Tricked by the devil's drug

I had a pretty intense breakdown today. I wouldn't call it a nervous breakdown because it was clearly more than just nerves, but it clearly illustrated to me exactly how messed up my system was. It was horrible but also illuminating in making me realize that my chemistry was seriously out of whack, and now I could easily identify a culprit: Diazepam.

Now, I've been withdrawing from that damnable substance for almost two years now, but I still didn't fully know and understand the power of my enemy. I had to spend hours reading about withdrawal symptoms until I realized that while looking for the source of my misery I had managed to ignore the elephant in the room. An elephant made of benzodiazepines.

While it does appear that I also have an intolerance issue and most definite dietary problems, they seem to be heavily amplified by the Diazepam withdrawal. And while the eczemas and a few other symptoms seem to be caused by intolerance, most of the ailments I'm suffering from seem to match the most common mental and bodily symptoms of benzo withdrawal. This includes ones that even had me thinking my hypothyroidism was coming back despite bloodwork showing no such thing.

This is both a relieving and horrifying realization. On the plus side it means no more worrying about myriads of medical conditions (up to and including cancer), as well as giving for the first time a clear point in time after which improvement can be expected. On the negative side it means that getting there necessarily means wading through something progressively worse, when even right now the mental and physical symptoms are starting to feel overwhelming. It's a road through hell, where the only way out is to go in deeper. I won't lie to you, it's really effing terrifying to just think about, and I've kinda already been there once (or maybe that is why it's so terrifying).

So, unless there is some unexpected revelation on the way, this is probably going to be it from me for a long time. At the current planned speed, it will take me at least 6 weeks to be off the drug, and from there on the preliminary recovery period of about 2 months but stretching to 6 - 12 months for some symptoms. What this means in practice, I do not really know. I don't even know if all of the symptoms will ever go away. What I do know is that it will undoubtably turn this summer, my favorite time of the year, into a living hell, even more so than what I'm experiencing right now. So here's hoping for a tolerable autumn, I guess.

I wish I had never been tempted to medicate my anxiety with something as evil and toxic as Diazepam. I understand that benzos have some utility in inpatient care, but I really don't believe they should be given to people outside of a hospital setting at all. A few weeks of relief is not worth several years of suffering. If only I had known that beforehand.