Park12 said...
In my humble opinion, Benzo's are much safer than people give them credit for. If you tend to have a more addictive personality or use them in a way they should not be used, I believe people have a much harder time coming off. If you're on an appropriate dose and take them with the guidance of a doctor, I don't think you'll have a problem going off.
Wow, I'm glad I found this forum.
Finally a forum that seems to really want to help people and not SCARE them. The reason I say this is because I've read a lot of fear mongering stuff on the Internet.
My story in a nutshell is that I've had an anxiety disorder since I was 17. My way of coping was through a healthy diet, reading up on ways to cope, exercise, facing my fears, therapy etc.
I actually learned to cope quite well but there was an incident several years ago that would take too long to tell that made my anxiety levels go up severely.
That led to me taking Clonazepam for the first time(and any medication at all). The medication immediately helped me and my doctor told me I could take it for a longer period. My initial dosage was the lowest dosage recommended and even after years of taking it, I never ever increased the dosage(nor felt like I needed to). Being an anxious person, I was not ever tempted to increase it, even for one day. In general I'm not an addictive person. Oddly no one in my family seems to be the addictive type.
about
a year ago I decided that I'd try to wean myself off. My doctor(a different doctor) just told me to decrease the dosage in small steps every 2 weeks which I did. I didn't have any withdrawal symptoms whatsoever.
When I got to my final dose, which was a ridiculous low amount, I was a bit concerned what might happen after I drop the final bit. That was the first time I googled the topic.
The horror stories I read were so extreme that they completely freaked me out to the point that I was physically trembling. To read these stories was unbearable for a person with an anxiety disorder. The things I've read would even freak a person out WITHOUT an anxiety disorder to be honest.
That made me go back on them to my original dosage, totally chickening out. Ever since then I feel like I don't need them and could go off but I just can't get these horror stories out of my mind. Maybe people here can relate.
Anyway, it's a relief to read a forum/thread that seems to be more down to earth and I hope maybe with the help of this forum, I can try another approach.
P.S. I apologize for not introducing myself but I couldn't find the area where you do that.
Post Edited (Eljot) : 12/4/2015 12:13:09 PM (GMT-7)