Recognising Recovery Again

I wrote on Recognising Recovery nearly a year ago but I got it wrong that time! I certainly wasn't ready to recover and only hope I am now.

How on earth do we do this, recognise recovery? I'm sure I’m recovering but also I’m aware it could just be another window. Many times, throughout this Blog and over the year I’ve been posting here, I’ve believed or hoped the window I was experiencing was actually recovery but, every time the window has slammed shut and I’ve suffered another bad wave of anxiety and its accompanying symptoms lasting weeks or months.

This time it does feel different but I'm reserving judgement for a few more weeks before I announce those ecstatic words, ' I'm Recovered'.  I'm over 28 months off benzos with about three years of bad tolerance withdrawal preceding my discontinuation of the drug and forty years of occasional panic and anxiety attacks caused, I now realise, by following doctors' orders that I must take sleeping tablets. My full story can be read in  Journey to Benzoland  and  Tolerance Tales .

I have just experienced another bad wave and a sleepless night of full on anxiety, panic and restlessness. I believe it was caused by overdoing things while away for a few days. I walked in the sunshine and forgot about withdrawal and pacing! Never a good thing to do. This wave lasted one day and has disappeared again leaving me pain free, energy filled and clear headed. I believe the waves continue to happen as we recover but they are themselves fragile and quickly give way to a further upgrading of our bodies as they disappear into oblivion.  Nevertheless in this wave I was screaming for help as we all do and refused to recognize its transient nature.

I am constantly saying what a weird process we are having to endure but it is just that. It seems recovery may be heralded by an upsurge of symptoms followed by a further window but as time goes on waves become wider and wider apart and less and less intense, lasting just a few hours or days. I’m hoping this is my pattern but I’m all too aware of those that have believed themselves recovered only to return to benzoland, six months later, due to an upsurge of symptoms. We obviously remain fragile for awhile after all this and must never get complacent.

I would love to hear from others who have recovered and how it happened for them. I will ask on the Facebook site as I think it’s something we need to be aware of as time goes by and we think we’ll never get there. I’m over 28 months out and so much better in so many ways.😎

I've learnt that you can go on long after you think you can't, perhaps this is the biggest lesson of all throughout the withdrawal experience.