I felt around 8-10 months was the worst for me

2 months after being completely off citalopram I was hit with bad withdrawals I reinstated and a year later feel ready to do a taper

I have just recently discovered your Chanel 🎉 I really relate and am thankful that you share not just about benzos but about other meds as well. So many of us have multiple meds to taper off. Appreciate your contribution to my healing as I taper 🎉

Thank you for this video , so crucial. I hope you manage to get some testimonies on KZbin it is greatly needed.

You are such an incredible, strong woman. You have endured SO much! I want to thank you personally for all the encouraging videos you have made. They are immensely helpful and encouraging to those of us on this healing journey. Blessings to you and your precious daughter as you begin a new chapter.

Thank you for this. I’m almost at 23.5 months off now and am honestly losing hope at this point. Especially with the mental/cognitive symptoms. The depressive feelings are increasing the longer I have to live like this. I think I’m just dealing with severe battle fatigue at this point. Trying to hold onto any hope I can find. 💜 you’re an inspiration.

So happy for you Melissa, good luck on this new chapter of life!

8 months out and no improvement!

I have all the things you have and I believe you. This is a tremendous horrible stuff.

Really I hope i can overcome, these benzos are sooo terrible and very damaging. I think that your a very wonderful person also since these benzos are also telling me I don't have hope.

Thank you

I had a similar experience recently where I thought I had a UTI but it was a perimenopause symptom. I'm planning to try vaginally estrogen because it can help with those symptoms and also prevent UTIs. I know you might not feel comfortable with it but just thought I'd mention it in case you weren't aware.

Thank you for sharing. I appreciate your videos. I SO much long to be on the other side of psych med w/d. I don’t know how it will ever happen after being on so many unnecessary psych meds for 25+ years. My tapering is so slow now and I’m nowhere near off these poisons. I’m 54 and have been tapering this for 6+ yrs. I made the mistake of being hospitalized twice while tapering due to severe sxs and they really messed up the meds there.

Hi Melissa, you’re looking so healthy and happy.

You explained it perfectly. The Mental Health System has no clue what these drugs can do in withdrawal and many more effects, for example side effects. You give hope in this video and I so appreciate you for being brave and so encouraging. ❤❤❤

Thanks for sharing with us! Ps: you said “and” a few hundred times 😂

Grapefruit seed extract in lemon water with acv. Also good amounts of Dmannose with the grapefruit seed extract water stuff it’ll leave.

Lovely to see you are doing good. Still tapering and I continue to feel ok. Thank you

Hi Melissa! Your story is extremely helpful & inspiring. Thank you for sharing it and helping others. I am so glad to hear of how well you are doing🎉😊. Isn't it interesting how this all unfolds and how we notice those subtle signs of healing, and those turn into even bigger and more obvious signs of healing as time passes? BTW, as you are obviously realizing, peri-menopause does make you have to pee a lot. That is a completely normal part of peri. I am 3 years into peri menopause and I have to go to pee more than I ever have in my life. It doesn't feel like the urgency that I'd get years ago if I had a UTI.. It feels more like I just don't want to hold my bladder anymore like I did many years ago when I was working as a nurse and there was never any time to go to the bathroom while I was working. Those days of having a "super bladder" like that went by the wayside when peri started. But, I've never had a UTI in peri. I drink plenty of water that keeps my urinary tract system healthy. I do not take HRT no way, not after being med injured, and I probably would not have taken it even if I was never med injured either. My mom never needed it. If you ever want to talk about peri-menopause - you have my email- ❤Shelly.

5 years off . Second setback due to surgery this is heel

Thank you for sharing. Makes me hopeful ❤

So pleased to hear that you are feeling so well. It is so encouraging to hear that all things are falling into place and how grateful you are. Thank you for sharing.🦋❤️

Hi Melissa. . . now you get to enjoy the drive, when you visit your mom :) God Bless.

What if you feel windows before your 6 month mark

Thanks, you give me a lot of hope.

What about nerve issues?? I had no ocd

Benzo's are the worst drugs hands down. I cannot believe doctors are still prescribing them. Im 10 months off Ativan after 15 years of always as prescribed use. It has been the most challenging horrible experience of my life. And being a female, going into premenapause, triple the horror.

I can't speak to my own timeline because I'm still tapering my last drug, but I think a variety of factors influence the timeline. For instance, did the person taper, and if so, how? Did they cold turkey? How much social support do they have? Do they have a lot of unresolved trauma/stored survival stress? Etc.

7 yrs. Not one window

so were you just not sleeping for months? or getting little sleep here and there?

Hi Melissa. I'm currently going through withdrawal from clonazepam and after almost 1 year in the process I've experience rapid weight gain (13 pounds) even though I haven't changed my diet. Do you know if others have experience this? Thanks!

I wondered if you were okay! I’m glad it was just all those nasty bugs going around and nothing more. I truly appreciate your videos and the time you take to help us! Hope your holiday season was good (other than being sick). ❤😊

My wd didn't really kick in until 6 months off and now it's worse then ever at 15 months idk what to do or how this is even possible im out of my mind and my head is killing me.

Do you THINK everyone heals ? I’m going on 9 years ……pretty much despair at this point and totally hopeless . I’ve gone from person to person to program to program trying to educate myself and all it did is ruin me more

I only had 2 windows that lasted maybe 2 mins where i felt joy excited and had memories. I’ve not had any improvement in my mood. Anxiety and depression are still severe. I still do not feel safe because I’ve no family that believes me about this my ex still is two faced only trying to cause strife. I miss my daughters. I want to be here for them but I am not given equal visitation and I’m terrified of my ex. Everything here keeps me in depression anxiety because of all the trauma. I’m not trying to have a victim mindset but fuck this has been the most horrific experience of my life now for years. More and more drama and trauma. The psychologist that I did the evaluation doesn’t even believe in any of this. He just told me I have a personality disorder. I’ve lived with severe akathisia for years now. It gets so tired of new and believing me.

I was on fluoxetine for the better part of 30 years. Since it's long acting for the last 12+ years I was taking 20mg once a week. My NP said it wasn't a therapeutic dose and suggested I stop taking it; and because it's such a small dose I could quit 'cold turkey'. (Worst advice). Now that it's been a year, all I can say is that I've hardly slept for the past year and I've got anxiety about sleeping or the lack of. Once in a blue moon I had a 7 hour sleep which was wonderful! But it's usually 4-5 hours and occasionally none. What can I do??

Currently each month gets increasingly more and more severe in my case. Only fourth month saw improvements, but I'm starting fourteenth just as non-functional as first one.

Melissa, did you have a hard time focusing on and initiating simple tasks like cooking during recovery? Did that go away after you healed,?

So my story is an adverse reaction from lexa. I was on it less than two weeks. I started feeling withdrawal about two weeks after the last dose. The first big crash was at 2 months, then another crash at 3.5 months. Then had some ok windows, 6.5 months was another crash. At 7.5 months I started a pretty good window with just a few bad days sprinkled in. Then at 9 months was a major crash, and it has been more to the bad side since then. I’ve had about 3 ok windows that were about 5 days each since then. And 6 days ago I hit another horrible crash and been in it since. This wave feels like the waves I was getting early in, very much like a huge surge. So it has not been linear at all. I’m hoping to turn a corner here soon. I had a great 5 day window last week where I felt 90% like my old self, only for it to go completely polar opposite this past Saturday.

Hi Melissa I am on last leg of diazepam taper 1 mg getting too much night mares and vivid dreams which i can remember in morning ..what to do.. i am from India still have ssri fluvoxamine 125 mg amisulpride 25mg pregabalin 25mg

I've stopped tapering v. I'm a senior & feel at this time & not on solid ground lacking the support financial or physical or emotional needed. Would like to have known even 5 years earlier. I am still open to trying again. Blessings to all!🙏

My first crash lasted about 18-months starting 6-months after I cold turkeyed an SSRI per a doctor with gradual improvement, then I had about an 18-month "window" where I was functional - worked, drove, attended church, went on vacation, etc. - then I got hit with a second crash where I am today (the second crash so far is about 18-months long), but this second crash is significantly worse than the first. For about about 18-months, now, I've experienced akathisia, PSSD, lack of sleep, severe depression, severe anxiety, severe OCD and not functional at all. I pretty much have spent the last 18-months indoors. Is there any hope left?

Hi Melissa. Excellent topic! Any thoughts on the people who are 4 years out and have never got the gradually increasing window with lessening waves and are still bad with no change or improvement? Everyone says you will eventually get through this but at what point do you just have to accept this as not changing? Thanks for doing these videos!

Hello, thank you so much for your videos! They give me a lot of hope and strength when recovering. 🙏 I wanted to ask if you had memory loss from the Seroquel and if this resolved with time. I took it once and it caused anhedonia and long and short term memory loss, I lost core memories as well. If you mind me asking, if you had this symptom, did your long-term memory improve? Once again thank you so much. 🙏

Whoever makes them the scientist in their laboratory Need to take them themselves To even put out this poison or ban it But is probably big business for them

Melissa did you try hydroxyzine for your Akathisia ? If so did it help or worsen it? I’m so confused. Some days I feel it really masks it , some others it seems to worsen it. Please what is your experience ? Should I try Propanolol? Terrified of these meds withdrawals too

You're one of my favorite people in the world, you do so much good. I saw you for a coaching session once too & you gave me so much hope, thank you for all you do!

Hi Melissa, do you remember what the "flashes" of symptoms were like at this time? Did you get flashes of the burning squeezing jabbing exploding chest and stomach or was that all gone at 2 years?

Melissa thank you for this 🙏