☼ Ten0275: I'm Dave and I'm almost there

[Addax]

Great post, Dave! So glad to read you're doing well. It is quite a relief to be be able to find relief and comfort in physical activities again. It can really feel like some kind of warped betrayal by our brain and body when what typically makes us feel good begins to turn on us. What music are you putting on your iPod these days?

 

I too have become well aware of my own "fragile stability" and as a result am also holding for a good long time and no longer have a date set for my last dose. At my age I thought I was done learning the hard way.

 

Keep on keeping on, Dave.

[AmyK]

Beautiful post, Dave.

[ten0275]

addax and amy k, hey.

thanks for reading the thing, it means a lot.

addax - sample of current records on the iPod below. we are moving into the season of "warm-weather listens." i am very seasonal in my music. how about you, what are you spinning? this is an open question to everyone actually. i love to know what music moves people. (NOTE: i could not listen to music for the first 9 months of withdrawal).

U2 - Achtung Baby
George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
Erykah Badu - Baduizm
Parliament Funkadelic - Chocolate City
Curtis Mayfield - Curtis
Iggy Pop and The Stooges - Fun House
James Taylor - Greatest Hits
Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul
The Doors - LA Woman
Ryan Adams - Love Is Hell
Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour
Johnny Marr - The Messenger
Pink Floyd - Obscurred by Clouds
Eric Clapton - Times Pieces
Ice Cube - War and Peace
Grateful Dead - Workingman's Dead
Soccer Team - “Volunteered” Civility & Professionalism
Adverts - Singles Collection
Ty Segall – Live at Pickathon
Rites of Spring - End On End
Jimi Hendrix - Astroman Studio Outtakes
The Clash - London Calling
Meat Puppets - Up On The Sun
MC5 – Babes In Arms
Guerilla Toss - 367 Equalizer

[Skyler]

i never imagined today at that time. never. couldn't even see it as a remote chance. the number of times i thought of throwing in the towel and either taking more drugs or taking my crap life out of the equation were too many to count. if i had made either of those choices, i would have missed my second chance at living. i would have missed that quiet sound of new spring insects i heard as i left my house early this morning. i would have missed that amazing hendrix guitar solo on "voodoo child" i heard for the 143rd time on my ride in this morning, it still sounds good. i would have missed the gym. i would have missed all the people who smiled and said "good morning," and would have also missed the chance to return those greetings. i am telling you without exaggeration - i take ZERO for granted now. ZERO. every second is a fraction of this human life that i didn't anticipate living - when i was in hell.

 

i'm not done yet, but i am in this to the end. with you.

 

Wonderful post Dave.  Uplifting.  You have a truly good spirit.  Good to know you.

[ten0275]

skyler, hi.

 

totally mutual, my friend. and it seems spring has finally found us.

 

thanks for reading, and saying hello. much appreciated.

 

dave

[MomOf5]

Hi Dave,

 

Thanks for posting on my thread.  I am enjoying reading your story and all the words of wisdom offered by you and others here.

 

I look forward to following your journey to freedom!

[AlexKidd]

Hi Dave, I've been reading your thread with great interest. You have a magnificent way with words, you write so eloquently and express the harsh realities of this horrendous experience we all go through so beautifully.

 

Good to hear you're doing ok, Alex.

[Addax]

Quite an eclectic mix, Dave! Love it.

 

I go through phases with my music listening preference as well. Maybe it's seasonal. I've never kept track. I tend to gravitate towards a particular artist then overplay than genre, move on to the next then maybe come back to that genre and/or artist some time later (could be a year or more). My musical taste also varies with activity. My iPod is dead so I've been using Pandora, so I don't have a specific play list. It may change in a week or so, but right now my leisure listening includes:

First Aid Kit

David Bowie

Fleetwood Mac

Beck

Angus & Julie Stone

Iron and Wine

 

For the gym I tend towards music with a harder edge (e.g.: Rob Zombie)

Cardio will take me to hip-hop or 80s tunes. However, some 80's tunes make me want to sing along, so I try to avoid those if cardio is the exercise of the day :-P.

 

Someone once told me to try classical music when I run. Something about it helping to slow the heart rate... I keep forgetting to try it.

[Flowers]

Hi Dave

 

Your post made such happy reading. As a person in the early stages of withdrawal it gives me hope that things will improve as they have for you.

 

I am really pleased that you are in such a good place in your life - and appreciating every moment of it.

 

Love from Flowers xxx

[brassmonkey]

That is such an excellent update Ten, you have come so far since I meant you just under six months ago. Things should just keep getting better from here.

[ten0275]

alex, hello!

thank you for reading, for taking the time to do so. and i appreciate your sentiments about the writing. it feels nice to be able to read and write again. my brain was too mushy there for awhile, in early withdrawal, for that to happen.

addax!

very choice music you are consuming!

first aid kit - i fell absolutely in love with those girls when they made that little homegrown YouTube video covering that Fleet Foxes song. i cried like a baby. it is an intense video. i have to think you've seen it.

david bowie - now see, he is cold-weather listens for me - particularly the albums known as the "berlin trilogy." those would be "heroes," "lodger," and "low." bowie has made so many good records.

fleetwood mac - two words for you - stevie...nicks... i can say no more... sigh...

beck - funny! i just got off of a serious beck binge. his new album, "morning phase," is superb. i like his more subtle work like that. "modern guilt" is another of his more subdued works. the earlier stuff like "mellow gold" and "guero" are good, but i feel like he has hit creative stride now.

angus & julie stone - have not heard, must explore!

iron and wine - have not heard, must explore!

rob zombie in the gym! lovely! i will occasionally indulge in slayer, but that is dangerous as both of my middle fingers immediately start to elevate and the people around me stare...

yeah, i would never take duran duran or erasure for cardio... that made me laugh!

flowers,

thank you so much! it is truly my happiness if my post provided you with some uplifting reading. happy reading, when i could actually read, was so necessary for me earlier in withdrawal. i really appreciate you taking the time to write me. i often check your thread to see how you are holding. hang in there!

brassmonkey,

you're an absolute force of nature, even amidst your own withdrawal trauma. your comments to myself and others just feel good. i feel like you always dish the straight deal and you really speak from your heart and that is a blessing to all of us. thanks for reading the thing.

[freespirit]

Always love reading your posts Dave. You can articulate in ways that are truly a gift...

 

On the subject of 2nd chance at life, I wish this section of your post was included in the "read this first" section. It is immensely helpful to hear that kind of embracing of life, especially for those in the early stages of WD. There is of course, a lot of suffering on this site. Most of us have nowhere else to go with that, and it very much needs to be here...and it's also good having something to look forward to at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

 

You also provide a great testament to the wisdom of going slowly and carefully.

[ten0275]

freespirit,

 

thank you so much for your kindness and love. you know, you did me such a great service in helping me understand the histamine issue better. your advice came at a time when i really needed it. i truly think the modifications i made dietarily as a result of our conversations had a huge impact on the short-lived period of turmoil resulting from that syringe error. so thankful.

 

you are such a peaceful, kind, open, and warm presence here. your fortitude in the face of the pharmaceutical and personal-life challenges you've faced is awe-inspiring. thank you for being a part of this community and being so giving of yourself.

 

dave

[Meimeiquest]

Anybody can "******" anything and drop it into Best of SA thread in the off-topic forum.

[Meimeiquest]

Hmmm, s n a t c h got edited out. Lol, I guess I am too old!

[ten0275]

OMG, meimei! i just lost a mouthful of water on my keyboard over that clarification! i must be too old too because it took me a minute for the penny to drop... ha ha ha ha! thank you for the inadvertant laugh! it would never have occured to me that that word would get pegged. what kind of site are we frequenting here?!?!

 

dave

[LoveandLight]

That's great haha had to look up what it meant

[Athena]

Très très beau!

[MomOf5]

Hello, Dave.  I just thought I'd stop by to say hello and see how you are doing!  I hope the answer is "well!"  How goes the Remeron reduction?  I wish us both gentle symptoms and plenty of good sleep (although I certainly could do without the crazy dreams I get)! 

 

E

[ten0275]

everyone, hello.

it has been a long while since i have updated my thread here. in fact, i have been largely absent from the site for the past month or so. i've had a few veritable explosions in my personal life that i've needed to attend to, and am continuing to attend to, hence a distinct decrease in available waking hours. i have however tried to at least glance at the posts of our newer community members and those of you who have been on the pain-train to healing for quite some time. i think of you all quite often. that is not just lip-service. often i'll be in a situation or viewing something and think to myself, i wonder what he/she would think of that? it's funny how the mind works, and how even an online community can carry out into the worlds we encounter in our own spaces every day. you are anything but virtual, my friends.

i am continuing my dose-hold. i have stabilized very well as a result. in a sense, it is assuring to me to know, based on current daily living, that i could, without much discomfort, live the rest of my life on the measly squirt of mirtazapine i am currently taking and be fine. while my goal is still complete cessation, i am comfortable with the very, very gradual cut/hold philosophy. for me, no matter how impatient i get to jump (and trust me, the thought crosses my mind), i feel i have come too far to risk shattering everything. i view it as the equivalent of jumping out of a airplane and at about 200 feet from the ground saying, "screw it, close enough," and ditching the parachute. it's likely not going to be pretty.

5 days from now is an important day for me. it marks the three year anniversary of my jump from benzodiazepines - after tapering from two decades of daily use in under two months. the taper was actually longer than my physician had recommended. in addition i had, about 3 months prior to that, cold-turkeyed mirtazapine - again on the direct advice of my then physician. i know i don't need to tell many of you how incredibly demolished i was on friday june 22nd, 2012. because a lot of you are living and breathing that repulsive and terrifying reality right now. and if you're not living and breathing it right now, it isn't too-far-gone in your rear-view at this point.

i was so hurt. i was so confused. i was so useless. i was vastly underweight, malnourished, and weak. my thoughts oscillated between self-harm/self-termination and the intrusive thoughts/impulses that flashed visions of violence towards others. i was brain-damaged. there is zero doubt of that. no one believed me nor understood. i would vomit every single morning - horrible wretching nausea. by the monday following june 22, i had checked myself into the hospital for the first time. i spent the first night in the hospital bed shaking. i wasn't cold. i had no control over the twitches of my muscles. a staff member would come in to check on me about every 30 minutes. i'd hold as steady as possible with my eyes closed just so she would leave and not try to make me take something - because the few times she caught me awake, she tried to make me take many things.

this stuff comes back in flashes sometimes, you'll see what i mean if you already haven't. some of them i haven't thought of since i was in there. earlier this morning, i remembered that on my second day in the hospital, when i had been taken off suicide-watch, they let me hold a guitar that belonged to the unit. nothing else about me was working, but i was managing to bend the strings and sing a few really awkward pop songs. and some other patients sat around watching me. they were all stoned, but not in any good "remember-the-60s" kind of way. it was all the intense pharmaceuticals they were pumped up on. one lady, i thought she was singing along to the song i was letting go of, but then i realized she was just talking to herself. one guy was so agitated, he was pacing. i asked him if i should stop playing and he said, "no the music is fine, man." that guy, they kept giving him mega-doses of seroquel to calm him. but it was having the opposite reaction. you could see it. every time the nurse would give him the little white cup with the pill in it, he'd be up another notch on the agitation-scale within the hour. by 9pm that night, the guy totally destroyed his room and had to be taken to a more restrictive unit by security. i was commended by the staff for remaining calm while that man was flipping out - because many other patients did not remain calm. what the nursing staff did not know was that when i heard that guy screaming and throwing his belongings against the wall, and finally being restrained by very large security men, i actually urinated in my pants. pure fear. i hadn't done that since i was about 8 years old. terrifying.

when i read your suffering, it makes me squirm. because it brings me back into a direct relationship with my own period of devastation. i would never in a million years tell someone i know what they are precisely going through. i think we all have suffering-meters set at different levels and the intensity of the beatings that the psychotropics dishes out to each of us also varies. but i feel we are distinctly unified by what we have to muscle through on any given day. they don't bottle courage at a proof that comes even close to what you muster every day just to look at the screen and check in here. this i am certain of.

so june 22nd will be an anniversary of sorts for me. i don't know what i will do, if anything, about that. but i will without question take time to understand that i was in a place then that i thought i would never, ever escape from. do you hear me? i thought it was the end-game, broken forever. i know you know, all the fear that you have of permanent damage, permanent suffering, lifetime down the drain? should i have tapered? should i cold turkeyed? what if i am different than every one else who has gotten better? i had those. but time proved me wrong. i waited it out and time took care of the rest. and i think somewhere within you, beyond the HOPE that it will happen for you, resides the actual seed of its happening. please nurture that seed.

and in terms of the personal situations i am facing, i just want to add that they, in their own way, are emotionally painful on a fairly heavy scale. but lean in here for a second and let me tell you a little secret. ready? ok. the magic is... i can actually feel, FEEL, the emotional pain. it is registering. and i am reacting intuitively and appropriately to it. i am being constructive with my pain. something i could never have done for the first 3 quarters of my life thus lived. oh my goodness. i AM human. i never knew!

thank you for taking the time to read this if you have. sorry i have been so absent. i will be back in a better way sometime soon.

hang in there. cold turkey tribe (please don't) or slow taper tribe, healing will happen.

dave

 

ps - thanks for checking in, E!

[Prestorb]

Always good to hear from you Dave! :-)

[Mort81]

Keep it up Dave !! love hearing your progress , you have come so far !

[Athena]

Such a beautiful share Dave. I celebrate your 3 year anniversary with you. *tears in my eyes*

Bravo bravo bravo!!!

[brassmonkey]

Hey Dave--  Painful as it has been, that was an amazing update.  I am so glad, but sorry, that you have had to go through the emotional pain of your "situations".  The realization of feeling and acting on those emotions is so exciting and terrifying at the same time.  When mine started to "come back on line" a year or so ago I think the excitement of feeling them totally overshadowed the negatives of what they were.  Since then they have smoothed out a lot and have become much more "natural" and manageable.  I hope the "situations" work out for the best.

 

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ MAN HUGS}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

[freespirit]

Good to read your update Dave. While your personal situations sound challenging on one hand, I recognize the aliveness that comes from feeling emotions and being able to turn towards what's happening. I think it can be both invigorating and a bit scary at the same time. I'm glad you've been able to find such stability in WD...I think that's a real testament to your patience. Wishing you well with the anniversary date, which can obviously bring up a lot of stuff...I hope you can see how far you've come in that 3 years. I think it's amazing.

[ten0275]

thanks all so much love, so much appreciation i have. i'm thankful for everyone, and for our community of healing.

 

hang in there.

 

dave

[bluebalu86]

Dave, you are my biggest inspiration. I'm so happy for you. Your words have always touched me and helped me through the dark times. I think you are amazing. I wish I knew you in person  

[luv2knit]

Awesome update, Dave. You are an inspiration. I hope someday I will have a success story to tell.

[Hopefull]

Hi ten0275,

 

Reading your update brought me close to tears. It gives me hope that things will get better, even when you don't believe it will. When I read the part about fear of permanent damage, self doubt about healing, recovering, fear of life long suffering, to cold turkey or not, I could not put it into words any better than you. This is exactly how I feel.

Constant questioning, if what I did or what I am doing is right. When will I see the light at the end of the tunnel?

Can you please tell me during your taper of Mitrazapine, did you ever experience worsening anxiety as Mirtazapine left your body? I have been experiencing this latley. I will feel worse towards the end of the day as Mirtazapine left the body, and feel better after I take the dose. I feel like a drug addict. This makes me feel scared, how I am going to free myself from this poison .

Your post does bring me comfort knowing that in 12 months time things will get better. Thank you, hopefull.

[Mort81]

Hey Dave Just came by your thread hope your doing well buddy 

[ten0275]

Mort, hey man.

 

Thanks for stopping by and clearing the cobwebs off this thread! Ha ha. It's been awhile. I've had some things in my personal life that have needed an increasing amount of time, hence my lesser presence on the site. But I am solidly hanging in there and still check in and will be back in a more expansive way, hopefully in the not too distant future. I've loved reading about your progress. So many on this site, whether struggling to gain the first foothold, or in a more graduated state of stability, show courage, love, and tenderness even in the midst of their own deep trauma. Often we crash into this site with our nervous systems ablaze - complete panic ensuing as our worlds tumble around us. But time and time again, the metamorphosis of very gradual healing cools those initial flames - and we realize we're in it for the long haul. And in due course, we find the strength (and support) to persevere. I would have never volunteered for withdrawal, but I am proud of all our sisters and brothers who fight our way to wellness in the wake of pharmaceutical injury. It's an honor on to be a part of this community.

 

Keep up the great work.

 

Dave

[AliG]

Hi Dave,

It's good to hear that you're ok.  I was a bit worried about you. You haven't been around, in the longest time.  I hope all is well.    Ali.

[Hopefull]

It is really nice to hear from you Dave.

You always have a great way with words.

Reading your posts, gives me hope.

Hopefull

[Mort81]

Awesome buddy! Your words inspire and happy to fight by your side !

[freespirit]

Hey Dave,

 

Good to see you here...I hope things resolve that are happening in your personal life. I find your posts inspiring too...

[melanie]

Just stopping by to say hello...

 

Read parts of your thread. Congrats on getting off benzos. Used to be benzo-free for 11 years, then the benzo delusion came back. Currently struggling on Lexapro 1,25 mg and tapering benzos.

 

Can totally relate to the hospital experience. Last year nurse was forcing me to swallow 200 mg Seroquel, saying other patients take four times as much. When I refused she told me it would be reported to the doctor. I saw those guys with bent heads, loaded with neuroleptics, doing their morning walk in a row. Then I knew I must escape. They wanted to give me Ativan. Knew I would never get out of there if I took it. Refused.

 

Was hospitalized three times, the first time in 1999 could spit out my Anafranil dose into the bathroom sink. But last year it was impossible to spit out Seroquel, the nurse watched closely if I swallow.

 

Just keep on healing,

Mel