Darkness

This morning I was journaling about random feeling and i got to a point where I was writing that I notice once fear creeps in slowly I feel am or was in a lighted room with little pain , then I get over come and the door slams shut and i am in the dark with my shadow ...Fear is my demon it let’s me have a couple of jail free days and then drags me right back to hell and pain. Why does the brain do this .
My anxiety is really bad I try to do all that Claire weeks tells you to do but after hours or even days I sure come to taking a klonpin to calm my body down to baseline .

I feel anxiety is so much worse than the pain that follows . I am open to all comments here on general forum or pm me. And yes I have seen and done Tms therapy ( was not much help then regular therapy but did make me aware of pit falls) also my primary dr here in Boston is a Tms physician so medically I have been check.

 

Have you been participating in cognitive behavioral therapy with the goal of inducing positive neuroplasticity to change how you manage and perceive anxiety? That may be helpful here. Remember that everyone has the ability to change their brain, as its highly plastic.

I was actually diagnosed with major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and obsessive compulsive behaviors. My life is so much better now. The major depressive diagnosis is clearly not accurate for me anymore (I just don't have depressive or suicidal thoughts anymore, even on a bad day), and I've worked through my anxious thinking and the compulsive rituals I used to have around them to a point where I feel incredibly in control.

 

Thx Dorado

I done many talk therapy along with Tms talk therapy and yes it shed some insight and light on the issues at hand ..it never really led me out of the darkness I speak of..I found it to be a merry go around starting and finishing in the same place without much resolve.

 

You're having jail free days. That's great. You know it's possible, and the way forward (in my opinion) is to make those days more and more frequent and more and more often. It's not easy but it's the way out of this hell, and you'll have an even better life on the other side.

It's great you see this. This is so important. It shows you that the pain is secondary in all this.

I'm going to read your other posts right now.

 

But along this way I am getting help with klonpin if I don’t the anxiety is totally out of control and I can’t do the work it takes to heal

 

I think the Klonopin is ok. I remember Claire Weekes saying it's useful when you're still highly sensitized. So it can have its place right now but there will come a day when it won't.

 

Yes I agree and believe I tried but the anxiety was to much and that’s not good for your body to be so turned up it was making me faint .

I will not give klonpin so much power but at the moment it’s what I need

 

Definitely. There's no reason to feel stress or strain over it.
I took it for about a year in college and then one day I just stopped, no problem.

 

I’ve started and stopped numerous benzo without any issues but I never taken more than 1mg a day at anytime

 

I think you have the right @Marinedad to use klonopin in these times of high stress. Like you said you have never abused it and never taken more than 1 mg. It is a tool in your toolbox to help you make it through. I think January/Winter/dark months are hard on anyone regardless if they have TMS or not. FEAR, remember are False Events Appearing Real. What about in those moments of FEAR, you think about how everytime you have gone into FEAR, you have always come back out into the light. It would give you less to fear, as you are getting breaks from the 'jail.'

 

For me, I believe benzos contributed big time to my pain and anxiety. I was never on very much - I took valium "as needed" which for me would be a few times a month. Small dosage - like 5mg. For years. When I saw my first TMS therapist the first thing she asked me was if I used any benzos. She said she had seen a big correlation to her patients with chronic pain and benzo use.

There is obviously a horse/cart question...which came first? For me I suffered from TMJ pain terribly for years and it felt like the only thing that would touch that pain was a valium. Years later after some research I now suspect it was my casual use of the valium that created the TMJ. Sporadic use of benzos create was is called "tolerance withdrawal".

Here is my very unsophisticated understanding of how benzos work...they turn on the brakes to our anxiety (via gaba receptors) and when they are used for a long period of time, even in low dosage, even sporadically, we experience tolerance withdrawal. Which is to say our brains start to rev up because there is nothing to step on the brakes. Anxiety increases, deep darkness begins. It is simply this - benzos rewire our brains.

US doctors are still not up to speed on these meds ... they continue to hand them out pretty regularly. My husband went to his doctor for chest pains and they sent him home with an RX for Klonopin.

After my therapist gave me the red flag I did some research, learned a lot from a support site online (benzobuddies) and made the decision to get off the valium. I ended up doing a self taper program over 18 months and have been off for almost 2 years. Even at that low dosage it was not easy. It has taken my brain some time but it is slowly healing. It has not changed my one bad chronic pain situation but some of the other pain and odd symptoms I experienced are gone. It has helped my mental health immensely - which in turn is helping me deal with TMS pain - and gone are the really dark days when I could barely get out of bed and was so agitated by any person/noise/demand that I thought my head would spin off.

Of course only you know what is best to take you through this difficult time...but take into consideration that the benzo use could be making your anxiety and depression worse.

I hope things get better for you soon. I am struggling myself with quite a bit of anxiety and pain ... it is exhausting. I wish you the best.

 

I agree with you 100 percent I been suffering anxiety for many years tried al the holistic approach’s supplements Tms approach’s, calm and float you name it..But this problem has put me in the hospital to many times along with not leaving my house for months. Along with other health issues.

My body was hyper sensitized to the extreme ..did the antidepressants route made me sicker . Then I went to a Tms dr and he told me we need to shut you down and slowly restart. He gave me the benzo.5 klonpin as needed mainly I take 1/2 of that a day it has calmed me down to mediate journal goto gym and able to work.
I feel people over due al meds and they get a bad wrap. My brother was addicted to Tylenol and lost a kidney so I would put a black box warning on everything . For know it gave me some life and I am working on calming myself down ...darkness as turned into some light since the med . I will not give klonpin all this power but use it as a tool in my bag.