No one deserves the hell of withdrawals

Please click on links!  No photos here, just a Youtube video to watch, then read the post.

Heartbroken and alone in the Hell of BWS

No one deserves this.  This is the face of a person suffering from an iatrogenic illness.  This is a common occurrence with thousands of people worldwide suffering the acute and protracted withdrawals from  psychiatric and pain medications taken as prescribed by their  physicians and other medical care providers.

Most often when a doctor or emergency room is presented with someone in the throes of this kind of an illness they will prescribe more psychiatric medications that will often exacerbate the symptoms more.  Unfortunately prescribing for these kind of symptom presentations is all they have been trained to do.  Additionally the insurance companies promote medications to get you home and back to work.  Despite the sometimes life altering side-effects.

The reality is many who are managed this way by their PCP won’t get back to work or, if they do, they  continue to suffer with numerous life altering side effects of the medications such as lethargy, insomnia, muscle pain, brain spasms, neurological challenges, brain fog,  suicidal ideation (that is what that little black box is about folks) and more.

As hard as it is for me to see myself suffering this way everything I discussed was true and I am so glad I recorded it!  I was not able to manage my emotions, I wasn’t able to control my symptoms, I really struggled to manage life at this time, but every thing I spoke of was spoken in truth and that hasn’t changed today.

While many suffer horrifying challenges, please don’t discard what they tell you.  They aren’t lying. They aren’t being dramatic. They are ill and suffering untold traumas that you can’t possibly imagine unless you have endured them yourself.

Please watch my most recent video to see the difference!  I also intend to post a new Youtube video this week, so check back!  Healing takes a long time for many and it’s often very difficult and seems like the person is having worsening psychiatric symptoms.

Yet the fact is the withdrawals off those medications were causing the truly SEVERE emotional dis-regulation.  While not completely healed yet I am able and do have many interactions that don’t end up with me having a melt down today.  I’m not in a major depressive state.  I haven’t had a full on panic attack or even major anxiety other than in heavy traffic in the year+ since I’ve been off all pharmaceuticals.  The reasons everyone said “you will need to take some type of anti-depressant and medications to help you manage the rest of your life” are pretty much gone.

If you love someone who has been injured by medical intervention, please show compassion and patience.  We don’t ask for this.  We are only doing what the medical professionals told us would help.  Please trust us when we say these medications make us worse, not better.  Despite the symptoms you see.  I know it’s difficult to watch.  I do it daily now myself with many friends who contact me who are suffering.  I know it’s scary and feels out of control.  It is.  I know you think people need “medicine” to help.  That doesn’t always work.

Please do your research and be educated if you are prescribed anti-depressants, anxiolytics (benzodiazepines), pain medications longer than 2 weeks, and many other types of medications.  If there is a group to be found in a Google search that says they were harmed by a medication you have been prescribed, pay attention to that! Don’t chock them up to someone “crazy”.

I myself, watching this video, would have shied away in judgement just a few short years ago.  I would have judged and labeled and discarded as not worthwhile or truthful simply because of the intense emotional disregulation.  Please take the time to see where I am now and many others like me.  We do heal. It’s slower than molasses on a frigid cold day, but it does happen.  I believed it would somewhere inside me, because otherwise I would have never shared this hell with the world in the beginning!

 

 

 

2018, my year in Photos

2018 was started the right way, with movement in my of my life.  I had begun walking just before the New Year had arrived.  I kept it up in order to reach a goal which was to participate in a 5K!  I not only participated, but I shared my story about getting free of pharmaceuticals as I walked the streets of Grants Pass just 4 days before my 56th birthday!  I created a shirt about my journey and wore it proudly!

Reaching goals

Walking makes me smile

even the rain didn’t stop me from walking

Hiking the Rogue

My first 5K, I finished!

 

I also was on the move with my bags packed frequently this year.  Between moving back to S. Oregon, various house sitting gigs, a trip to Little Cultus lake and then to Salem a couple times, my bags got used a LOT.

Moving back to S. Oregon

Home from a camping

Heading to Salem

 

I enjoyed a variety of local events.  Music, merry-making, activism and fun.  I am beginning to enjoy being social now and then.  This is just one of the indicators that slowly yet progressively, I am healing!

Curtis Salgado at Concerts in the Park

St Patricks day celebration in Salem

Happy Halloween

Concert at the Britt with my friend

Vida girls at Cocina 7

IWill and I on the 4th

March against ICE

The Young Marines helped with parking

Brothers Reed at Golden Jubilee Celebration

Golden Jubilee Celebration

4th of July in Williams

NO SPRAY project in Willaims

 

 

Always there are animals around.  I enjoy them all.  I seem drawn to them and they seem to enjoy me as well.  I make friends wherever I go.  Often they are 4 legged or feathered.

Now that’s a fluffy kitty

Awwwww, bunnies

Loved these dogs

Cute boy that lives across from the store

A drink of water for the jay

Found a cutie on a Salem walk

Bird fight

No more roosters on the farm

He may be small, but he had attitude

Love the llamas

She hugged me too

They come running when I call

Greyhounds are cool.

 

I was drawn to water many times.  It soothed me.

Kayaking on Little Cultus

Sitting at the pool

The lake at Pacifica is so wonderful to meditate

Little Cultus on a beautiful morning

Rogue River in October

 

Especially when I needed to escape the smoke again.  Summers are getting hard in Southern Oregon due to so many fires.

Nearly 2 months we had hazardous air

I had to wear a mask on many days

So smoky.

I couldn’t hardly see the sun

Cannabis was always part of the day.    I shared my story in order to help others know that it does work and you don’t have to be high!  Well…maybe high on life!!!

Love the plant

Fourth of July puff

Thanks to my friend Suzan who drew my thoughts

Making my cannabis capsules

My sign for Hands Across the Bridge

Enjoying a puff on Easter at the Winery

I was featured in this magazine

I had so many blessings such as being reunited with my brother, getting a couple kitties, becoming a surrogate Nana…..and of course….my lovely tiny home on wheels.

My brother and I

Kenny got a home

I have a new baby to love…X

My home sweet home

Cozy and comfy

Blackwell and Jetson

 

I enjoyed some art projects this year.  Thanks for the art supplies ladies.  You know who you are.

 

I cooked for others and myself

Not everything was always dandy.  There were a few things that were hard.  But I never let them get me down for too long.

Shasta still gets so scared at thunder

An early funeral for a young souls passing

We have a mouse problem

Truck got put together but not fixed

Lost my toenail…forever now.

Another loss to BWS

 

But at the end of the day there were so many beautiful sunsets.

 

And of course….the one constant in my life….the most amazing and wonderful #ShastaTheWonderdog.  And Lulu…who is her sidekick!

 

It has been a year of blessings and I am very grateful!  I am ready for whatever 2019 has to bring!

Cause of Death: BWS and Psychopharmacology

Cause of Death: BWS (Benzodiazepine Withdrawal Syndrome) and Psychopharmacology

When a death occurs, depending on the status of the human life at the time of death, either the attending physician or a coroner are required to list the Cause of Death. There are very specific rules for determining the cause of death. The causes are listed in order of occurrence. Nowhere on this list do you see the term “BWS and Psychopharmacology”.
Over the course of the last two weeks, two valued and loved humans have died of this cause. There may be more I am unaware of, but both of these beautiful women were active in support groups for those suffering from an iatrogenic illness caused by psychiatric pharmacology.  Rather than the true cause of death I have suggested, we likely will learn that their death certificate lists Suicide or Neuropsychiatric Disorder or maybe on a far reach, Substance Disorder.
Those three causes of death put the blame on the injured and sick human. If the doctors were honest about what really occurred, the most correct of those listed would be Poisoning. These women were poisoned by following their doctor’s orders and taking medications as prescribed for symptoms that were unable to be confirmed by any labs or imaging. These women believed and trusted their doctors that the medications would not hurt them.
The most recent loss just last Friday was a woman I met, not once but twice, while both of us were inpatient in psychiatric crisis centers. When we were reunited the second time a friendship was forged. We both were in the throes of brutal withdrawals from psychotropic medications including benzodiazepines and anti-depressants. We also had become aware prior to our hospitalizations that it was the medications themselves and the withdrawal from them that was making us so sick.
This beautiful young woman was the mother of a 5-year-old daughter. She was the beloved daughter of caring parents. She was quiet spoken, sweet as southern tea, and had a heart that held enough love for all the world. And, she was tormented by the ravages of withdrawal off medications like Zoloft and Klonopin.
Whatever the method of death, the cause was the symptoms associated with BWS and Psychiatric Pharmacology. Prior to the medications, she had been a vibrant hopeful full-of-life twenty-three-year-old and the world was open to possibilities. Shortly after beginning the medications and taking them as prescribed by her doctors she started suffering from multiple horrifying symptoms. She knew it was the medications, but no one would listen.
She was hospitalized against her will, having the most terrifying physical and mental torture imaginable, and drugged more and more and more throughout her hospitalization. She had been brought from another psychiatric unit where she had been for a couple weeks to the hospital I was in. She was like a zombie yet still beautiful, in a haunting ethereal way. She cried a lot. We both cried a lot. Over the course of a week, we shared a few conversations while coloring. She drew and colored. Her art was just like her, warm and bright and beautiful. In spite of both our horrible conditions, we saw a light in one another.
Not even two weeks later, having had yet another significant run in with suicidal ideation, I was admitted to another psychiatric crisis center. Less than a week after my arrival, here comes Marrisa. Still crying, still broken, still shaking, still breathing and still beautiful. Inside and out.
We talked a lot more in this environment as it was only women and a very small setting. We both had been struggling with chronic suicidal ideation. We both knew it was because of the medications. We both agreed we really wanted to be well and live and love our families and our lives. Yet suicidal ideation is a hallmark symptom common for those who suffer from the withdrawals from benzodiazepines and other psychotropic medications.
We shared so many stories and fears and even things we were really ashamed of because of how the medications had changed us to behave in ways that weren’t in alignment with our core values and beliefs. We talked about how the medical community treats us as if it’s our fault for being sick, yet all we had done was take medications that the doctors told us to, in spite of black box warnings for suicidality for her Zoloft and for my Effexor XR. We took the benzodiazepines for months, or in my case off and on for 3 decades, as our doctors prescribed, in spite of the warnings against use for longer than 2 weeks.
The end of this month will be two years since that first meeting. My heart is absolutely shredded to bits by the news of her passing. The reasons are all over the spectrum. My heart aches for her family who may never fully understand what really happened. My heart aches for my friends who are all reeling from this devastating news. My heart aches because it could have been any one of us. It could have easily been me. I too have been in a horrifying wave of symptoms the last month. My heart aches because it feels like no one outside our groups is listening.
This is NOT due to a psychiatric illness. This is due to an iatragenic illness. The suicidal ideation and depression and bone pain and brain pain and ruminating and intrusive thoughts and akathisia and unrelenting insomnia are all symptoms because of how those medications altered our GABA-receptors and neurotransmitters. But no one that is prescribing them is acknowledging this. They want to blame it on us, the patients.
Please, whatever the listed cause of death is for my friend and the other recent loss in our support groups, please share the truth. That this was caused by medications that we did not get the full disclosure on of how they could destroy our lives and maybe even kill us.
Please reach out to those who are trusted administrators and moderators in the groups during this time of grief.  Find a partner in pain and commit to one another through the bad times to call in and give encouragement. We cannot do this alone and those out in the world aren’t ready to face the truth that we didn’t cause this ourselves and we aren’t a psychiatric label. If it is a bad day and you are in a bad wave, do NOT be ashamed to share that pain with another! It is by sharing the pain that we learn the strength we have for one another and for ourselves.
There is no one to blame for this except for the medical community. That is the truth. RIP my friend. RIP to all our friends who have lost this battle. You will not be forgotten! You fought hard and we all watched. Memories of you will always make us smile.

I believe this photo on her page was soon after we met. I found it on her public page.