Benzos and My Recovery

I started having some PTSD after multiple surgeries, so I went to my doctor for help with anxiety and some light insomnia. He gave me mirtazapine and a bottle of benzos to be used as needed. The mirtazapine did not help, so you can guess what happened next. That's the beginning of my journey with benzos. The only thing my doctor told me was that benzos are hard to get off of. That was all the warning I was given. I always felt like I needed to be careful with it but decided to take it daily. That was the worst mistake of my life.

I started with lorazepam and eventually switched to clonazepam to taper off. I was on it a little bit more than a year total. I did not get near the relief compared to the horror of symptoms from trying to get off of it. I took six months to taper from half a mg of clonazepam. I tried to do it in four months but played some chicken with my symptoms because they were bad enough and took an extra two months. I used the Ashton manual. I'm not sure taking longer really helped. It may have deepened my dependency and actually just made things worse in the end, but I'll never know, so I move on.

I am now 22 months off clonazepam and still dealing with neurological damage. I am not healed. I have severe tension in my head, neck, back, and stomach, nausea, dizziness, and vision impairment. At times I was not able to drive for six months when I was tapering and shortly after I jumped off. I am currently improving, but it's extremely slow and very hard to read and put a finger on because of course it's your nervous system that's just regulating. I've had other symptoms along the way, weird rashes, and I have not worked through all of this. There's no way I can go to work until this is finally over. I'm currently on disability because of this.

Of course this drug should be banned. It's far more damaging than what it provides therapeutically. I hope my story helps anyone going through this. This experience cannot be replicated by anything in life.