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This is basically the story of my mother.

About 15 years ago she was suffering from a panic disorder. Instead of trying to help her, her doctor prescribed a fairly high dose of benzodiazepines and be done with it.

These 'medicine' only made matters worse and changed her behavior radically. She became very closed up, never wanting to do anything, never leaving the house and always finding excuses not having to do anything. The stuff is also terrible for her memory, so she can't really remember anything since she has been taken these pills.

The worst part is that these medicine are highly addictive, and we have now passed to point where we had to accept that my mother will be on these pills for the rest of her life.




Highly recommend not giving up on getting off it. My grandmother thought she needed it to sleep for many years. But finally, after pressure from the family (several who are health care professionals), the doctor took her off it. She became so much better, even her sleep improved! Having worked as a health care professional myself, the rule was maximum 3 weeks, only for temporary treatment, long term need to find other solutions. Always some exceptions but then everything else had (or should have) been tried.


I used the Ashton Manual to get off benzos. https://www.benzoinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Ashton-... It's probably best to find a doctor too who specializes in getting people off the stuff. It's worth trying, and it may take years to do it, but it's worth it in the long term.


I think benzodiazepines can be partially behind my friend, Jerold Haas' death especially the withdrawal from it. These drugs are really strong and it if it is strong in a way that doesn't help it leads to great distortions in thinking. Some drugs can help a lot but if it doesn't help it can hurt pretty bad. I take some drugs that help me tremendously but I won't last long without it because I can't get restful sleep without it anymore. In that case I have a dependency without addiction but I read that benzos can also be addicting.

It is a shame Darry did not get the kind of help I received. I believe he died because of a psychiatric system that doesn't take time to observe patients and make small adjustments. I pleaded that Darry get hospitalized and I think he was but it just didn't work out for him. They got him in and in a few days he was out. I was in for weeks. I've basically been on the same medicine regimen since then 14 years ago.

(Darry was Jerold's nick name)




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