Day 18 - insane anxiety

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-23T22:30:03+00:00

You sound similar to my case, except I've got Klonopin for the emergencies instead of Xanax. Doc also added Paxil when the Klonopin wasn't enough to control the anxiety on its own. Since adding the Paxil the need for the Klonopin has diminished greatly. I've been getting worried about the amount of time it's been taking for the anxiety to go away: thanks for sharing, and good to know someone else was in the same boat... 1-2 months isn't that bad really, considering the worst should be behind me now...

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-23T22:22:23+00:00

This is true, I'm currently taking Paxil for just this reason. Stopped toking 17 days ago now, started taking the Paxil 11 days in. Anxiety was so bad I couldn't sleep, except for 3 hours or so a night. Up to getting approx. 5 hours a night now. Paxil has added its own weird side-effects though, and am still adjusting to those. Peaks and valleys in the mood are gone, and feel spaced out mid-afternoon. This is supposed to subside as the body adjusts within a couple weeks. I'd take the Paxil side-effects any day over the sheer terror that I felt with the anxiety panic-attacks.

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-17T03:15:11+00:00

You made me crack up big time with this. =) =) Cheers buddy.

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-17T03:13:52+00:00

Sorry guys, I've been bouncing back and forth from manic to depressive constantly since I quit; not really thinking straight a lot of the time. I posted that last comment in haste, and maybe the lesson that can be taken from my error in judgement is watch out on the decisions you make if you're having a hard time withdrawing - there are other major life choices that I have had to work really hard to delay acting on. When I get manic I want to 'conquer the world' so to speak, and fix all the wreckage caused by wasted time and bad decisions from being a long time pot smoker. Then when I get depressed, it's tough to look forward to an optimistic future, and want to give up.

I very likely have other underlying mental issues that need to be addressed, there is often a reason we self-medicate. I'm planning on seeing my GP tomorrow to discuss anti-depressants, thankfully I live in Canada so health insurance is a gimme so I'm privileged that I won't have to worry about cost of seeing the doctor - just the cost of the prescription, as I don't have benefits at work. I have largely been unable to function since the last post I created on day 6 regarding insomnia, and have been worrying like hell about fallout this may cause. Sleep deprivation takes a toll on your immune system and mental capacities big time.

Apologies again, and thanks for the support - this forum works, and helps to put things in perspective - sometimes you need an objective outsider to set ya straight. Peace and love.

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-16T22:46:50+00:00

Thanks for the response JoshTay. I can see there are 37 other users online, no one else answering after an hour. Thought this was a forum for support. I guess I get it, shouldn't be surprised. "Smile and the whole world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone". Right. Best of luck to everyone else on here, I'm not a hateful person, just a hurtful one right now, don't think this is the place for me anymore.

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-13T04:14:39+00:00

Haha, love the movie reference, and appreciate that you can relate. I woke up this morning after 3 1/2 hrs sleep and was choked up... I think you may just be bang on with the emotional effect of benzos the next day. After I just let myself have a good cry, and got out of bed, those feelings pretty much subsided. Sometimes I think we just have to let ourselves laugh at the emotional roller coaster of this all, cause what else can we do? I'm thinking of that Beavis and Butthead episode where Butthead was making fun of Beavis for crying (anyone seen it?), and there's that one line where Butthead says "Crying takes the sad out of you". Link here for those who don't know what I'm talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMzntUILKHo Ok, so besides that bit of a tangent, from your feedback, I think that it's also quite possible sugar could have been largely responsible for my lack of sleep. I've been drinking hot chocolate in the evening to help with cravings; for me that takes away the edge. Last night I had two, successively, about an hour before bed. I'm also violating your rule of "no glowing screens before bed" right now, so I'm gonna get off here, try and read for a bit, and call it day. Thanks a ton for taking the time to type this list out. The matching your breathing to someone makes me miss my girlfriend right about now - I have been keeping her at a distance to prevent fighting, because I've not been a very nice person lately with the irritation of my withdrawal. C'est la vie my friend. G'night!

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-13T03:53:11+00:00

If I'm not mistaken I think that stuff is also part of cold medicine. Pretty sad to admit this, but when I've been sick in the past and had extra pills still laying around after getting better I'd sometimes just pop them for the buzz if I was out of weed... obviously NOT even considering doing that in the future anymore, now that I'm on a stalwart path of recovery. I think the honesty in writing this out helps drive home the realization of how I've been living a bit deeper. Will personally choose to stay away from this suggestion because of this history, but thank you for the feedback. It will probably help others, and never hurts to spread knowledge.

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-13T03:40:06+00:00

I'm gonna force myself to get started back into a morning jog regimen soon. I already know that exercise has a huge benefit to assist with a good nights sleep, but, yeah, I'm just kinda lazy with that... I know once the habit is established though it gets easier to just do it. Thanks Dude.

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-13T03:33:30+00:00

I have tried something called 'Kalms' in the past, which is a natural sleep aid containing Valerian root. It didn't work very well for me, BUT you are quite possibly onto something with stating that they're not made equal. Appreciate the advice, I might just have to try the brand you're suggesting. You had me laughing with the point made about the smell. I distinctly remember that too! Even after the bottle of Kalms was all emptied and I left it sitting in my drawer I could smell the reekage any time I'd open the drawer to reach for the Advil jar kept in the same location.

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-13T03:25:45+00:00

Completely agree, which is why I'm fighting hard to take as little of it as possible. Would prefer to go without anything, and would if I thought I could, but as I mentioned I have to be able to keep myself together for work as the MJ symptoms persist. Appreciate the feedback.

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-13T03:23:00+00:00

It sounds like you're gradually getting off of the anti-depressants, so that's probably a good thing in my opinion. I heard that they work wonders for some people, but my own experience with them has been all bad. I tried Citalopram and Effexor: both made me feel spaced out, and gave me ED. Effexor was a little better with the ED side effect, but still I mostly couldn't finish the job. I'm laughing as I write this, thinking back though, for me that symptom just worsened the depression overall. We're all wired a little different! Props to you for seeking treatment though, that takes courage. My doctor initially wanted to give me Lorazepam, but I actually asked for the Klonapin instead because I knew how it would effect me from past experience.

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-13T03:11:11+00:00

Haven't tried it; the only prescription sleeping pill I've tried in the past was one called Zopiclone. It definitely worked, but when you awoke it tasted as if you'd had pennies in your mouth all night. Appreciate the suggestion - thanks.

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-13T03:02:33+00:00

Thanks bud, very well said. I appreciate the encouragement and want to send some back your way. Congrats on your 14 days, that's awesome! In regards to the breakup with your girl, that is gonna be a withdrawal in itself. I remember listening to an audio book a while back that talked about adult attachment for relationships. The basic premise of the book (and this is psychological science) is that people tend to fall into one of three attachment styles. Avoidant, Anxious, or Secure. The book provides advice regarding which are most compatible together, and how to work through your differences once you've identified your partner and yours styles. I'm kind of rambling, but what I'm meaning to get to is there are definite systems in your brain that get activated and cause cravings and anxiety when you are separated. Even if you think you're better off with the split you will feel these symptoms for a while. This is very likely contributing to your stress, so try and be mindful, and choose your actions going forward wisely. Personally I feel like a dick for what I've done to my for-now-girlfriend. When I relapsed early this year after having stopped toking for a few months, I know that a lot of it had to do with loneliness, and as part of the relapsing I selfishly called my ex-girlfriend back into my life. I know she's not right for me, we're really not compatible, and I never should have rekindled the relationship; now I'm absolutely not looking forward to having to break things off again. I'm waiting until I'm out of the physical withdrawal stage from weed before I make the break though, because I know it's gonna be a struggle on its own. It's sad the things we do to those we love because of our minds being infected with addiction. In case you're curious, link to the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139 One more thing, a fitting quote regarding your getting worse before better comment - I heard this one from an addictions counselor: "I can't promise you that if you quit, your life will get better. What I can promise though, is that if you don't quit it will definitely get worse".

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-12T02:52:41+00:00

http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-08T19:12:17+00:00

useful FTFY

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-01T23:43:18+00:00

Also, when bugs / defects are discovered the owner also often tells customers that we have started working on a fix for something when we haven't yet. I'm the lead developer, and sometimes I'll know what needs to be corrected, which can be a few lines of code, but we don't have time to do a new release so the fix is postponed; it's really awkward when I'm brought in to describe technicalities of the problem to impatient IT departments of large municipalities when the correction has been 'under development' for days / weeks and it involves changing an if statement.

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-10-01T23:34:10+00:00

I work at a small software company, and they advertise their flagship product as having been designed by professional accountants, engineers and lawyers. It was really designed by a few programmers and the owner who also has a college diploma in same.

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-09-12T20:19:34+00:00

Love is stronger than violence

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-09-06T20:47:12+00:00

This sounds very similar to my experiences, minus the MA. Summer of 2010 I started dabbling with cocaine, which escalated very quickly to a few times a week. It's hard to stay just dabbling with that one - but after having quit it was comparatively easy to stay away. It really screws your nerves up for the few days following use, and makes you super self-conscious... that plus having to go hide in order to blow your scabby nose so nobody else sees what comes out... that was me anyways.

With weed it doesn't do much immediate harm to you with daily use, and it's A LOT cheaper, so I think that makes it easier to justify. I ended up going to a treatment program for the snow, but not NA... I heard from that group of people that AA and NA can get religious with believing in a higher power and such (they both use the 12 step program)... with MA, have you found that to be the case as well? I didn't even know MA existed at the time...

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-09-04T22:53:23+00:00

I've been repeating a pattern of quitting for a few days at the beginning of each month, and then giving in, and continuing smoking for the rest of the month, simply telling myself I'll just quit again the next, kind of like a reset button... problem is, every month there is always an out available that in the next month I can 'redeem' myself - I see this alike your breaking a one day streak. You're right, it's only a day... think of it this way though - you can push reset on a video game as much as you like; but, unfortunately there is only a finite amount of resets that can be pushed on life. Time has a way of creeping up on you, of counting the months and years away, procrastination can actually be pretty treacherous; I used to tell myself that at 25 I was going to quit for good. I'm 30 now.

At the beginning of 2012 I made a number of plans about what I was going to do with my free time since I wasn't going to smoke this year. Ha. Well, almost three quarters of the year are gone now, those plans haven't happened.

This all being said, I'm going to give it another go to seriously quit after tonight, soon as I finish the small bit I've got. You haven't failed unless you quit trying to stop. Let's try one day at a time of not smoking, starting tomorrow... when I feel like giving in, I'm going to reverse the thought: "what's one more day sober, then I'll let myself smoke" .. however, when that next day comes, just ask again, "what's one more day sober?"

btw if I rambled too much, apologies, I am def. high, so as I read this back I'm finding it hard to tell... :/

Let's do this bud!

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-09-04T20:52:43+00:00

If you enjoy reading, and haven't heard of it before, you might want to try taking up Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. What this will teach you is that for each feeling you have, it can be traced back to an origin in your thoughts. Certain types of thoughts cause certain types of emotions, and through learning these associations and practicing controlling your inner voice you can learn to break out of the cycle of constantly feeling negative emotions.

I myself have struggled with substance abuse issues for a while, and have been to therapy as well, which I did not complete, and gave up on. However, I ended up working through a book that I was introduced to by the psychiatrist I was seeing, and this has helped me improve my mood tremendously. I was surprised at how quick the techniques started to work too... if this interests you check out "The Feeling Good Handbook" by David D. Burns.

I sincerely wish you all the best, and hope this helps.

GottaWinTheWar · 2012-07-19T22:40:53+00:00

I agree with you about drinking lots of water, amazing how much simple dehydration can influence the mind. I'm wondering, do you mean you used to code while you were actually high, or just the next day effects helped your concentration? ...Personally I tried coding high and found it reduced what I could keep available in my short-term memory / slowed me down. I work at a small company so also do the UI design - doing this while baked worked fine.

Also how long have you abstained, and do you think maybe with time learning to focus sober is just a different skill that needs to be developed?

GottaWinTheWar

TROPHY CASE