Friday morning, June 23, I woke up to the deliciousness of six years of freedom from the benzodiazepine I took (as prescribed) for eighteen years. I threw off the covers and padded into the bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror. A wide grin and dancing eyes revealed my happiness. It wasn’t always that way in the mornings. I remember my weak, unsteady walk to the bathroom during benzo withdrawal. I remember my reflection. My eyes were sunken, hollow from weight loss and despair. I’d search my reflection for some small trace of “me.” But all I could see was a wounded, terrified animal staring back at me. I was nowhere to be found. Benzo withdrawal had eviscerated me.
If you’ve read my blog posts over the years, you know how hard my recovery was. It took years for my brain to heal. It took years for me to cobble myself back together again. But I didn’t just return to my old self. I put myself back together in ways that make me extraordinarily happy. I’m not the person I was pre-benzos, on benzos, or in benzo withdrawal. I’m a whole new person for having had to walk through fire. I love who I’ve become because I had to weather such extreme adversity.
So what’s it like six years out? It’s awesome! I love my life. I take nothing for granted and I’m grateful for everything. I’m more humble, less desirous to try to control people, places, and things. I’m not afraid of much, including big feelings like loss, grief, or anger—feelings that used to have me running for a big glass of red wine (I celebrated six yers of sobriety last October 13th). I’m happy in my own skin, including my wrinkles, gray hair, and cellulite! I accept life on life’s terms.
“That’s great Jennifer, but what about your benzo withdrawal symptoms?” I hear you asking! Here is what remains at six years off. Tinnitus. It’s never let up for even a moment. It varies from soft to very loud, depending on my degree of tiredness or stress. I’ve learned to ignore it. My hunch is it isn’t going to go away, (yours probably will, so don’t worry) and that’s okay. There are worse things to have to live with. I still get tingling, mostly from the waist down. It’s a much milder version than it has been previously. It’s interesting that it revs up after I eat certain foods, and when I’ve done a lot of physical activity, or experience strong emotions. I still have a small patch of skin that burns from time to time on my left leg. It used to be incredibly painful, now when it (rarely) flares up, it’s just a slight ache, no big deal. My wrists, hands, and fingers are still painful at times. That pain level can be challenging. I don’t take any OTC meds for it. I just rest my hands and wait for the pain level to go down. I’m still prone to joint pain, especially in my hip sockets. The pain level has decreased a great deal over the years, and the pain isn’t an everyday occurrence. Dizziness, or should I say, a wooziness, is still something that comes and goes, along with some head pressure. I’ve learned to navigate my way through them, and not let them stop me. Everything, except the tinnitus, has scaled down remarkably from the first few years off.The mental symptoms are long gone. I don’t have instrusive thoughts anymore. No more benzo withdrawal anxiety, panic, terror, or depression. In fact, my pre-existing anxiety “disorder” is long gone as well. Remember, our brains are pliable; they can easily be remodeled.
Even though I’m not 100% symptom-free, I’m living a wonderful life. I have hope that as more years pass, the remaining symptoms will continue to fade away. But even if they don’t, life is good! I do everything that I want to do. Nothing gets in my way. After so many years of being unable to live life to the fullest, I’m wringing every drop of joy and satisfaction out of my days. You will be too before too long. Keep going. Keep healing. Your recovery is just up ahead. See it there? It’s waving at you and calling you to “come on over!” You’ll get there. One day at a time.
Hi Jenn, Happy six years to you!!! What a wonderful feeling it must be. I’m so glad that you are doing really well although you still have some unwanted symptoms, you are flying free as a bird. As you know I’m in the middle of the 6 1/2 month blues. I’m in my canoe and I keep on paddling. Funny, some little things seem to be starting to lift, I pray it continues. (when I say little things I mean minute).
Lately I have been listening to a lot of music and have adopted Survivor – Eye of the Tiger as my new anthem, it gives me a bit of fight back.
Again happy anniversary, I will be 7 months on the 3rd July, bring it on!
Love and hugs across the Pond
Jackie
Edinburgh
Happy healing and hugs to all x
Larry
Hey Jen, I find your your blogs very uplifting. Glad to hear of your steady progress. Im 8 mouths off. have experienced a lot of the classic symptoms, however, much less extreme than your situation. Mine is due to unwitting use of alcohol and Xanax(for three years). The biggest challenge is the mental , emotional flatness and no motivation, low grade ,constant anxiety and depression. Never have experienced anything like this before. This is such a waste of precious time, Im used to being up and active. Keep posting, you have been very inspirational , I dont know how you did it, you deserve a metal for” life saving”.
Hello jen and Jackie. .. thanks for the wonderful post jen,and good to hear how you’re doing Jackie. I’m keeping on praying for you Jackie. Lots of love and hugs, nicki
CONGRATULATIONS Jennifer ! As you spread your wings in full beauty and grace no longer grounded in the world you once inhabited fly free sweet soul, fly free !
With Love & Gratitude, Jerry
P.S. Thank you for the new word of the day – eviserated – logged for future use 😎
With Gratitude
So sorry to take up space here… oops ! I misspelled , its eviscerated 🤗
Love to all
Congrats, Jenn!! You’ve given so much back to people; I hope all the love you’ve given comes back to you tenfold. Here’s to continued gratitude and happiness!
Congratulations! So happy for you, Jenn. Much love!!
Congratulations Jennifer! Your continuing recovery is a great comfort for those of us who are in that unlucky minority to have some form of protracted withdrawal symptoms. From my personal experience with persistent noisy tinnitus I can offer some hope for you. After more than 6 years of constant high pitched tones in my right ear… I can thankfully say that it has virtually disappeared and only during times of extreme tiredness or stress does it come back ever so mildly to rapidly go away again.
Everyone is different in WDs as we know ~ yet the medical advice that I had was very depressing – tinnitus is usually there for the long term and there’s not a great deal that can be done for it. Perhaps that may be true for the usual causes of tinnitus such as age related auditory nerve degeneration etc – however – I firmly believe that my tinnitus arose from an earlier time of ceasing benzos ~ at a time when I was totally naive that benzos were responsible for the myriad of other physical symptoms over the last 40 years.
I’m now just over 2 weeks since ending the 7 month taper off of 4mg/day Clonazepam – where I switched over to an equivalent Diazepam dose and eventually ended on 0.25mg diazepam. Had over 20 physical symptoms – of which only several were significantly bothersome ~ but even those have now faded down to a just noticeable level. All but gastric pain on going to bed have virtually gone. Even the gastric pain is noticeably much less intense and seems to have a longer duration between episodes and I’m confident that this symptom too, shall be a thing of the dim, dark past.
Hopefully others reading my experience can take some comfort too that their horrible symptoms WILL go away eventually. We need to remember that for the majority of us..it took many years of either constant or on of use of a benzo to develop a great degree of tolerance. For this reason only, I believe that we can expect the withdrawal to take some time before our brain’s plasticity to rebuild itself takes full effect.
When all else fails – just hang on in there – it DOES get BETTER!
Cheers Doc
Doc
Good to know that in time, the tinnitus may get better! Glad you are doing well. Thanks for stopping by to reassure everyone that they will recover in time.
Oh, wow, congratulations and thank you for this post! I will print this one and hang it on the wall! -Jeff