Posted by Rathrbfishn on May 8, 2002, at 4:56:07
In reply to Unexpected Klonopin benefit...?, posted by andyboy on May 7, 2002, at 16:37:09
Just some thoughts...K does give many back a life, or at least they can function again, rather than suffering from panic/anxiety and shutting out the world. But I am wondering how healthy it is to be so indifferent to the loss of someone you love after 4 years. NO FEELINGS? What a dilema. Suffer with panic/anxiety/shutting out the world, or take klonopin to function to get some semblence of your life back. But at what cost? Your feelings? I'm not judging, I use xanax for panic disorder. I can relate to the blunting effect that benzo's can have. I have recognized the indifference in my own feelings that you speak of. So what to do. Live life void of feelings, yet functioning. How fullfilling is that? I think about this all the time. What is the quality of my life using benzo's? Certainly better than living with debilitating PAD. I know I have feelings, but are they appropriate for the situation? After so many years on benzo's I know the lines get blurry. And another thought that I know my pdoc would bring to my attention if I relayed your story to him. He would pose this question, "do you think the indifference with feelings contributed to the breakup of the relationship?" I don't have answers, but lots of questions, almost daily, that your post inspired me to write about.
Just one more thing that I do to deal with these questions. When something happens to me, and I wonder if I am feeling appropriately for whatever it was that happened, I skip or reduce my next dose of xanax as long as I can to see if my feelings don't change. What I find is that I've been at this so long, I know WHAT it is that I should be feeling, but I still have to wonder if I'm feeling it in an appropriate way. Is the intensity of the feeling healthy or have I been on xanax so long that it has reprogrammed me so that I can't feel in a healthy and healing way. It's a double edged sword. I guess we all do what we have to, to get by in this world. With mental illness there are so many compromises.
poster:Rathrbfishn
thread:105465
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020503/msgs/105562.html