Postby Masato » Tue Apr 23, 2024 3:13 pm
I had a full proper sleep last night for the first time in 3 weeks. Literally.
Thank God.
A few days before he passed (actually a bit before that, but that's another story) I started getting serious panic attacks for the first time in my life. I never understood anxiety issues or panic attacks or serious depression or anything like that before, my general disposition all my life has been rather the opposite. Even after my mother passed I was much calmer and more natural about it.
But somehow to my surprise I suddenly had serious panic/adrenaline/fear issues, all day, all nights. It's been fucking crazy
I've been waking up in harsh panic every couple hours every night, all night, for 3 weeks. They have been steadily getting less and less, the first week or so was fucking crazy, the body would go into these total shock/adrenaline modes for hours. They got milder with time, but basically my sleep has been fucked, and most days I've been battling with my own mind to keep things together, which is exhausting especially on no sleep.
My brother gave me a couple ATIVAN pills (Loxazepam) before I flew back home, for when I badly needed sleep, or real emergency situations. They helped me sleep on the plane and a night when I got home again, but the issue was still there so I got a prescription for 10 more @ 0.5MGs.
I tried to take them sparsely (every couple days just to sleep), but was already upping the dosage to get through the nights. I'd finished them, and woke up already feeling a need to go renew the prescription even though I was making progress.
Then that same day I was ready to go get a renewed prescription (a couple days ago now), a really good friend told me to get the hell away from that drug and never ever take them again. He is in his 60's and has taken maybe every sort of drug you could imagine over a long and colorful lifetime. He said of all the drugs he's experienced, drugs like Loxazepam he said scare him the most. Says it seems so soft and easy, but quickly builds sleep dependence and emotional/anxiety dependence, and users will naturally up the dosage continually. Says it fucks with your personality and can even develop psychosis in people, it's a fast and slippery slope. He was really serious and said if I take any more I will fuck up my life. He said going off them may INCREASE the panic attacks for a while, but encouraged me to suck it up and go through it as it was the only way.
I believed him, did not go back for more, and had a total change of heart.
That night I slept a bit better, wake-ups in the night super mild.
Last night I slept the whole night, naturally. You can't imagine how grateful I am today.
I'll spare you all the grim details of what sort of wrong-thinking spirals I was having that caused all this, but I've become keenly aware of the mind-body-spirit connection, and how if one gets knocked out of balance, it can directly affect the others, potentially sending all of them in a destructive spiral. Learning a lot. Finding my footing again.
I was quite afraid that I was somehow broken and might suffer like that permanently, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Every day I'm becoming more 'myself' again, returning to a balance, finding light and trust again.
Anyways that's my life for the past 3 weeks, it's been wild.
