In Hospital near Death
– 3/4 Months after stopping Lorazepam I had taken for 6 months 1 mg – Side effects and more
This picture I cant remember taking, and the message I have written makes no sense obviously, I was 5 stone, had had no food or water for 10 days. It had become painful to eat, my body was giving up. I had got so incredibly unwell, after months of no sleep and Akathisia, and the huge list of terrifying symptoms that can be caused in Benzo Withdrawal was forever growing. At this point I had been given Valium to try stop the withdrawal, Quetiapine, Olanzapine and god knows what else in the Spanish Phyc Ward. None of which made me feel any better and just added fuel to the fire on my nervous system. The Side effects I experienced were not of this world. Continuous Suicidal Ideation, this unnatural though process where I kept having just bad thoughts, and working out ways to end my life, everything was so scary and nothing made sense. Intense paranoia, and as I had not slept for about 6 months at this point I had a very severe psychosis, that tore me through some very very scary hallucinations. I experienced severe pain all over my body, it felt as if I was being set on fire. Like the actual feeling of that pain, but non stop. I felt a sensation of gravity like my nervous system was so warped that I felt myself being crushed to death by the earth. It felt as if my skull would burst into a thousand pieces. And these feelings would loop like a never ending eternity. By this point, in hospital, I thought I was dead and in hell, it felt like the kind of torture you’d experience in hell, so maybe thats where my mind went. The withdrawal made me feel like I had done something bad, I was a bad person and I deserved this!
The withdrawal can warp your thoughts so much so that you start to pull things from your life, different events, old child hood memories and it’s easy to think your loosing your mind. But I assure you if you are in drug withdrawal, as in been told to just stop one of these drugs, or on a benzodiazepine and experiencing this, it’s the drug! I had all sorts of therapy in the early stages of this, whilst on the drug and just off it, as I thought I was loosing my mind and had an issue with feeling intense fear. It was easy to attach it to my life and my childhood at the time it didn’t make sense to me. As I had no idea it was the pill that could cause such destruction in my mind. Now I am stabilised somehow from reinstating the Lorazepam 7 months out at 0.5mg. My thoughts are my own, and perfectly normal, I have no thoughts of my childhood, or intense panic and fear. I have side effects from the tapering as I am currently very slowly tapering off it to one day be free of this horrid drug! So I experience physical things more so now, from the CNS damage, that are incredibly scary!
A few things I can list :
Severe pain in my body, waves of intense anxiety but they are better than in the withdrawal, I have eye issues, ear issues. Heart palpitations, seizure like feelings, DPDR, which is this feeling you are not in your body. Stroke like feeling and paralysis, waves of akathisia, changes in my sleep, waking up really early of broken sleep, a huge list of sensations that I cant describe as they are so not of this world, this is all as I taper .
I am now following a Hyperbolic way of tapering the benzo taking out tiny amounts a day, using water. I have found it way more effective than taking big cuts every month from the pill, but thats just me, its all personal preference. The gradual taking it away is allowing my body to adapt without it!
There’s never a case of going too slow once harmed like this, no dose if ever too low to have an effect.
I stabilised from an unbelievable place on 0.5 Lorazepam, the initial drug that caused all this. I am not saying to reinstate as I tried to reinstate after the Dr told me to just stop taking it and I was left in full benzo hell, and it did not help in fact it made things worse. It was only months out that it stabilised me by pure miracle.
I could list so many side effects here, it’s impossible to explain what you experience, but none of it is nice.
I want to show this, as this is nothing to do with mental health, to end up nearly dead in this much pain, was not caused by me. It was caused by these very dangerous pills, that are not regulated enough! And I went to so many Drs none could help me, none believed me, they just denied anything to do with the drugs.
This is where there is a shocking gap in our world, where the drug companies have managed to not take the blame, the Drs just say its not possible as they are not educated in what the drugs actually do and the patient is left to fend for themselves, and many take their own lives, as once you realise your on your own its a scary, hopeless place to be. No one believed me I was deserted by everyone close to me. It’s also hard when your in such a bad state all the time for people to know what to do!
You are not alone.
With Love E x
