Hello from Steve,
Writing for the first time in two or three years. I posted a few times early in my taper, and not since. This is my first post since finishing my taper 19 months ago.
Like many others, I found this site when I ran into a wall trying to pill-chop my way off of Klonopin and needed help. I ended up doing a water titration, and got a lot of marvelous help from David, Ruth, and Helen, three pioneers of the water titration method. Without their guidance and support I would never have made it.
My taper took nearly two years, and was pretty hard. I had a range of symptoms, including flue-like aches and chills, loud tinnitus, heart palpitations, agoraphobia. The hardest for me was anxiety / depression - anxiety sometimes to the point of panic, and constant nearly suicidal depression. It was a rough go.
Oddly enough, I didn't suffer much from insomnia, though this had been the original reason I was on Klonopin. I still don't understand why I had this advantage, but I'll take it.
Things actually got worse for quite a while after I got off. For nearly the first year I suffered from continued depression. I could hardly get off my couch, and certainly not out of my apartment. Taking out the garbage or picking up my mail was an adventure. Agoraphobia was a big one for me. I seriously wondered if I would ever get better.
Things began to ease after my first year off, though it was a gradual process. Now at 19 months off, I am beginning to feel a sense of happiness again. There is a ways to go yet - I feel as though I am perhaps a half to two thirds recovered. I am especially happy that my Agoraphobia, which lasted more than three years, is pretty much all gone, and I'm able to get out for the long walks that I've always enjoyed, and to be again the gregarious person that I used to be.
My tinnitus remains quite loud, though possibly reduced a wee bit. I am able to ignore it most of the time, and it doesn't have much effect on my mood.
Two tools which were especially helpful to me in this whole process have been meditation and fasting.
I extend my very profound gratitude to this group, to the owners and old-timers and helpers of all sorts. I would certainly have been lost without it.
And again, my special thanks to David, Ruth, and Helen, for their extended personal attention and hand holding. I owe you all a ton.
And to all those still suffering, I hope my story will be encouraging. Mine was a long hard withdrawal, but I feel a deep sense of returning to my true self now, a self and a happiness that have been absent for many many years.