I can’t quite believe I am almost there, it has been 5 years of tapering off 3 medications, all due to a withdrawal from the Lorazepam. I was in a place I thought of no return, how could someone as Pollydrugged return from that place? Also that at points I was so thin Drs thought I would die from my organs failing. This was due to the akathisia, the eternal pacing day and night, with no sleep for many months. I dropped into psychosis as the sleep deprivation, the severe stress in the psych wards and the constant polydrugging battered my system, and my brain. How does one come back from this?

My ethos is we all heal and having come back from this I have that belief in my bones. I have experienced my body and brain being almost burnt to the ground, left in ashes, to then somehow spark a flame. I was grey in colour, green even, my body had been filled with toxins for months, I had an abscess in my bum cheek that appeared in the psych wards, when I came back from what felt like the dead but not dead.

That reinstatement of 0.5 Lorazepam and does many Drs would often say to me, oh you can just stop taking that. My body was so psychically dependent on it to function that somehow 8 months into the withdrawal it brought me back. My reinstatement story is on my YouTube as there are important details and they don not always work, I had tried months earlier with no success. It was miraculous in many ways, however also tells us that it is possible and that there is much I feel we are all still learning. I felt it important to share as in the forums and Facebook pages rules start to appear and ‘you must not do thats,’ which I felt very unhelpful.

To reinstate 8 months out, in a forum would be like committing a sin! However it saved my life, and to all those Drs who told me that a dose that small would do nothing.. it saved my life. Thank you Hans an incredible and kind man who has taught me what I know, as he was my taper mentor, a friend and someone who gives great advice, I feel he could be a scientist when it comes to these medications, the scientist we need!

So as I write this I am thinking about the tattoo I am going to get when I am officially medication free, I am thinking about a snake on my arm, as snakes symbolise transformation, or a phoenix flying across my hip. Something to symbolise this long and treacherous journey. A warriors journey. A journey I believe is completely possible to make for others, and really no one should have to ever take this journey.

Currently its clear that Drs will still carry on harming patients un till this is widely spoken about, so saving lives and supporting people through this is deeply important, as the change still has not happened in the Drs room. I go in saying I’m cutting and weighing with scales and they look at me like I am an alien.

Soon I will be free, I plan to go travelling, I plan to feel that freedom, not having to worry about my medications, or if I will get sick. I will allow time though once I am off, I will allow a few months of keeping things low key, being careful what I am doing and what I am putting in my body.
Our life styles change in this, I am slower, gentler and kinder to myself as I have to be. In a way that is a silver lining in this very dark experience where it is hard to see any hope at all for much of it.

I assure you one day you will reflect, you will write a post like this. You will get there. The journey does not have to be hell all the way through, it just has to be mindful, to be aware, to commit to your healing.

To be continued…

With love
Emma