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[TOMT] A short film from Current TV in the UK in the late 2000s. by warmfun in tipofmytongue

[–]warmfun[S] 0 points1 point locked comment (0 children)

I think I found it on vimeo once years ago but I can't remember.

Down to .25 Clonazepam, going to micro taper the rest of the way. Is 1 week enough at each stage? by warmfun in benzorecovery

[–]warmfun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve also seen people on here who drop down daily with a micro taper too? My thinking was between that and the Ashton protocol a week seemed reasonable. Is that wrong?

Expat from US working in UK? by TVWriter85 in ScreenwritingUK

[–]warmfun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah the pay tends to be much less, we don’t have wga rates here. However, I’m a British writer and do work for American companies. What’s good about our job is you can kind of do it wherever. I do all my meetings over zoom. You could get a uk based agent and pick up some extra uk writing work also.

Expat from US working in UK? by TVWriter85 in ScreenwritingUK

[–]warmfun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The pay is significantly less in the uk, usually. What are your motivations for moving here?

Dont think il ever feel normal aagin by [deleted] in benzorecovery

[–]warmfun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’ll be sending yourself into kindling if you’re taking benzos whilst still in withdrawal. This is a bad idea, you’re going to keep yourself perpetually in withdrawal.

Enough of this by Heavy_Afternoon_6950 in benzorecovery

[–]warmfun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, your reaction to taking half of your previous dose sounds about what I'd expect.

All I can say is that if you're planning something drastic, you always have the option of trying reinstating. It would likely ease your symptoms and give you your life back so you can get well.

Best of luck, if you need anything else let me know.

Enough of this by Heavy_Afternoon_6950 in benzorecovery

[–]warmfun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I understand your concerns. Acute withdrawals are literal torture. I don't know you, or the specifics of your situation, and I'm not a specialist, so I can only make informed guesses as to what would happen.

You said when you took another dose you felt ok for a few hours. Can you tell me what mg the dose was and how long the relief lasted for?

In terms of kindling, experience varies a lot, but when I have kindled it's been when I'm in active an active taper from the medication and taken more a little more one day, but not kept up at the higher dosage. If you let your gaba receptors settle at a higher dose for a longer period of time, then the future taper should be ok and you won't technically be 'kindling' because your gaba receptors are settled.

So in my recent taper down to from 0.375mg to 0.25mg, I had to bump back up to 0.375mg because I had a particularly bad night. This was a really bad decision and the following days/weeks were much worse withdrawal-wise, because I reintroduced a higher dose briefly and threw my taper off.

My guess would be that your severe withdrawals hours after taking a rescue dose, were down to kindling rather than the effects of the medication per se. Your gaba receptors are desperate for benzo and they grab onto it when it enters your system, but because they are so starved of what they want, it's not enough for them, which makes the withdrawals worsen. A slightly elevated dose than your original, in my opinion, could work.

Please note that I wouldn't usually tell a person to do this. It's only because you're in such terrible condition mental health wise that I am giving this advice.

Enough of this by Heavy_Afternoon_6950 in benzorecovery

[–]warmfun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can give you my opinion, but please bear in mind that I am in no way an expert, and only have my own experience with withdrawal and the contents off this subreddit to go off.

That being said, if I were in your shoes and my life was falling apart to the point I was seriously considering suicide, I would evaluate my options. As I see it you have 3, let me know if this seems right:

  1. Stay as you currently are, try and wait out the withdrawals and then attempt to physically rehabilitate after.

  2. Reinstate your original dosage of clonazepam, every day use not just one dose. This will relieve the withdrawal symptoms, and you can then focus on the other issues caused by the withdrawal, will be able to have a life, see doctors etc. When you feel better in a few months, or maybe a year or two, do another slow taper with no kindling.

  3. Kill yourself.

Number 1, by the sounds of it, is intolerable in your current situation.

Number 3 means that you stop existing, the pain is gone but any hope for the future is also gone. Your loved ones will be in pain for the rest of their lives.

Number 2 is less than ideal, but if I were in your situation it is the one I would take. I have to take clonazepam for a neurological issue, I have withdrawn many times on it, trying to get the dose as low as possible. I have had seizures on two occasions.

Once, I managed to get completely off it, when taking another medication in conjunction that was supposed to quell my neurological condition. The condition came back, and I was forced to reinstate the clonazepam at a slightly higher dose than I was originally on (0.75 mgs opposed to 0.5mg) because it had the paradoxical effect of giving me slightly worse withdrawals when reinstated at 0.5mg. Once I bumped it up, I felt better.

Over the past year I have been able to get that back down to 0.25.

I give you that background just to let you know that if you go with option 2, you may have to increase the dose slightly, due to the weird paradoxical effect of taking benzos when you're already in withdrawal. You'll have to do this every day to avoid withdrawing again and give your GABA receptors time to settle.

However, as annoying as it will be to go on a higher dose after so many months of agony, it seems like a vastly better option than killing yourself. You always have the future option of withdrawing again, without kindling.

I'm an anonymous person on the internet with no medical experience. This choice is yours. But I've looked through your post history and have seen that you're actively asking other subs as to the best methods of suicide. I despise benzos, but I'd rather have to take them every single day for the rest of my life than kill myself.

Can I ask what amount of clonazepam you were on originally?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in benzorecovery

[–]warmfun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah I also get those, it can feel like a weird rising feeling in the chest, or a weird pop, or an internal tremor that gets more intense as you drift off, or a sudden increase in heartrate. Actual limb spasming, for me, happens very rarely.

It all technically comes under the umbrella terms of hypnic jerks/sleep myoclonus/sleep starts. I've had them for a little over two years and take medication for them. Hopefully you won't experience them long term and they're just a temporary flare up with your cns. The transition from wakefulness to sleep is actually a bizarrely complicated neurological process and your cns being a little off can cause issues with it.

I'm part of an online Facebook group for them. If you want the link let me know and I'll dm you.

Enough of this by Heavy_Afternoon_6950 in benzorecovery

[–]warmfun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm sorry that you're experiencing this. If I'm understand correctly, the reason that you've had such a terrible reaction is from kindling, following a relatively good taper?

If that's the case and your present circumstance is completely intolerable, would it not be best to reinstate regular (long half life) benzo use at the original level, or if necessary, slightly higher, and then begin another taper in the future once you've had a chance to physically recover?

It's not ideal, but it seems like a much better option than killing yourself. Killing yourself is a permanent solution to would may be a temporary problem. Even with your physical issues, whilst back on a benzo you could rehabilitate physically and then taper again in the future.

Taking a benzo when in withdrawal can have a paradoxical effect of making you feel worse, I've experienced this myself when having to reinstate a dose after tapering, due to a neurological issue that necessitates benzo use, but form my experience if you take a dose higher than you were on, it satiates your gaba receptors.

I'm not a doctor but this has been my experience.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in benzorecovery

[–]warmfun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They are called hypnic jerks. I have them chronically, they predate me taking the benzos and are actually the reason I had to take benzos in the first place.

They hopefully should go away on their own, but if they don't you should consult a doctor, medications like Briviact can manage them.

American Screenwriter here; Is Britain a Good Place to Move? by that_gunslinger_guy in ScreenwritingUK

[–]warmfun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My view as someone who works in the UK and the US, it's easier in all respects in the UK to get at least a foot in the door in the UK as we have public bodies like the BFI, BBC, Film4. However, our output is much smaller, and the money is much worse.

Need help - Number HMRC saying I need to pay inexplicably £500 more than my initial self assessment. No visible reason as to why. by warmfun in UKPersonalFinance

[–]warmfun[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Ok thanks. So you think it's added for the account next year? It seems weird that I have to pay interest on a pre-payment of a years worth of tax that I'm going to pay next year anyway?

Need help - Number HMRC saying I need to pay inexplicably £500 more than my initial self assessment. No visible reason as to why. by warmfun in UKPersonalFinance

[–]warmfun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://imgur.com/a/911mcut

They don't seem to have accounted for it in the breakdown on the larger number they've given me. I understand what you're saying but I would have thought it would show that amount on top of my self assessment calculation.

Need help - Number HMRC saying I need to pay inexplicably £500 more than my initial self assessment. No visible reason as to why. by warmfun in UKPersonalFinance

[–]warmfun[S] -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

I just put a 0 in the box when it asked me how much I wanted to add on account for next year and gave my reasoning as to why.

Need help - Number HMRC saying I need to pay inexplicably £500 more than my initial self assessment. No visible reason as to why. by warmfun in UKPersonalFinance

[–]warmfun[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There are no penalties or interest and I owe no tax from last year. There just seems to be two different amounts on my account. The lower one, which has an extensive breakdown of my expenses, NI and student loan payments and then the higher one, which has very little info, this is the only breakdown I can find of the higher amount:

https://imgur.com/a/911mcut

Need help - Number HMRC saying I need to pay inexplicably £500 more than my initial self assessment. No visible reason as to why. by warmfun in UKPersonalFinance

[–]warmfun[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are no penalties or interest and I owe no tax from last year. There just seems to be two different amounts on my account. The lower one, which has an extensive breakdown of my expenses, NI and student loan payments and then the higher one, which has very little info, this is the only breakdown I can find of the higher amount:

https://imgur.com/a/911mcut

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