Welcome to the Un-Life

A year into protracted withdrawal abstinence syndrome from benzodiazepines.

It has caused me anxiety.
It has caused me depression.
It has caused me great suffering.

But probably the worst is how it has stolen my feelings. All of my good feelings have all but disappeared.
It’s torture.

Day by day in the same greyness.
Day by day, in the same emptiness, losing my will to live.
Day by day, every day is the same.

We feel too much, us with the rainbow brains. We feel big feelings. To be robbed of it, to be empty of every positive emotion except its shadows, while the negative feelings are deeper, deeper, an infinite yawning chasm.

Any moment, I can sink into a desperate nightmare. I call this state “incompatible with existing”. When it comes, every heartbeat is suffering. And it doesn’t only hurt, it’s beyond hurt. It’s too much. I’m tearing my hair, beating myself, desperate to escape from this body, from this torment. There isn’t any bottom to break the fall into the abyss. There isn’t any bottom. You can fall deeper and deeper forever.

That’s my biggest fear. Not the fear of death (the final, ultimate fear), but the never-ending fall into a deeper and deeper pain, with nothing and no one to catch you.

To feel nothing, or to fall endlessly.

I count the days until I’m better, but I don’t know when, don’t know how, and my life starts feeling like it was always like this, and always will be. The end is not in sight.

I have never tasted such desperation.

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