Madelon's Story

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http://www.benzo.org.uk/

 

Madelon's Story

 

My Battle with Addiction

 

 

My name is Madelon and I am here to tell you about my battle with benzo

addiction and its torturous withdrawal.

 

Before my introduction to Benzos in 1986, I had been struggling for 2 years with

something no doctor was able to diagnose. I had seen numerous health

professionals except the vet till I was finally given a diagnosis of " Neurosis "

by a highly regarded French Psychiatrist in Paris, France, where I was visiting

my parents at the time.

 

I was so relieved to have found someone at last that knew what was wrong with

me, that I gladly accepted his prescription for medication that was going to get

me back to normal within 5 days, as he promised. I remember asking what a

Neurosis was, but the answer was quit vague. To my question if I had to take the

pills for long, he simply raised his shoulders.

 

Because up to that time, I had not been sleeping for 2 years, suffered

relentless anxiety and depression, developed some phobias that were totally

uncharacteristic for me and felt completely at a loss as to what all this was, I

asked him too if he felt this was a mental illness, but I got the same response,

his raised shoulder thing. Five days later I did feel fine and had the

pharmacist fill the 6 month supply of 2 benzos, 1 neuroleptic and 1 sleeping

pill.

 

A couple of years later, about 20 lbs heavier and feeling terribly ugly and

unattractive, I decided to stop all drugs except one, the Klonopin (Rivotril)

and kept taking the 2 mg daily for the next 6 years. I chose this drug since it

was the only one I could get here in Canada; for the others I had to fly to

Paris every 6 months. At some point Prozac was added to treat the still existing

depression and so I continued the 2 of them together.

 

It was most unlike me but I never researched these drugs for side effects. I was

too busy figuring out what this Neurosis was all about. I never did find out

since I was laughed at by anyone I had asked. There was no such thing anymore,

all Freudian stuff, old fashioned, etc etc. Why I was then taking all these

drugs for something that did not exist anymore was a mystery to me.

 

During one of the check-up visits in Paris I did mention this to the

psychiatrist but he compared it to a diabetic needing insulin; I needed the

Klonopin in order to live. If I did not take it I would either become insane or

commit suicide. Both scared me, so I continued faithfully. And so life went on;

I raised 2 daughters, travelled, ran a household and cared for 10 race horses, a

couple of dogs and cats, gave dinner parties, etc.

 

Early in 1992 I decided I did not need the Prozac anymore and quit, cold turkey.

Nothing happened and in the fall of that same year, I did the same with the

Klonopin, cold turkey... and blew my brains out. I frantically called around,

but not my doctor for some reason, and found a Detox Center and they warned me

of the dangers involved.

 

The next morning, my husband drove me to this place, where I was to detox safely

for a period of 3 weeks, but nothing had ever prepared me for the rollercoaster

ride I was to embark on, to say nothing about that side of life I had only seen

in movies or heard about. I was violently ill for the whole time in there, and

it did not look like it was going to ease up – something that puzzled the staff.

 

I was also the only one coming off a prescribed pill, so it was very difficult

for me to relate to the other women, particularly since they were doing fine. I

did not see others with the same symptoms at all. As far as I could see, heroin

or cocaine detox looked like a piece of cake compared to what I was going thru.

I walked out as sick if not sicker than when I walked in 3 weeks earlier, and

was unable to cope at home.

 

My body and brain were at war it seems; I burned all over, my eyes seemed to

have fallen out of their sockets almost, I could not see or hear, I was full of

fear and panic, paranoia, I could not eat or drink, my scalp felt like burned by

sizzling coals, and I wanted to die. Soon, rage would get the better of me and

everything that was not attached to a wall or floor would fly across the room

without warning. This behaviour concerned my family and myself too to a certain

extent, and so Paris was called for a consultation. I was to immediately fly

over but not without going first to the local ER for some Klonopin to get me

over safely.

 

Fear of these pills made me reluctant to take that first one again and I stared

at it for a long time but decided to take it anyway. Amazing thing was that 20

minutes later I jumped in my car to buy a new outfit for the trip to Paris,

while I hadn't been able to do any of that prior.

 

Once in Paris, I was hospitalized immediately (the Klonopin had stopped working

during the flight over and I was popping them every hour to keep the rising fear

from exploding) and stayed 2 weeks, while being drugged up to the eyeballs with

the same cocktail from years before.

 

Exactly one month later, during a family holiday in Hawaii, I was seized

suddenly, out of the blue it seems, with the same fear and anxiety, but still on

all these drugs. I was totally stunned. How could this happen??

 

This time with help from my local GP I tapered over an 8 month period and was

free of drugs on November 24, 1994 and glad I had finally done it. I felt fine

over the Xmas holiday but New Years Eve arrives and I am exhausted on the couch,

while friends and family celebrate.

 

Not much later I started to decline daily and in March 1995, I am admitted in

the local Psych Ward with suicidal depression and catatonic, and where I am to

stay for 3 months. I had all the same symptoms again from the first withdrawal

plus more frightening ones.

 

It was at this time, that the Depersonalization and Derealization popped up

their ugly heads and I had no idea how to explain these 2 symptoms. I just felt

very crazy and disconnected from myself and everyone around me. I also failed to

recognize my own children and husband and prayed to God to end it all. The only

lifeline I had at that time were my pen and paper and wrote daily, sometimes

just words.

 

I had made a list of all the symptoms (it turned out to be 134) and presented it

to the resident Psychiatrist, who could only ask me what I was doing to myself

and by the end of my stay I had amassed every single psychiatric illness known

to mankind. I knew then that I was on my own.

 

It was also then I was given Barbara Gordon's book: " I'm Dancing As Fast As I

Can " for the first time and was horrified. I knew I was in the same boat, I

recognized all her symptoms, the burning, the rage, the DP/DR, and saw myself

going to the place of my worst fears, the institution.

 

My husband, alarmed by a friend who saw my daily decline in health, took me

home, hoping I could pick up the pieces of my life again, but the DP/DR had made

it impossible for me to even relate to the outside world, let alone myself, so I

lived for the next few months in my own cocoon, disconnected. Unable to dress

myself, to take showers, to go to the bathroom alone, to make a cup of tea, to

laugh or to cry, or even to remember who I had been, all I could do was to sit,

lay down and stare into nowhere and hope that God or anyone would come by and

take me away from all this.

 

I did wonder who I had been. Did I have friends? Who were they? I knew

intellectually that I had 2 daughters, but who were they? Who was that man in

the house, in my bed??? I had no memory of any and only the many photo albums

were a testimony I’d had a life, once. I attended weekly NA meetings only

because I had nowhere else to go and someone in Detox had urged me to. I also

went to a Treatment Center for women for the same reason but it turned out the

worst mistake I could have made in that situation. My stay at this monstrous

place took the last strength and hope I had and I sank deeper and deeper into

the depersonalization and depression till it nearly killed me. I was refused

treatment for a severe uterine bleeding under the name of manipulating the

doctor in order to get to " my pills " and as much as a sneeze would take away my

weekend passes home or my telephone calls to my daughters who were frightened to

the core of losing their mother.

 

At one of the weekends home I saw my GP who ordered immediately surgery to stop

the hemorrhage but the Center ordered me back as soon as I came to, if not I

would lose my place. By now I did not care anymore what would happen. As far as

I was concerned this life was not worth living and suicide occupied my mind

daily and I frantically sought a way out of this horror.

 

I flew once more back to Paris, but this last time I was put in a place south of

the city, a place that looked more like a rest home for the mentally disturbed

from rich families and I was painfully aware that I had finally arrived in a

place of my worst fears – the asylum. My whole time in there was like something

out of the movies: male nurses with crisp white coats, long side burns and thick

rimmed glasses, bringing in the medications in little brown bottles on white

chipped metal trays to the studio where we were making moccasins. Yep, I had

" arrived " .

 

Once back in Vancouver, I tried to perform as much as I could, but the many

drugs I was taking made my speech slur, I fell asleep behind the wheel of my

car, and pretty soon I had blown up like a balloon. My GP became worried and

urged me to stop the nonsense because the men in the white coats would come and

get me (Like I cared, been there done that) and ordered a blood test. My liver

is in distress and I have to get off all pills, but he kept me on Serax

(Oxazepam). That soon escalated in having to take more and more in order to keep

the suffocating panic and anxiety under control. I was stuck between a hard

place and a rock, between an overdose and a 3rd withdrawal. None of these

appealed to me.

 

My husband in the meantime found a lead to a Neuro-Psychiatrist in Vancouver

whose practice was closed unfortunately, but somehow we were granted an

appointment and within a week I was in. I had come to hate these kind of people,

but was told to give this man a chance. He turned out to be the most

compassionate man I had met so far and he was appalled by my story. He said that

benzos were no drugs to cure anything, but just masked the problems and that I

could never ever take one again, under no circumstances. He also felt I had a

massive chemical imbalance in the brain and was it going to take time to fix it.

I also had to come off the Serax but he wanted to wait till he was back from his

holiday. But I had other plans now and was off it before my next appointment

with him a couple of months later.

 

I did get some of the common withdrawal symptoms again but I tried not to

complain and suffered in silence. I once mentioned to my husband that I was

burning a hole in the chair I was sitting in, but his only comment was: " You've

done that before, so you know what it is, it will go over " , and he continued to

read the paper.

 

As for the treatment for the chemical imbalance, it has been a tricky one. I am

now 3 years further and still suffer from DP and DR with depression and adrenal

surges. That drives me crazy. We have been working as a team to get to the right

combination at the right dosage etc, like baking a cake, a little bit of this, a

little bit of that. I hoped like hell he was a good cook. He said he was lousy

in the kitchen but the best in his field of medicine.

 

There were bad times and better times, times when I did not want to come to the

appointment out of fear to have to tell him I could not stand the side effects.

I also quit taking them at times, wanting to prove I could do without, but soon

fell flat on my face again.

 

I am now in time of this writing in one of those spells again that I want to be

drug free, but it is like Russian Roulette, I gamble with my brain chemicals. I

am hanging in, trying desperately, but losing the battle slowly again.

Fortunately, this doctor understands, and does not suffer himself from

arrogance, so he lets me find out for myself and is a phone call away.

 

I have given up hope, however, to ever fully recover. The years on Klonopin and

its cold turkey withdrawal have done irreversible damage in my opinion. I feel

it, I live with it every minute of the day, not to say anything about the

emotional trauma these years have caused me.

 

So sadly, this is not a success story, but if anything, I hope to bring the

message out that no one is immune to arrogant and ignorant doctors, to ask

questions and demand answers, to educate yourself on the pills and potions

prescribed and to make it your judgement call if you will take them or not. Or

find other ways, natural ways to cure what ails you.

 

Best wishes and good luck.

 

 

 

Madelon

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