Symptoms: Akathisia, Emotional blunting, Depersonalization/Derealization, Suicidal ideation, Severe anxiety/panic, Anhedonia, Waves of "terror" on waking, which I've never had before. It makes my original anxiety feel like bliss in comparison.
I'm writing this as a clear, factual account of what has happened to my body and my life as a result of prescribed medication.
Before 2019, I was not someone in crisis. I had struggled at times with generalised anxiety, but I was functioning, thinking clearly, and moving forward. I had just completed a Master's degree in Music Therapy after seven years of training. I graduated with distinction and received a thesis prize. I had direction, identity, and a future that felt real and within reach.
What followed was not a natural decline. It was a medical injury.
The Prescription and the Reassurance:
In 2019, I was prescribed Lorazepam during a period of heightened stress and anxiety.
I did not take this lightly. I asked direct questions about safety, dependence, long-term effects. I wanted to understand what I was agreeing to. I basically "interviewed" the psychiatrist, whom I trusted.
I was reassured. Not vaguely, but clearly. I was told there were no significant risks to be concerned about. The prescribing consultant went as far as saying he would give this medication to his own son. That level of reassurance mattered. It shaped my decision to trust the prescription and take it as directed.
Within a few months, my dose was increased to 6mg daily. At no point during this process was I properly informed about the reality of benzodiazepine dependence, tolerance, or the severity of withdrawal. The only warning I got was to "be careful with alcohol" (although I never drank anyway).
Polypharmacy and Destabilisation:
By December 2019, I was also prescribed Risperidone as I kept getting worse (which I now know was due to tolerance/withdrawal from the benzo). I just thought I was getting more stressed. Little did I know. Apparently it was supposed to help as an augmentation strategy for the original anxiety condition.
Within weeks, I developed Parkinsonian side effects: physical rigidity, altered movement, a loss of normal bodily control. These symptoms were serious enough to be noticed by others, including my mother. The Risperidone was eventually stopped, but not before causing further disruption to an already destabilised system.
Around the same time, I was prescribed Sertraline, which was increased rapidly and then reduced again within a short period.
At this point, my nervous system was already under significant strain. But the most damaging phase was still ahead.
The Injury Itself
In 2020, my dose of Lorazepam was reduced from 6mg to 5mg. This was not done with a proper understanding of benzodiazepine tapering. I was not warned about what could happen. I was not given a structured, cautious plan.
I later transitioned to Diazepam and tapered down to 16mg by 2021, where I remain today. But by that point, the damage had already been done. This condition is often referred to as Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS), but that term doesn't capture the reality.
This is not just anxiety or low mood. This is a fundamental breakdown in how the nervous system functions.
What This Feels Like:
My system no longer regulates itself in a stable way (at all).
I experience:
Internal agitation that doesn't respond to rest, distraction, or effort.
Waves of fear and terror that are not connected to anything external.
Dissociation - at times feeling disconnected from reality or from myself.
A sense that my body is no longer a safe place to exist...
Sometimes I have felt as if "my body needs to purge itself of itself". That is as close as I can come to describing it in words.
There is no real baseline to return to, only fluctuations in intensity.
The Loss of Function:
This injury didn't just affect how I feel. It dismantled my ability to live normally.
I lost:
My ability to work in the field I trained for over seven years, independence, any sense of stability and predictability.
My connection to the future I had built toward.
What Makes this Iatrogenic
This was not an unavoidable outcome.
It was the result of a chain of decisions and omissions:
Being prescribed benzodiazepines without informed consent.
Repeated reassurance that the medication was safe, despite my explicit questions.
Rapid dose escalation.
Additional medications layered on top without stability.
A lack of understanding or communication about dependence and withdrawal.
An initial dose reduction carried out without proper tapering principles.
The most important point is this:
I did ask, I did question, and I was reassured in a way that removed my ability to make an informed decision.
The Long-Term Reality
As of now, I remain on 16mg of Diazepam.
I am not recovered. I am managing a chronic condition that was created through medical treatment. I continue to experience severe symptoms of nervous system dysregulation. I have tried multiple approaches to stabilise:
Psychotherapy.
Neuromodulation (rTMS).
Low Dose Naltrexone (which has helped the most with akathisia, and I would encourage people to explore if this could help them).
Vagus nerve stimulation.
Careful environmental and lifestyle adjustments.
Some of these have helped at the margins, but none have reversed the core injury.
What Has Been Taken
The hardest part to describe is the scale of what has been lost.
Years of my life have been consumed by survival.
The version of myself that was functioning, capable, and moving forward was interrupted abruptly.
And the most basic assumption that my body is a safe place to exist has been fundamentally altered.
What Remains
Despite all of this, there are things that are still intact.
I am still able to think clearly.
I still have insight into what has happened.
I'm not confused about the difference between psychological distress and physiological injury.
It is the consequence of a nervous system that has been destabilised at a fundamental level.
Closing
I'm still here (somehow). Not because this has been manageable, but because I have had to endure it. It has been inhumane, and that is no hyperbole.
This account is simply the truth of what that has involved. Change in the system is urgently needed.
My heart goes out to everyone affected by such injuries. Truly.