My story is quite severe, but what is miraculous is that I am still here, after everything looking like there was no hope for me or that my withdrawal would ever end, it went past the point of no return, I was in a very bad way, from what I was reading on all forums there was no cure, and a very good chance I would never return. There were many attempts to end my life due to the intense suffering that never stopped. My story is so bad because I was given all the wrong advice, by medical professionals. Which sadly and shockingly I found to be a very common story, 100’s of thousands of people are going through this, my story is one of many.

First of all, a benzodiazepine is a drug that is supposed to be used in a crisis situation, as a one off, there are different strengths, Valium everyone knows, Lorazepam is more potent and short acting, to name a few, there’s Clonazepam, Xanax and Oxazepam. They all work on the Gaba receptors in your brain, your glutanmate, which is everything! They calm you, make you feel all of a sudden so much better, like a temporary high. Simular to getting relief when your’e in pain. It also greatly effects your amygdala which is part of the core of a neural system that processes fearful and threatening Stimuli. These drugs cause a lot of damage because when used more than once, the body quickly becomes very dependant on it to function, it’s not designed for long term. Often people even when on it start to feel very unwell as the gaba receptors are being unnaturally fired up and over worked by the pill, eventually the body struggles to produce glutanmate in a normal way. Causing a real life horror show and pretty much a chemical war in your mind and body. It can come through in your mind for example, you start to feel not yourself at all, high anxiety or feelings of terror, insomnia, suicidal thoughts, high agitation or you can get physical pain and all sorts of very disturbing aliments, if I had made a list of symptoms, for me it was over 100. So that’s the science element put in a simple way.

My history with Lorazepam ended up a total mess due to such terrible advice given by Drs! Firstly to be given it to ‘ help’ my tinnitus which is a terrible move as it in fact causes tinnitus. I was told it was safe, they even gave it to old people, and there was really nothing to worry about. So…with a knowing that something wasn’t quite right whilst on the drug, I was getting crazy amounts of anxiety and insomnia as time went on getting worse and worse, I wanted to come off it, so I just stopped it after 6 months use, it was the Drs advice saying that it was safe to stop in 2 weeks. I was hit hard a few days later with the full withdrawal, not knowing what the hell had hit me, I kindelled, meaning I tried taking it again to stop the withdrawal, Drs advice, this only made me feel way worse! I tried antidepressants ( as everyone thought I had mental issues ) and was taken off them rapidly due to them making me so much worse, Drs advice. I tried a crossover to Valium as its longer acting, this was also Drs advice to do a straight switch ( you need a gradual crossover.) It went terribly wrong and I ended up being sectioned in Spain at the time due to the horror show of side effects, causing my nervous system to basically set on fire and my behaviour became totally eractic! I got forced huge amounts of drugs in psych wards, to then be ripped off them, Drs advice. I was deserted due to everyone thinking I’d lost my mind, in the most amount of pain you could imagine in the psych wards, that are full of abusive staff and the patients in thoughs places are not the safest people to be around, not all but of course everyones not in their best place. They are basically prisons, so you get treated like you’re dirt on the floor, you get a huge spectrum of people in there, from a girl who self harms to a serial murderer threatening to kill you. Numerous inhumane things go on in thoughs places, it’s completely unbelievable until you see it yourself. I would cry down the phone, ‘ Help me, I’m being abused ‘ and be met with silence, people just thought I was hallucinating and would say Emma you’re in the best place for you, they’re trying to help you. I would not say the male ‘nurse’ offering to help me with his dick was someone trying to help me. It’s easy when a patient is deemed ‘ crazy ‘ to get away with abuse, but that’s a whole other story!

I did not sleep a wink for the best part of a year, I paced for 24 hours a day, I couldn’t stop moving, this is something the drug withdrawal causes, it’s called akathasia, you just walk back and forth until your feet bleed. My family stepped away in total disbelief that a pill could do this, and they thought it must be me somehow just making it all up. This wasn’t helped by Drs denying my constant claims that it was in fact the withdrawal causing it all. I had severe everything, suicidal ideation, akathasia, terror, hallucinations, the feeling I was being crushed by the universe, I stopped eating or drinking. For 2 weeks I had nothing, by this point I was 5 stone on my last legs, fully in another reality, very close to death, incredibly harmed by the pile of drugs being forced on me in wards. Again due to the benzo withdrawal being totally dismissed and it blamed on my own mental health I was heavily medicated and misdiagnosed. When in withdrawal your nervous system is basically fried, other drugs just add fuel to the fire of a very frazzled nervous system. So all in all I was put in three psych wards in the space of 6 months, and at one point being soo close to death, thankfully I was rehydrated at this point, but then not so thankfully pumped full of antipsychotics. And that’s all just the surface of what went on.