MARK'S STORY: From 15mg Xanax to 100% healed

[WebDevElijah]

MARK'S STORY:

 

 

I want to begin by saying that this is a recovery story, and for all of you out there who are still suffering to varying degrees, please, don’t give up. I wanted to share my story to provide hope because I share a common thread with each and every one of you, and stories like these were the difference to me on days when I thought I was completely lost and would stay lost.

 

I have been an anxiety and depression sufferer for as long as I can remember, bullied as a child and through my teens, always being the ‘sensitive’ one. Hitting my hormonal late teens, many elements came together to create a final boiling point. I started experiencing feelings of unreality (DP or DR as many of you know it as), so a trip to a local psychiatrist was, at the time, the best point of call for help. I couldn’t afford to pay her, so she started seeing me at no charge. I was immediately prescribed an anti-depressant. I remember taking it for the first time and experiencing, what I now know to be, side effects of a drug entering my system.

 

I called my psychiatrist and local doctor in a panic, feeling awful, and my dosage was immediately increased to three times the amount, with an anti-psychotic thrown in for good measure. A couple of months down the track, I was now a depressed zombie, so drugged up and with feelings all over the place. My psychiatrist’s enthusiasm quickly waned—after all, she wasn’t being paid. I was in a bad way, 17 years old, still holding on to my full-time job, panicked because I just wanted my life back.

 

Now, enter the Xanax. One pill, just one, was all it took. I still remember taking it for the first time: swallow, 20 minutes went past, relax, another 20, and I felt better than I had in my whole life! Not just better—I was a super me. All the troubles of the last 17 years had been wiped away. I was now confident, happy, and enthusiastic.

 

One daily pill quickly became two, two became three, then another added in when I needed. I was always chasing that initial feeling, and my doctors were happy to prescribe, never questioning the speed of the bottle disappearing.

 

Two years later, I was alpha me, taking copious amounts of Xanax. I was reckless, rude, aggressive, and self-destructive. I saw shrink after shrink. By this time, I had been prescribed every drug in the book (and every type and class). It even got to the point where I would research the drugs myself and tell them what I wanted, and it would be given to me. Not one of my psychiatrists questioned the Xanax, that it could now be causing my problems or that I had been on it far too long.

 

At around year four, I had stopped taking any other drug but Xanax, and I had stopped seeing any psychiatrist, just a monthly phone call to my GP for a Xanax prescription (which came with a few repeats so I didn’t run out). By the end, I had been taking Xanax for around seven years, going through a bottle a week. The little 0.5 mg tablet I took initially had turned into a frightening 15 mg per day. I was a train wreck, but because I had a full-time job, I was never questioned or refused a prescription.

 

I didn’t understand addiction, and I didn’t know what I had become. I was completely unaware of my situation. I lived in a Xanax world—until one day.

I went to work as usual that day. I hadn’t had my morning Xanax, but I thought I’d just get it when I got to work. The chemist was still shut, and I was busy at work, the day speeding by. Around mid-afternoon, I couldn’t get off the chair. My brain was shutting down; I thought I had a really bad virus. I managed to get home and to the chemist for my prescription, swallowed the pill, and 20 minutes later, no symptoms at all. Debilitating sickness magically gone—I knew there was a problem.

 

I did my research, found my internet groups, the Ashton Manual, and a local drug and alcohol support group (The Buoyancy Foundation in Melbourne, which was truly amazing—natural therapy-based and provided most of my support). I quit my job, moved back in with my parents, and quickly started my taper. I went from 15 mg per day to 0.5 mg in about a month. Yes, I was sick, but nothing compared to the sickness I felt when I took my last pill.

Hallucinations, paranoia, major depression, anxiety, tunnel vision, no energy, constant suicidal thoughts—every symptom on the list I had in full force. I was 24 years old and on a disability pension. I couldn’t even walk five minutes to the local shops without having to sit down. No medical professional believed that after a month I could still be suffering withdrawal. I had to hold on to my own beliefs and intuition. The support I had from internet benzo groups and the Buoyancy Foundation was amazing. I kept going.

 

It took two years for the paranoia to stop, three years before I would take my beanie off (I wore a beanie, even in summer on a 40-degree day because I thought everyone was looking at me, thinking I was hideously ugly), and four years before I felt like I had recovered enough to return to work.

My moments of recovery would happen overnight (which also no one believed). I would get severe headaches the day before, then wake up, and a symptom would be gone. This would happen once a month, then every couple of months, getting further and further apart as I got better and made progress.

 

After four years, I considered myself 85% healed. That’s where I thought it would stop. I hit a plateau for a long time, maybe years. I opened up my own business and went back to work six days a week. In hindsight, I probably wasn’t quite ready, but when are you ever?

 

Now six years have passed. It’s been almost nine years since I have taken Xanax. I have fully recovered. I still run my own successful business. I exercise every day. I am an educator and can talk to a room full of 100 or more people with confidence. I tell you this for no other reason than that there was a time, not long ago at all, when I thought it would never be possible.

 

Here’s What Helped Me:

Diet is everything – I considered myself 85% healed until I started intermittent fasting. This has been the biggest help out of anything. I eat healthily for 8 hours a day, then fast for the other 16. After three days of doing this, I was completely symptom-free.

Exercise is essential – You don’t have to become an Olympian! Just get your heart rate up for a short period every day.

Meditation – 20 minutes a day of just sitting and letting my thoughts flow saved me. You don’t have to become a Buddhist! Just sit, nothing more.

Water – Drink plenty of water—enough said.

 

 

Please don’t give up. Recovery is waiting. It’s a journey, life, everything. I look at my life in ways I never thought possible. It has made me strong. I have gained just as much as it has taken. It is a balanced equation.