Valium And Other Psychiatric Drugs

[Justmehere]

P.s. If the doctor you are going to see offers Valium for your symptoms, I would politely decline it and find a new doctor ASAP. A doc prescribing Valium alone for PTSD anxiety is not a doc who knows about all the latest research about meds and PTSD. There are other meds that can help with anxiety. They are not a replacement for therapy.

Medication might help you feel more ready to give other therapies a try though.

You are right that therapy won't erase the memories. Medication won't either. Try looking up the book "The Body Bears The Burden" by Dr. Scarer.

People will feel a lot of anxiety and have PTSD symptoms even when they have ZERO memory of the trauma. Making the memories go away won't likely stop the anxiety.

Working with the memories with a trauma specialist can make the memories no longer haunt you and cause so many symptoms. It can take some time to find the right provider and right therapy.

 

[Dana1010]

@Justmehere You're probably right but for me, getting rid of the memories would provide a lot of relief 'cause I feel like they're always there. The few times I am able to successfully ground myself or achieve a meditative state, that's when I'm able to get the memories out of my head, and I feel noticeably better during those times. So I'm thinking for me, it is the memories doing the bulk of the damage.

 

[anonymous]

Oh, and by the way, Valium's one of the strongest of the benzodiazepines.

I thought valium was a milder benzo (though they work pretty differently and on different types of anxiety) but the most important thing is that they will work differently for different people, for me diazepam did nothing, lorazepam takes a tiny bit of the edge off. I think approximately it works out that 1mg Clonazepam (Klonopin) is similar to 1mg Alprolazam (Xanax), 4mg ativan (Lorazepam) or 10-20mg Diazepam (Valium).

I second @Justmehere - benzo's can be really bad for you - they're addictive, they can worsen depression, they have huge lists of side effects - but sometimes they can help and be necessary. Nothing will get rid of your memories, the only thing that will lessen them both in quantity and the amount that they distress you is processing them (EMDR, Somatic, CBR, DBT etc, etc.) - the good thing is that processing trauma is the way to regain a healthy, as close to normal life as possible, reduce nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, depression, insomnia, hypervigilance and so many of the other issues with PTSD. The down side is it's hard work, you have to go slow and gentle to not retraumatise yourself.

 

[Dana1010]

@anonymous I started a trauma journal as a way to process the bad memories that intrude on me throughout the day. A memory would come up and I would grab the journal and write about it. Sometimes my hand would shake and my breathing would become irregular. It was hell putting those sentences down, but most of the time I felt somewhat emptied of the emotion afterwards, and a little calmer if drained. At least once I remember feeling worse after writing an entry.

I just don't know how a bad memory will ever cease being bad no matter how much "processing" you do.

 

[StarChild]

My issue these days isn't really crying or sadness, it's fear and anxiety.

What I stated about the mechanism of benzodiazepines, applies not only for sadness, but as well for fear and anxiety and lots of other psychic conditions. As it is clearly described in the link I put into my former post.

I thought valium was a milder benzo (

Actually not: Because it's also such a strong muscle relaxant, it's even used to set patients relocated arms.

 

[Mary1209]

For me, it just keeps it from getting too overwhelming and stops the downward spiral. I will likely be on klonopin the rest of my life, but that's ok......I only take a tiny bit as needed.

[DOUBLEPOST=1404503483,1404503328][/DOUBLEPOST]I have Valium RX- It helps with anxiety and muscle spasms, panic, but is a depressant. Could bring you more down. discuss thoroughly with your doctor and I also don;t use round the clock. Only as needed. Good luck.

 

[Justmehere]

Somatic therapy or EMDR is not talk therapy. Both use very little talking. It is not meditation. They are very different. It's also not journaling - that didn't help me either. It only access part of the brain when trauma is stored differently than other memory. In EMDR and somatic experiencing, you don't have to talk through all the trauma. It's not about saying what happened and understanding it better.

I couldn't control my anxiety long enough to even sit still to mediate.

If meditation helps you, mindfulness training that comes with DBT skills practice might be a really good place to start. I have used Ativan and klonopin and Valium. Mindfulness training really helped me a lot. For me, it helped more than the benzos.

 

[Dana1010]

One area where memory is really problematic is self concept and self esteem. If you're a war veteran, you may have really bad PTSD but at least you can be proud of having fought bravely, and others honor you and respect what you've been through. Other types of trauma involve memories that no one would be proud of or be able to talk to other people about and say, look how strong I am for surviving this. I think self concept is composed practically entirely of one's history, so it's very hard to feel good about yourself when your swimming in memories that wrack your whole body with shame. And the worst part is even if you can make them less painful, they still paint an ugly picture of you that you have to live with.

 

[Justmehere]

I think the vets can speak more clearly on this, but everyone with combat PTSD that I have known had deep guilt and terrible self images. From the outside, those of us not struggling with combat PTSD can see that they should be proud.

I believe you should be proud too. I think every survivor of every kind of trauma should be just as proud as anyone else for surviving the trauma that they have survived.

What you survived may be ugly, but I respectfully disagree with you that it paints an ugly picture of you. You are a survivor looking to heal. To me, that is beautiful.

 

[Dana1010]

Thanks. Would that there were more justmeheres in the world :-/

I think it was the role I played in the events, however naive, misguided and predetermined by my terrible childhood, that keeps nagging at me to blame myself.