I’ve always been told that anxiety is caused by a fear of the future.
I’ve suffered from severe anxiety for at least fifteen years, although I suspect longer than that.
The first Doctor that prescribed Xanax to me, a dermatologist, gave me a prescription and told me to take it a lot. His prescription was for .5 mg Xanax to be taken three times a day (I’m 5’2″, like 125 pounds).
I turned into a zombie.
Then shit really hit the fan. My then husband was forced into anger management after choking our four year old son in a crowded restaurant. The police were called. CPS investigations ensued.
As a part of that process, one of his court ordered anger management therapists asked to see me.
I was nervous AF.
I was sure that the therapist had called me there to blame me for upsetting my husband, provoking him or worse. I was sure that his distress and anger was my fault because…well…he constantly told me it was.
I’d dreaded that appointment for days. I’d built it into something resembling Waterloo in my head. I’d show up and one or more people would attack me and I’d be ambushed and blamed and shamed etc.
What happened after that appointment is a blur. I can tell you that it sort of resembled what happened whenever someone with cancer that didn’t know they had cancer came in for an appointment with the ear, nose and throat Doctor I’d worked for in college.
A call was made immediately from that therapist to a psychiatrist across town and I was told to go immediately, he arranged transportation. I’d driven but he didn’t want me driving myself.
I was really freaking out at this point. What was so wrong with me? Were they about to admit me to some looney bin? Ugh.
The therapist saw how scared I was and said that even though he couldn’t diagnose me, he insisted that I need immediate help. He could see the look on my face of panic searching for answers and he took pity. He whispered that he suspected I had pretty severe PTSD and Stockholm syndrome and that for my best interest and the best interest of the kids he was going to help me heal and get better. He said he couldn’t treat me but that the psychiatrist he was sending me to specialized in treating abused women.
I was an abused woman?
I was in an abusive marriage and hadn’t realized it. It wasn’t just physical abuse. It was manipulation, verbal and mental abuse as well.
The psychiatrist agreed that I needed Xanax so they kept coming though he lowered the amount I took daily down to two.
Diagnosis after diagnosis came. PTSD. Stockholm syndrome. Anxiety. Depression. Codependency. Intimacy issues. Xanax was there for me through it all. It kept me loose and numb.
I was loose right on through a divorce, the death of my mom, moving, changing jobs…Xanax kept me from having any real feelings about those things.
The anxiety persisted and when it did I popped a Xanax like I was told to do.
I see now that my anxiety is a terrifying fear of the future.
I didn’t know what was going to happen when my husband left. How was I going to support my kids? What was going to happen to him? What was I supposed to do with my life? How was I going to live without my husband and my mother?
Even now, it’s still there. I’m still in a job I hate, where I don’t earn anywhere close to enough to give my kids things like vacation or college, I have no retirement, I’m only getting older, I’m alone…and on and on.
The worst thing about it is that instead of making any kind of advances toward making any of these legitimate fears better what do I do instead?
Sedate myself.
The whole theory behind Xanax is counterproductive. You’re anxious about the future so you sedate yourself to the point you can’t do anything to make the future better so when the sedative wears off you’re further behind than when you took the Xanax so you get more anxious. A vicious cycle.
I’m not saying that anxiety sufferers should go unmedicated.
I legitimately needed Xanax. It probably kept me alive through some of the most awful things a person can go through.
It’s also kept me paralyzed. Stuck. Unable to make decisions about my own life so I don’t. I just drift along with the flow.
If you told me right now that I couldn’t have another Xanax…my chest just got tight typing that.
Panic attacks have taken me down so often that I to this day feel like even if I were to quit I would have to keep some Xanax on hand just in case a panic attack came on and I couldn’t stop it. There is nothing that I’ve experienced scarier than feeling like an elephant you can’t see is sitting on your chest.
Recently–with the knowledge and agreement of my doctor–changed how I took my Xanax. For the first time in fifteen years I reduced my Xanax consumption to one a day.
I had been taking one the second I woke up each morning because I’d wake up with all my muscles tight and my jaw clenched and gasping for air. Every single morning for years and years.
This is withdrawal, my body’s way of telling me that it needed a fix.
I’d show up at work, in a zombie state, struggle to stay awake despite thousands of cups of coffee.
Life is never perfect but it turns out that not sedating myself before work made it better. I was more present, more able to have a say in my life instead of going along like a leaf floating along a stream.
I still take a Xanax nightly. I use it more like a sleeping pill now and sometimes when I feel a panic attack coming on though thankfully those are rare now.
I am still addicted. If I skip my nightly Xanax I wake up at 3 am completely clenched and seized.
Overall though–I have less anxiety because I’m awake all day and I see the things I need to do and do them so that I can check them off my list of things to worry about.
I’m not a doctor. I don’t know what’s best for you. I’m just someone who’s battled anxiety for most of her adult life and been on Xanax for the better part of it–and perhaps not so coincidentally been extraordinarily stuck for most if not all of those years.
While I feel like Xanax has hindered me, getting off of it completely is really tough.
I have cold turkey quit Xanax before.
It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
Before I did it, I took a lot of time to prepare and work up to it. I joined a work out class and went to it regularly. I had been eating healthy but before the day I quit, I’d prepped a lot of healthy food and had it ready to go. I knew I’d seek out comfort in food. I was out of the abusive relationship, I was in a fairly good place emotionally though I still had problems like everyone else.
The first day was tough. I was told by my Doctor to drink as much water as I could and that should help the medication leave my body as well as lubricate those tight muscles. I drank so much water. I was literally just chillin on the toilet for the first few days. Drinking water and peeing.
Water wasn’t enough to keep me from full body seizing that night. I didn’t sleep.
It was ugly.
I made it through the first day and night and that was followed by several days of just generally feeling bad, being extremely agitated. I was feeling something I was later told was called malaise. That was truly awful. My chest was tight for days, my muscles eventually got so sore from being tense for so long. Then the headache came. I think this was a migraine.
Several days of just me feeling bad, being extremely agitated. There was a whole body malaise. My chest was tight the entire time. My muscles clenched.
Day two there were headaches and more of the same. Day three I shook pretty much all day and then as I woke up on day four…I heard birds chirping. Still a little agitated but my body no longer seized up at the time I normally took the Xanax like it always had. After about a week I felt great.
My addiction to Xanax was gone and for a while I seemed to coast through life with more energy, in a better mood even though I was feeling my feelings and facing things head on.
***(Important to note that if you are planning to try this also consider that cold turkey quitting Xanax or other benzos might have other side effects you aren’t prepared for. Shingles for one thing, this happened to me while quitting Xanax and was one of the most painful things I’ve ever been through. Other possibilities are: blurred vision, rashes, herpes outbreaks, headaches, migraines even cardiac arrest. Be prepared and make your Dr. part of your plan).
Unfortunately several months later I had some extremely stressful situations culminate to push me back into a panic attack cycle and was forced to get back on the Xanax. I was unprepared for this. I’ve been back on it ever since. Ramping up to quit completely again is something that I aim to do in the future but unfortunately not something I can afford to do at this time.
There are a few tricks I’ve used that have some moderate success against the anxiety.
Meditation, especially guided meditations like I listen to seem to actually make me feel better. There are pros and cons. Unlike Xanax it’s an almost instantaneous relief from anxiety. However, the anxiety returns quickly after the meditation ends and comes on full force unlike the Xanax that gradually wears off. I believe that as I continue to practice meditation I’ll get better at keeping the anxiety at bay, meditation is something that seems to work better the more you do it and the fact that it’s free, doesn’t require me to take time off work to go to the Dr. who monitors it makes it something worth a little practicing in my book.
Exercise helps a bunch. Endorphins are incredible at beating anxiety’s twin sister, depression which I also suffer from. Beating the depression gives you more energy to work on your future which in turn lessens the anxiety so it’s a winner in my book but motivation and commitment are not exactly my strong suits.
Clean eating is great but requires again commitment and motivation. The long term effects of eating better aside, clean eating helps immediately for another reason. It forces you to be mindful. Mindfulness is focusing on what you’re doing right now versus focusing on the past (depression) or the future (anxiety) which immediately eliminates anxiety like no other. It works for as long as you dedicate yourself to shopping–a lot, meal prepping, and serious willpower around chocolate cake.
Blogging. I’m a big believer in blogging. The specific kind that helped me through my Xanax withdrawal was a bullet blog where–especially in the beginning–I’d address the same things day after day until addressing them became internal. I’d blog about my mood, what had happened to put me in that mood, I’d make a list of all the things floating around in my head and then turn that into a to do list, I’d plan what I’d eat and list my stressors. It helped.
It taught me that while getting off of this medication I needed to focus on my health and treat caring for myself like a serious job for a while.
Again, I’m not a doctor. I don’t know anyone else’s situation other than my own. If you’re reading this and considering making a change of course the first place to go to discuss it is your doctor’s office–it’s worth a visit.
I don’t think that any of us were meant to be sedated long term and I believe that anxiety is our body’s way of telling us we were meant to be doing something more.
xoxo,
Juls
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