Continuing to act as if....

I have continued to try to" act as if "in my limited way.
​
Today I went on a walk.

I talked to Baylissa and other fellow benzo friends new and old.
By the end of the night I was in full blown prickle. All over. No let up. I started having these olfactory hallucinations again--at least I am smelling nice smells of incense. Some say it means spirit is with me, others say this is a seizure aura. I will go with the former.

It's always the puzzle to determine what caused this uptick in symptoms?
Did I use too much energy talking on the phone? I know that sounds ABSURD for anyone NOT in benzo withdrawal but truly, over talking (which I am known to do a fair share of..sorry it's my New York Jewish roots) causes me to have more symptoms. My CNS simply can't handle TALKING. Even pleasant talk. Emotional talk, Happy talk (what's that?). It's too much. Life is too much.

I need that dark warm cave people, with a 24 hour nursing staff.

I boiled it down to several things:
drinking a lot of lemon water (did this flush my kidney or liver too fast? oh god I have no idea)
Too much talking
walking earlier this morning which may have pushed my body too hard as I was trying to act as if with my neighbor (though it felt I was walking through molasses)
expending too much energy today (jesus, I barely did anything)

See I feel like I am in a bind. I want to be out of the house because I know soon I won't be able to be..possibly for very long. I want to talk because after all isn't that therapeutic?
Maybe not so much.

I talked to a new benzo friend who is many steps ahead of me and I hesitated before I told my long circuitous story. We all have one of those that led us here, don't we?
I didn't want to ramp up my symptoms and it goes against the work of Annie Hopper's DNRS and Ashok Gupta's program that maintain that telling the illness story ramps up the stress response and activates the fight or flight process. It's beyond that in drug withdrawal but there is undeniable limbic kindling and PTSD here. Majorly.

I believe I am suffering from a CNS hypersensitivity issue. I can't take a vitamin, supplement, I can't even dance in my living room. I am FRIED. 

I go back and forth on the idea that I am going to heal vs being in a disabled hell for years. No way to predict. The common piece we all need is HOPE even when everything in our lives has been turned upside down and inside out and this is the last place you ever thought you would be.

For so many of us, this dependence took us by surprise. Many of us, were the good patients; trusting, believing what the men in white coats said as truth. Many of us also are those that never did drugs. I personally have experimented but after my chronic pain, my nervous system couldn't handle anything remotely toxic, not even half a glass of wine.
Have you heard these things in the midst of your withdrawal?
 "You have BPD", "You are Bipolar"
"You are dysregulated", "You have PTSD", "You are always going to be anxious, depressed..fill in the blank".
"It's your old anxiety coming back"
"You were born with defective receptors"
"Does a diabetic stop their insulin?"
In full blown akathisia this benzo person I talked to said he was labeled "socially phobic". Ridiculous. He had just talked in front of over 300 people and after being detoxed he was labeled anxious and socially phobic. No, he had akathisa. Ugh. It's so enraging to me. The ignorance. Why not look the damn thing up and understand that it is a common side effect of withdrawal? Why not take your patients word on things than thinking they are making shit up for whatever the reason.

We as humans aren't stagnant, we aren't fixed in our states. We are moving, flowing, spontaneous and can achieve anything we dream of. We aren't this label or that label. If we are seen or judged in this way, sure, we may act the part. If we are in full blown withdrawal and misunderstood, sure we may act irrationally or impulsively. It's horrible how people doing the 'healing' are actually inflicting more damage, therapists included. I really swear I am not anti doctors, I am anti-arrogance and anti-know it alls.

My son asked me if I had any good dreams lately. I shook my head honestly. He said "Why because of that medicine?". I said yes, it doesn't make me have good dreams right now.
He curiously asked me "But I want to know what you actually feel like, because I don't know what you are feeling". My six year old is more skilled at listening that many. He is a curious soul and I love him so much.
​
I dream of recovering my health. I dream of peace in my body. I dream of yawning after a long day or a long hike. I dream of doing yoga and feeling my body strong and fit. I dream of going dancing. I dream of going to the beach and walking along the sand. I dream of traveling to distant exotic places. I dream of relief. Full body, mind and soul. I dream of letting go of fear of death, the unknown, uncertainty. I dream of letting go of all resentments, and moving through this process with as much grace (or insanity, whatever it takes). I dream of full surrender. I dream of being pain free. Fully pain free. Something I have not felt for YEARS.

I talked to a fellow sufferer who paced for over 16 mos. He lost everything. He nearly took his own life. He doesn't have a clue how he survived it. He isn't done with the suffering yet but he is better. He still cannot go out much or do things as he did but he is grateful, so grateful for the ability to SIT. He said, which is what I say, that if you don't know akathisia, you don't know that this is a hell and torture beyond most. The pacing stopped. He never questioned what it was that was causing it, he knew.  It was the drugs.

One foot in front of another. We are all in this together, teaching and mentoring those that are behind us and rejoicing with those who have passed through this.

But it's time we are heard. Compensated. Understood.

It's time.