The lyrics in Don’t McLeans’ song, American Pie, sure hit home, don’t they?
But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn’t take one more step
If the headlines increase your benzo withdrawal symptoms, here are some suggestions on coping.
The first coping skill is pretty obvious— avoid the news. Sure, it was easier back in the day; you could step over the newspaper on your porch. You could control what you watched on television. It’s different today. The news is everywhere, even streaming at some gas pumps! Do your best to limit your exposure. You can’t do anything about Russia, the stock market, or covid, so why expose yourself to information that can jack up your nervous system?
Set boundaries. Let people know that you don’t want to talk about the news. Ask them not to share the events of the day or their worries with you.
If you can’t avoid the news, do your best to minimize its impact on your nervous system. If you feel anxious, slow down your breathing. Rock side-to-side gently. Remind yourself that you are safe in this present moment. If your mind races with those scary “what if” thoughts, gently bring your attention back to this moment. Future tripping makes us more anxious.
Distraction is an excellent tool for coping with the news. Put your hands to use. Activities that require fine motor skills are wonderful ways to soothe a worried mind. (Grandma’s quilting circle knew a thing or two about calming anxiety!)
Learn something new! Learning feels good; it releases dopamine. It takes the focus off of our symptoms, worries, and woes and puts it on what we are learning.
Practice acceptance. You can’t change the way the world is; you can only change how you respond to it. Your initial reaction may be anxiety or fear; that’s normal in benzo withdrawal. It’s how you respond to that reaction that counts. Do you believe your scary thoughts and feelings, or do you neutrally observe them and let them pass?
If you are triggered by the news and feel you need help, reach out to others. Ask for support. A gentle hug or a kind, compassionate listening ear go a long way to calming down anxiety.
Remember that the prescription for everything is safety. There is no threat. There is only the perception of a threat. You are safe.
One helpful thing is to look back and know that we always find our way out of the darkness. It passes. Always. The storm clouds forming in the world will one day dissipate, and the sun will shine and warm us all again. Good times will return.
Breathe. It’s all going to be okay. Focus on your healing, not on things you cannot control. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
If you have other ways you cope with the news, please share in the comments. Let’s help one another in these unsettling times.
If you need support, you may want to consider joining my live support group, Mornings With Jenn. We meet on Discord. Recorded group sessions are posted on Facebook. There is no other benzo support group quite like it! Movie night, radio station, topics, video, voice, and text communication abilities. It’s an incredibly positive place.
Click here for more information: Mornings With Jenn
Good morning and thank you so much for your posts Jennifer Leigh.
I always feel good about your reflections. Here in Brazil I have this practice of not reading bad news. Newspapers are always very sensationalist. All this makes the world’s energy heavier. I usually do a lot of meditation and I always try to see the good and gentle side of the human being.
hugs from Brazil to you. God bless you always with this gift.
ps: I always use google translator, so forgive me for the translation sometimes with errors.
Wow Dr.Jenn thank you for your very relevant post. I’ve been dealing with the horrible anxiety and depression for over 2 years due to tolerance, interdose withdrawal and now post acute withdrawal. I learned early on that I couldn’t watch the news or any movies or shows with action or violence. I also have trouble listening to other people’s problems.it all makes me extremely anxious. It’s hard because I’ve always tried to be a problem solver and help people, but now I just can’t. I almost lost a dear friend because I told her I couldn’t talk about covid or bad news. So she stopped talking to me. Of course this made me severely stressed until I finally made her understand. Our family and friends do try,but they really don’t understand. One of my main problems is stressing over my past mistakes and the future. So I am so thankful for your posts, because you truly care and understand! Without you and God it would be very hard to make it through this! I look forward to the day when I can tell you I’m all healed. I know its coming! God bless you and all that are suffering!
Thank you! I’m returning the hug. Your translation was fine. No worries. keep healing!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Keep healing. We do recover!
Great blog post Dr Jenn.
I know your topic here is about the situation in the Ukraine/Russia. My prayers are going out to those affected by this awful situation, and to the world. When things like this happen, our fragile central nervous systems learn all too well how stress can make things harder during withdrawal.
The big bottom line is that stress in general makes this journey more challenging. I am not taking away from the seriousness of what is happening in the Ukraine and in Russia, but I’d like to talk a bit more about another stressor during withdrawal. A huge stressor that has made going through withdrawal during this point in history a lot tougher.
This brings me to talk about dealing with a pandemic while healing in withdrawal. It is kind of like an experiment in the making to see just how much stress really affects the healing process of withdrawal because those of us who have been in it for the last two years know all too well what the constant threat of a serious virus lurking, and all of the other stress it brings with it, can entail. Not only Covid itself, but possible financial issues, raising kids during it, constant scary headlines, dealing with family/friends who have different opinions etc, etc.
It will be interesting to see in the withdrawal community how many people heal a bit more quickly once this pandemic wanes.
Yes, I know that it is said that Covid will never be completely gone. I get it. But it will EVENTUALLY be something society will be living with at a much more “things back to normal” level because it will have lessened in frequency and severity.
This pandemic is like a big nasty rock being thrown in the water of what was already so very hard for those of us suffering to contend with, with all of the ripples it has caused affecting everyone’s daily lives.
Things that were once an easy decision like: getting teeth cleaned at the dentist for instance, is now a big ordeal. “Do I go to the dentist? Will I get Covid from the dentist? Do I wait? Thank goodness I have good teeth. Wonder if there’s a YouTube video that shows how to scrape my own teeth like a hygienist does and I will just buy the tools do it myself.” These are some of the crazy things that have crossed my mind during all of this. “Do I get a vaccine? Will it cause my symptoms to flare up? If so how long?” And on and on and on with this for two years now and counting. There is no escaping it, especially for those in withdrawal or those with another serious health condition during all of this.
As I said, it will be interesting to see how it all pans out. We don’t have testimonial documentation from 100 years ago during the Spanish Flu to see how back then those folks in benzo withdrawal dealt with the stress of that pandemic. One hundred years ago there were no benzo blogs nor forums. One hundred years ago there were no benzos.
Where I live, the Covid numbers, the spread, and hospitalizations have dropped drastically for now. And even so I still practice extreme caution. BUT I can DEFINITELY feel a dramatic decrease in my symptoms as this pandemic, along with the stress that it brings with it, seems to be waning for now. It is a VERY dramatic decrease in my symptoms to the point where I have MANY more days where I feel like I am no longer even in benzo withdrawal. There is a direct link between the Covid situation and my symptoms.
With that being said, I am thinking that as this awful pandemic mess fades, we will be seeing a bunch of people heal. I am not saying that a pandemic is the only thing keeping people sick in withdrawal. It is just the sheer nature of the amount of time that it takes us to heal from this injury that keeps us sick, but get rid of that one big factor that has been a huge addition to our problems during this and.. yeah I think a whole bunch of people will improve so much more once we can be back to normal and have that giant stressor gone.
Keep moving forward everyone. Be gentle with yourself.
– Shelly
I actually went on benzos because of political turmoil several years ago that kicked off a bout of insomnia for me. Imagine coming off benzos several years later when things were even more tumultuous!
I’ve had to learn a lot of coping skills in the meantime. I’m not a person who can just shut everything out, but I have at least taught myself how to stay off of Twitter for a 24-hour period.
Distraction — rather, shifting my focus — has been key. I seem to have two states, totally unfocused and totally hyperfocused. (I likely have ADHD but I don’t want to end up medicated for that after my benzo adventure…) If I can reel in that hyperfocused state to be about something OTHER than the news, I’m doing well. I wasn’t able to do that for several years, but lately I’ve been able to take better control of my focus and use it for work and hobbies and exercise rather than just for reading news and commentary and making myself extra anxious.