Hello Everyone. I'm Glad I Found You.

[blindsided]

I've been diagnosed with PTSD stemming from a childhood with sadistic, brutal parents.

All my life I've been anxious and emotionally numb. Although I've been miserable, no one really knew; I learned too well as a child to not let the inside show on the outside. My wife knew I was troubled, but until recently never knew the extent.

We were unable to have children for years and now later in life (I'm soon to be 54) we have two young children, a seven year old daughter and a four year old son.

And now it has hit the fan. It started with constant intense anxiety on a daily basis and panic attacks when I was with my children (especially my son). Because of the symptoms, I thought I was going psycho or had a brain tumor.

Then came the diagnosis, PTSD. My horrific childhood, repressed and dissociated for decades, had come back with a vengeance. I was having emotional flashbacks of the intense fear and anxiety I felt as a child. That resolved the mystery, but not the misery. I've recently started EMDR therapy and am hopeful that it will help.

Making matters worse, I have a prescribed benzo addiction from before the PTSD. The benzos are messing with my mind and are not helping with the PTSD. Unfortunately, I've learned the hard way how addictive they can be (lesson learned, due diligence from now on for anything prescribed). I'd love to get off of them but now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I just discovered the forum and haven't had a chance to look around but I see an opportunity for help and I'm grabbing it...

 

[becvan]

Welcome to the forum Blind,

Get comfortable and have a look around.. Glad to see you grabbing your opportunity!

bec

 

[Deleted member 93]

Very happy you see the opportunity here. I know the benzo addiction all too well. Thanks to great people supporting me here I have found the strength to finally be all the way off. I thought it could not be done, but I did it. I hope you can find that here for yourself too.

 

[blindsided]

veiled, can you tell me more about your situation and how you got off benzos?

 

[Deleted member 93]

LOL, that is almost a book. What aspect of my situation? I will try to explain as best I can in a short space, but it is hard to explain years so simplified.

I did take Xanax for about 2 1/2 years. (laundry list of other drugs through the years). Weaning took about 1 year. I started getting to a lower dosage when they said I had PTSD. I wanted off all the way they just wanted it lower and me stay on. I was only diagnosed a little while before I became a member here. My GP had pumped me full of Xanax until my daily dose was 10 mg a day before referring me to my other doctors and being diagnosed. For a short while it was up to 12mg. I have no recall of this and my husband is insisting the doctor had me on that for a while. 9mgs was day time and the 1-3 extra mgs was for the middle of the night.

I got off by doing a lot of work on myself almost daily for over a year now. Reprocessing my traumas. Learning to understand thoughts and emotions I never thought I could, forgiving others and still hell bent on going to the grave not forgiving some of them. Learning to place blame where it belonged. Accepting my blame for things I did wrong. I needed help to sort that out. Learning to forgive myself for those things. Which I think is the hardest out of all and I had to turn back to my faith I had abandoned for me to do that part. It is a very hard and long process, but certainly worth the pain to do it. I am now off prescribed meds. Eventually I hope to quit smoking cigarettes but not there yet.

I spent a very long time very sick from withdrawals. I still have withdrawals. The pain and illnesses are not anywhere as severe now though.

I also had to learn how to handle my panic attacks while on the medication. Then use those tools when I would step down. Also, to ease them you have to do the part above to lower your over all anxiety levels... Hope some of this came out making sense!

 

[blindsided]

veiled, thanks for the info, it did make sense. How did you reduce the xanax in small enough amounts so that you didn't have severe withdrawals? When reducing, did you have sleep problems and how did you handle those?

 

[Deleted member 93]

I got a pill cutter. Seriously I would cut on average 1/4 mg a week at the most. Then I would take a break after a few cuts so I was not so sick. I would get the 1 mg pills and quarter them. Further down the line the doctors would give me 1/4 mg pills so I did not have to cut them up. Towards the end it was really hairy, I would cut my quarters up. Just know your doctor needs to be active in this and it is a very long road to come off.

I had already had sleep issues. Still goes up and down. But I don't have a lot of nightmares any more and I cannot recall the last time panic woke me. Working on your issues is really the only way to help really resolve that.

Things to help take the edge off I did, and still do time to time, drink a truck load of Chamomile tea and Celestial Seasonings "Sleepy Time" tea. Did not work for sleep but helped take the anxious edge off a little. Lavender bubble bath. The hot water relaxes and the Lavender is used to relax. (just hide it from the wife and kids if it gives you a complex). Lots of sprite zero to settle the tummy as I got very sick. Stocked up on Ensure as many times I could not eat any solids. Drinking too much makes anxiety much worse the following day, yeah I tried that route. But 1 - 3 Helped a lot when I got past the throwing up phase. The get really sick part lasted about 4 days for me and felt like the flu. Rebound attacks are no fun either. No caffeine, avoid sugar, eat as many fresh vegetables as you can, try to get fresh air and get some good physical activity without overly doing it. Just a simple stroll alone. But again the first 4 days I would normally be stuck in bed from being ill.

I still keep my bottles of pills with me. They act as sort of a security blanket.

 

[anthony]

Hi blindsided, welcome to the forum and glad to have you here.