Timeframes

Let’s talk about time.

In benzo withdrawal we often hear,
‘How long is it going to last?’
‘When did you start feeling better?’
‘How long does acute last?’
‘When does sleep return,’ and so forth.....

Our lives are controlled by timelines even when not in withdrawal. We celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and look forward to something happening at a date in the future. They even contribute to who we are such as a teenager, or a pensioner. The years slip by and get sorted into time frames in our minds according to past events. In other words time can almost limit our lives and our expectancies. They are an ‘intricate web of expectations, wishes, dreams, demands and longings’. By such and such an age we should be married, have had children, retired, fulfilled our dreams....they throw up numerous questions and only serve to feed the assumptions of when stuff should happen in our lives.

You may be able to see what I’m trying to say in the context of benzo withdrawal. We are all victims of time frames but it’s impossible to say how your own time frames are going to span out. You could be well tomorrow or five years from now, there is just no way of telling. Time stretches out in front of us and can be divided into segments such as the acute phase or protracted but the length of each can only be personal.

The same goes for symptoms. Asking how long such and such a symptom lasted for somebody else doesn’t inform us how long this symptom will last for us. Asking how long they took Benzos for isn’t telling us anything about our own recovery just reflecting an interest in somebody else’s story. Everything is anecdotal, nothing related to time tells us how our own recovery is going to happen or what our expectations should be.

So the point of all this is not to control your expectations by fitting them into somebody else’s time frames. Don’t be disappointed when time frames don’t meet your own expectations. You are going to get well and as is so often said if you give it ‘time’. Nobody will be able to tell you what that ‘time’ is going to be for you but you can go with your own recovery and watch it flow out before you or you can become upset when you feel it’s all taking too long.

I’ll stop there but the main point in this preamble is not to be controlled by time frames in benzo withdrawal or be disappointed when they don’t meet you expectations. Try and let it happen and all will be well in the time that is right for you. Love to everyone at this moment in time 😊❤️.