To all sufferers,
I am at day 349, almost 12 months off the junk. Those small windows have turned into days, and any tension or anxiety now requires an outside source to get me thrown into an unpleasant state. My muscle tightness is beginning to subside, and I can look people in the eyes without thinking that something bad will happen or grimacing like I lost my skis or something. Most notably though, and why I am writing this, is there's a sweetness that has emerged in the past week or so, one that I haven't felt since I was a kid, which is, interestingly, when I did not have a trace of benzos in my system. The closest thing I can compare it to is how Christmas felt as a child. It adds a bit of a kick or a loving incentive to drive on.
Things just keep getting better...always right about at the time I say to myself "Is this it?".
I remember being stuck in a wicked briar patch, where everyday would trade off or vie between sombre and anxious, angry and worried, drained and weak; Heartfelt anguish over absolutely nothing while putting my socks on...happiness or grace was never in the equation. I'd try to force an emotionless and empty cry in the shower to alleviate some of the angst. This awful existence went on for some time.
There are only flash memories of the pain, because there were so many my brain had to pick and choose like postcards. Going from my apartment to my car and feeling like someone was about to jump me while my vision was fuzzy and I wasn't alert. Or trying to lay in my bed to calm down only to have a car horn from the street startle me so much I'd cry like a scared infant. To be so aware of fear but completely out of it otherwise is the closest I can make it to a clean explanation of this mess.
When your in the thick of it, your head will try to find ways to assume that your current state, in a vat of proverbial piss, is simply "life without drugs", and it's absolute bullshit excuse my French. If you can find a way to tell yourself this, you can hopefully get one truth into your brain to give yourself another inch...easier said than done when you're living in this.
All I can say is, and I'm trying to word this right so I don't come off as another preachy one to all those who are going through this...well here it goes...DON'T GIVE UP. It's a damn slow process. It's the biggest test of will as far as I'm concerned, the biggest you will ever have to face. You can do this, I know you can.
"When you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill
All my best,
PC