I am Here. I am Now.

After my medication drop tonight, I will be at 10% of the amount of valium I was started on back on September 14, 2023. Yes I remember the exact date. It began a hellscape of medication mayhem. I most likely had a paradoxical reaction to the drug (meaning instead of decreasing my anxiety, it increased my anxiety). Unfortunately by that point I had been on daily benzos for almost a year. As a result, it wasn’t safe for me to suddenly stop the medication (if you drop too quickly, you run the risk of seizures). And my dose was quite high at 20 mg per day.  At the same time I was absolutely losing it. I was randomly screaming and speaking gibberish.

The next day we ended up calling the psychiatrist on call at the hospital where my doctor was based and they advised me to restart a low-dose of my prior benzo, theorizing that I wasn’t handling the transition well. I did and thus I was on 2 benzos per day, neither of which was helping my anxiety, and both of which were making me so much worse. After a week at 20 mg my psychiatrist finally suggested I dropped down to 15 mg which I did. I was still losing my mind so he said I could drop to 10 mg. Unfortunately by that point I had already done my research and found out that it was not safe to drop a benzo by more than 1 mg per week. And I had already dropped 5 mg in 1 week. By that point I knew that my psychiatrist didn’t know anything and was incompetent and was most likely guilty of malpractice. He was certainly causing me severe harm.

I don’t currently have the energy to go into more details about the medication-induced hell that I’ve been going through. (Although I do hope to eventually write out my story, and share it with others as a cautionary tale of over prescribing.)

The main point of this post is that after almost 3 years of continuous work to get off benzos, I am finally at 10% of what I was before!! 🤩
[Oh and last summer I finally got off the second benzo that had been added 9/15/23 to ease my transition. I had been afraid to stop it because I was convinced it was making the valium less bad.]

I’m really hoping to get to 1.5 mg of valium before the 3 year anniversary of when I dropped to 15 mg.

For those of you doing the math, yes it will take me more than 3 years to titrate off of the valium that I started in September 2023!! The reason I haven’t been able to do it faster is because, in addition to the valium causing me severe harm, I have also experienced really severe withdrawal symptoms when I go down too quickly. Let’s just say insomnia is the least harmful of the withdrawal symptoms. Unfortunately insomnia is still cropping up, even as I decrease my dose at a painfully slow rate. My latest idea is to go down by 0.05 mg. All my titrations are done via liquid valium and a tiny syringe!

Here is a photo of me holding my bottle of liquid valium upside down with my tiny plastic syringe inserted. If you look closely you can see that I’ve drawn out 0.05 mL of pale orange liquid. I then squirt it into my cheek pouch. I am using extra syringes I got from when I had to give my cat meds, and am using the same technique: squirt medication into my cheek pouch! (In case you’re curious, that’s a rubber band around the medicine bottle. I use it to attach a note reminding which amount of liquid I’m taking that day!)

And so I persist.

I am here. I am now.

May all beings be safe.
May all beings be healthy.
May all beings have peace.
May all beings be free from suffering.

A song that feels relevant! 😍
“Glory Days” by Just Jack from his 2007 album Overtones (link).

“It’s just another one of those glory days
Jump out your bed
Shake your head
Clear the haze
Step out your house
And prepare to be amazed
It’s just another one of those
Just another one of those
Just another one of those glory days”