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Just so you know, because it sound like nobody told you... you really need to taper those drugs or the chance of seizure goes way up. It's not like other addictions, you can't just cold turkey benzos or alcohol if you've been using them daily for a long time. It can literally kill you, and you won't see it coming.

There's various schedules on how to do it, here's a good starting point: https://www.aafp.org/afp/2017/1101/p606.html

My personal rule is to never be taking benzos for more than 3 days in a row, to avoid being in a dangerous withdrawal situation.

Indeed, nobody told me. I experienced the immediate effects of withdrawal when my stomach started tensing up for no good reason, and I started sweating. That was enough to convince me to stop with the cold withdrawal and start tapering.

I did not know this could have been life threatening. That's... comforting...

Be very careful tapering off benzos, the withdrawals are more dangerous than that of heroin [1]. You should definitely get your doctor involved in this process. You might also want to read through this [2]. 8 months might not be enough time to taper off depending on the time and dosage you've been on.

[1] https://qz.com/677980/opioids-arent-the-most-dangerous-drug-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodiazepine_withdrawal_synd...

I've been on Klonopin for seven years. But I started out on the very lowest clinical dose, and for two months I tapered to 75% and for the last month I've been on 50%. In another month I hope to drop to 25%. So it will be at least six months, and as I said I started at a low dose. I feel great so far.

Heroin withdrawal, while extremely shitty, is generally not life-threatening.

> You should definitely get your doctor involved in this process.

Doctors are often ignorant of the need to taper benzos over a long-term period, and not rapidly. Some might see you coming to them with a problem quitting an often abused drug as a sign that you need to be taken off of it as soon as possible. Sometimes instantly.

Of course you should always let your doctor know when you're taking less medication than you're prescribed. I suggest consulting with a specialist before trying to quit with a GP or your run-of-the-mill psychiatrist.

I had to explain tapering to my psychiatrist, who also was very skeptical of the "brain zaps" I reported feeling when I went off Paxil.

I ended up moving my prescriptions to my GP and managing the tapers myself, because the doctors don't really know how to do it.

Brain zaps are unpleasant. They are nothing like the withdrawals from benzos, which can include seizures which can be life-threatening.

Yeah, I had brain zaps when I tried to go off Remeron. One thing at a time...

You're absolutely right, but there's also a theory that SSRI withdrawal brain zaps may actually be brief, localized mini-seizures.

I'm continually impressed with the lowering of the bar for such professions every time I encounter another basic thing that some doctors are completely unaware of, and I'm sorry to hear you had to deal with that.

I've had a lot of complaints about various psychiatrists, but one constant even among the worst has been that they were always very, very cautious about the need to taper and the possible risks involved.

It's shocking when psychiatrists don't know the side effects of the drugs they're prescribing.

My partner started taking sertraline (Zoloft) for depression, and started grinding their teeth at night. Their dentist asked if they'd started taking any new medicine lately, and was like "oh yeah that'll do that."

My partner's psychiatrist literally did not believe that the medication could cause this - despite it being right there on WebMD, not exactly secret knowledge.

Currently looking for a new psychiatrist.

I’m terms people might understand around here, you ever know a dev or work with one who just doesn’t seem to care to learn new things and just shows up for a paycheck?

That happens in every field. It’s just shitty when you’re depending your health on them instead of a deadline.

For the sleep, try wearing blue light blocking glasses all day until you are able to sleep reliably. It sounds ridiculous but I read a study in the Journal of Bipolar Disorder a few years back (can't find a link right now) about this. I've given a pair to a friend suffering from a multi-day manic phase (with zero sleep) and it stopped it dead in the tracks, within six hours in this case.

It makes you look a bit dorky but it's better than not sleeping (or mania).

The product used in the study (and the one that I've seen work) is:

Uvex Skyper Blue Light Blocking Computer Glasses with SCT-Orange Lens (S1933X)

Thanks, you prompted me to buy some glasses and try this.

They’re life changing!

I'm confused. My problem is not getting enough sunlight, and I was under the impression that blue light was what I needed. Why would blocking it help?

Strain on the eyes and blue light, iirc, suppresses a hormone related to sleep. Been wearing a pair for the past two years after a coworker recommended them after I mentioned my eyes always feel super strained by the end of the day and have trouble sleeping. They really do make a huge difference.

Before, my eyes were super heavy and aching by the end of the day, and now they feel as though only an hour of screen time has passed. Thing is if I take them off while working/looking at any screen without a blue light filter, they start aching within 10 minutes :/

Why just not take melatonin which is cheap af?

Doesn't always work.

Melatonin is just a very small part of all the variables involved in sleep. If you are excited or stressed you'll have high levels of adrenaline, cortisone, or cortisol. Diet will affect levels of ghrelin, leptin and insulin. Low testosterone levels, or antidiuretic hormones, can be found in many people. All these things will affect your sleep just as much, if not more, then melatonin does.

The glasses are $8 most places ... which is also cheap. FWIW, my friend was also taking melatonin but it was not effective against her hypomania-driven insomnia.

And magnesium, right?

Check out http://survivingantidepressants.org I'm active on the site. Fair warning some people stop sleeping coming off of Remeron others are fine. Sometimes the withdrawal is multi month delayed.

Tapering is the only solution for kolonipin. Please check out https://www.benzo.org.uk/index.htm It sounds like you're on the right path. It took me around 3-4 months also, but time varies from person to person. Stay strong. I did it and you can definitely do it! It's so worth it.

Any idea what triggered the insomnia?

This is the most important question here. I hope OP has been able to address the original cause of the insomnia, lest it happen again.

Not fully, but I strongly suspect it had a lot to do with the building I work in. My building has no windows. My lab simulates space, so it is a big room that is painted black. Daylight Savings had just stopped, so I was getting an hour of sunlight driving in to work, no sunlight during the day, and leaving after it got dark. I think my circadian rhythms were completed screwed up.

Once you have insomnia for a few weeks it tends to be self-reinforcing. I didn't get adequate medical care during the first few weeks, when it was acute, so it became chronic. I tried, but the doctor wrote me a half-strength prescription for Ambien, and that was all. It didn't work.

Holy crap you were living in constant darkness. Of course you had sleep issues. Did you ever try light exposure?

Yes, of course. I got a sunlight lamp and put it over my monitor. I actually went so far as sitting outside in the evening for an hour, every day. I also tried taking melatonin.

But the thing with insomnia is that it is self-reinforcing. You get conditioned to lying in bed awake, and that's what your brain then expects to do when you go to bed. And then you get anxious about it, which makes it worse. Once you have it, removing the original cause doesn't solve the problem.

In my defense, I worked under these conditions for five years before it became an issue.

You may be interested in light therapy. Special lights for home that mimic sunlight to keep your body in sync, commonly used in northern regions (so I’ve been told).

This is a great resource for tapering off:

https://willhall.net/comingoffmeds/

I consider it the bible.

>Knowing that I have medications available to me that can help me get to sleep is enough that I think I don't actually need the medications any more.

Honest question: Have you ever considered that your insomnia was psychosomatic and, through your doctors involvement in for-profit sales of pharmaceuticals, socially re-inforced?

Most chronic insomnia is psychosomatic. The problem with calling it "psychosomatic" is that people who haven't experienced it think that means it isn't real. But it is. You can't just talk yourself out of psychosomatic illnesses. They're as real as any other kind. You need some sort of medical care to manage or overcome them, just as much as if you had a broken leg.

In my case, I see my psychiatrist once a quarter for fifteen minutes. Klonopin and Remeron are two of the cheapest drugs there are. My meds cost me less than $40 a year. I don't think anyone is making a lot of money off of me.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or biofeedback, which are two alternatives that were presented to me, would have been far more expensive.

I dont mean to be alarmist but taking benzodiazepines for an extended time (anything more than 2 weeks is probably a bad idea, especially with strong ones such as clonazepam), is definitely not a great idea. There is a very prolonged withdrawal syndrome, with many not reporting feeling completely better after many years in cases of high dose long term usage.

You may take the view that you can always take them, but circumstances change (your doctor may no longer be allowed/feel comfortable prescribing for a long time - this happened with opiods) or you may not be able to get access with them for other reasons.

The drugs will most likely stop working or rapidly increase in side effects after very long term use, it's generally just a matter of time.

I would strongly recommend you get a plan to taper if possible and look into alternatives. Many think the benzodiazepine withdrawal is as bad if not worse than opioid (plus it can be lethal).

I had no idea the impact of benzo's but my first thought after reading the OP and experiencing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) myself, "Isn't that just a band-aid, not really treating the 'wound'".

I guess I'm just agreeing with you from a philosophical point of view.

For what's its worth for anyone (including OP) reading this, I found success in studying philosophy as a poor man's CBT especially Existentialism. I think an argument could be made that these two things are the same thing but represented slightly different language and with slightly different goals.

Stoic philosophy has a lot of overlap with CBT. It basically re-opened those cbt books for me and kept me at it.

Also true. And I've probably been heavily influenced by Stoicism as well, its hard to keep track where the lines are when there's so much overlap between the three.

As I said in the parent post, I agree, and I am in fact tapering. I'm down to half my original dose. I'm taking it slow. This is something where you really need to listen to your body; it isn't helpful to have a set plan. You need a goal, but you also need to be flexible about it.

I tried CBT, and it didn't work. Admittedly I only tried it once. There are lots of different flavors of CBT for insomnia, and maybe if I had tried harder I could have found one that did work. The problem is finding a doctor who knows about it and will work with you, especially if you don't live in a big city.

Benzodiazepines are worrisome drugs, but I have to admit that for my insomnia, they were almost magic. Once we got the dose right it went away almost literally overnight. But then, as the OP illustrates, doctors aren't necessarily helpful in getting back off them.

> I'm taking it slow. This is something where you really need to listen to your body; it isn't helpful to have a set plan. You need a goal, but you also need to be flexible about it.

Truth!! I had to discover this for myself as well, and I'm continuing to figure it out as I go (currently lost about 50lbs in a 150lbs weight loss journey).

I'm sorry if I came across as judgemental, nor do I want to diminish your accomplishment. As someone on both sides of these drugs, it is no easy feat to make this big of a change. Kudos!!!

It sounds like the medication has done its job in that it has given you relief to get some sanity back and to focus on other options.

.. and here, another reason to distrust the Lords of Pharmaceuticals: the cloaking of danger by way of re-branding. Why, exactly, is this necessary again?