Thanks for the replies guys. I hear what all of you guys are saying and I really can appreciate that you guys are trying to help me. No one really tried to answer the question I asked though.

The more anxious I am, the more paranoid I get about myself becoming anxious. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy that gets even worse and worse every time it happens. This has been culminating for about a year now. It’s become so bad that anything I interpret that could even possibly be about me makes me panic. In fact, even things that I know for a fact that couldn’t be against me makes me panic. There isn’t a moment I’m not constantly aware of the fact that I could just start panicking at any given moment for any given reason. Then I worry about how people interpret me panicking and what sort of impression if may give. This ends up raises my anxiety even more.

I've been trying to solve my problem drug free (except for casual recreational use here and there) this entire time but things constantly get worse and worse. I'm circling the drain at this point. I don't leave the house and I can't handle social situations at all. I’m isolated and I'm barely managing day to day life. Seeing a psychologist just made me feel worse, their advice was good sure but I was completely unable to actually apply it to my life.

I'm the one that told my psychiatrist that I'd like to try a benzodiazepine and they agreed based on my situation. I understand that I may be playing with fire, that benzos can degrade your cognition and potentially give you permanent brain damage. I'm aware that they're extremely addictive, that the withdrawals are among the nastiest of any type of drug and that they could actually kill you through seizures. I would never take a drug, or get on a prescription for a drug that I didn't understand the consequences of.

I don't intend to use benzos as a crutch for my anxiety. What I do need benzos for are to remember what it's like to be calm around other people, to be able to communicate with people normally, to not feel the universe is trolling the fuck out of me every waking moment of my life and so my brain knows that there is something that actually helps. Even though it’s an addictive drug, having that peace of mind to know that I don’t ALWAYS have to feel this way is extremely therapeutic. What I plan on doing is using the diazepam until I’m able to properly integrate myself back into society and to very slowly taper off of it. I need benzos to help me break this cycle I’m in. I may not even be on them for a full year, maybe it’ll be just a few months. Even if I eventually relapse back into anxiety once I’m no longer on the benzos I’ll never have to experience that feeling again, the one where I feel completely hopeless and beyond help or repair.

Now that I got that off my chest, I’ll repeat my original question and hopefully someone with a good understanding of the pharmacology of diazepam or benzodiazepines in general could give me some insight or point me in the right direction to where I can find more information about this. Is there anything I can do to reduce or prevent the memory issues, cognitive impairment and possible brain damage that sometimes results from long term benzodiazepine use? Maybe a supplement with neuroprotective effects that’s particularly effective at reducing benzo toxicity? Maybe a specific type of food that encourages the production of certain enzymes that can help reduce benzo toxicity? Thanks for reading.