It is the true teacher who leaves the class knowing they have learned the most.
Tucson, AZ
Joined September 2006
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Mid day the day after phone rings and it's the MAT who says "there is no benzo in your test, I think you are drug seeking and I hesitate to see you again. " I was horrified and started to research. Happens in healthy folks as well as palliative patients. I was using 1/2 mg.
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At the last clinic on the list I tried, about to give up, I went in anyway. The model was a DNP MAT and therapy with a 6 month taper. Smart, articulate, arrogant, young, I thought this is the last one, I'll try and see what happens. She asked for urinalysis to which I said sure.
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I didn't think to call or speak with her or her NPs about the concern regarding remaining benzos. I knew of the dangers, I was palliative so didn't care about the dangers of withdrawal per se, but the forced withdrawal damage when no one seemed to know safe tapering methods (AZ).
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She recommended reduction of the final benzo as I was no longer able to take the stem cell stimulants due to FDA (in this case they probably weren't wrong) so all that was left was out of her specialty. She is still my hematologist, but since a PCP can handle treatments, 4x p/yr.
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Under her care I went from 30+ medications of all types down to two stem cell stimulants, EPO (Lance Armstrong's drug) and Filgrastim. I was on Prozac, pain meds, benzos, got of both of the first. A year later my blood counts while not good were stable especially from fluoxetine!
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I began to realize I was very overmedicated with a lot of things that were causing me to worsen and bring my death closer. I was on things I should have never been but I was alone and scared, so we do what we do thinking it's what is right. A brilliant hematologist saw it first.
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Everything that happened from that day forward was a trauma for me, family = I lost my work, many of my friends, my beloved husband and my mother. Not to mention my own health and life. But take me off of psych meds? Not a chance, it could harm me worse.
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From valium to ativan then onto clonazepam, I was dosed for nearly 4 decades believing it was compliance with the help I needed to live with some quality of life. And I did, I got through voc rehab and back into the world and loved it til 2013 my bone marrow failed, down I went.
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I have no proof that tho this was the era of Mother's Little Helper that they thought to medicate some supposed DSM diagnosis or shut my mouth (didn't work at all lol). Up and up that dose went, even as I got medically sicker - and medicals outside psych often show up in behavior
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I was already diagnosed with mortal illness and was not supposed to survive and have done so from the thought I'd not see out a week to this week, as I turn 60. I was given valium at 21 when I self reported feeling strange and kept feeling worse, and I just would not shut up.
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I'm educated as well as having had hard life experiences - school and books and "unladylike" questions. I began to read about the concerns in #prescribedharm a few years ago and after nearly 40 years of daily benzos and use of other psych meds I was off of, made a decision.
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The unfolding story however, is a testament of the hell we #prescribedharm folks are often duped into because of trust or faith in organized greed, burnout, misinformation and outright lies and manipulations.
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This is a personal story involving the growing movement of human social and civil rights surrounding #medication and so-called "mental" health movement under #prescribedHarm - please know the result is not the goal for most but just for me as a complex palliative care patient.
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That's a wise approach. I'm starting to do the same, it just feels weird to me after a full 30+ career on the Web and Internet, BBS, network tech before it. Adaptation is key! Thanks Chris :)
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A very fairly balanced view, I think. I do agree "better" is no longer truly applicable as a descriptor. I do not see better tech now however, but far worse. It is, as you pointed to the real deal I'm seeking: It's community bonds I so very much miss in these years passed. TY!
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