our heads.
- We may forget the name of an actor or movie and feel an urgency to research online until we remember. Or, we may remember but feel an urgency to find out all we can about the actor or movie. It’s a compulsive feeling that is not our usual response.
- Teeth may feel as if they are twirling or will fall out.
- We may be able to hear things far off in the distance. (One person heard a car crash on their street when no one else heard it.)
- A metal taste might plague us for a while— like we have a penny in our mouths.
- Floaters may cloud our vision.
- Our short-term memory may become impaired.
- We may experience formication, the sensation of bugs crawling under our skin.
There is a laundry list of known benzo withdrawal and BIND symptoms. You may experience a few or many. Everyone’s recovery journey is different. Some symptoms are more challenging or frightening than others, but for the most part, they are benign. Always see a doctor if you are worried about a symptom to rule out any other possible cause.
What are your oddest benzo withdrawal or BIND symptoms? Feel free to leave a comment and share. And, keep healing. We do recover.
As time passes I realize, and I am understanding more and more how our benzo injured brains are truly ran by the limbic system (threat detection system.)
It is worth it to try and distract while feeling this way because it is painful to spend most of our time being scared.
Dr. Jenn, I always listen to you say “state drives story”. When I am in the thick of it on challenging days, I forget this. I can get wound up in it and just sit around thinking about my current symptom, or I could be symptom free and give myself symptoms worrying about the possibility of getting symptoms! Ugh. Gotta get the hands & the mind busy when this happens or I can become frozen in fear if I let it get too far.
I had SO much fear until I had a better understanding of this.
I had at one point over 50 symptoms, the one that really scared me was the feeling of barbed wire wrapped around my face, I know now it must have been from the nerves in my face. It was terrifying. But with time all my symptoms faded away. I was right to believe in you Dr Jenn, I still have my job and house thanks to you! Love and hugs accross the pond. ❤️ xxx
I am glad to hear you are well. Thank you for your kind words, but I can’t take credit for your house and job; you held on and did the hard work! Love you!
Glad to hear that understanding the benzo withdrawal/BIND syndrome is helpful.
Hope your hands and mind are reminded of what to do when the symptoms rev up! Thanks for your comment.
Dear Jen,…Thankyou so much for your encouragement you are so amazing and so loving!!My name is Tania Paine and I live in New Zealand .I spoke to you through a zoom call last year not sure when it was ?I join your group Morning with Jen ,paid ,but my benzo brain couldn’t work it out how to get connected unfortunately .I saw o your website that you have changed to another way of doing it.Could please walk me thru the steps I don’t mind if I have paid another join up fee .Will wait your reply Much Blessing with thanks Tania
We meet on Discord now. Are you still a paying member? If so, you can message me through benzowithdrawalhelp.com and I’ll be happy to send you instructions on how to access the group. It is really a unique, positive approach to supporting people in benzo withdrawal. We have so many interesting benefits in the group, including free yoga classes, a data base of symptoms and suggestions for coping, a free 30-day wfpb diet approach, guest speakers, lots of focus on brain health/function, and more. I am proud of our members—- everyone is kind and caring. It’s a great group!