Hello all.  You may want to stop now because it may be depressing and way too long to read.  I am in my usual spot - my bed - on a Friday evening just before 6 pm as I type.

Unfortunately, I am still in very bad shape.  Where do I start?  I should say the good news is my colonoscopy I had this morning - and became violently ill from the prep last night - was normal.  No signs of anything bad.  All my bloodwork done last week also came back good.

The bad news is that I continue to feel horrible every day.  I'm trying to be glad and thankful I don't have anything horrific going on in my intestines or blood, but that's just it, I can't.   

It's a complete guessing game why I can't.  Why I'm devoid of any and all emotion.  Why I can't get excited or happy in any way, even by my kids, who have always been my world and what made me happiest in life.

There are so many factors which go into what brought me to this state.  I'll list them as best as I can.  They're all like a vortex in my head which can't separate any one thing and deal with it anymore.

- sad childhood that I blocked out.  No abuse.  More emotional neglect, and not intentional.  My Mom lost my sister whIle pregnant with me so she was always sad and battling severe anxiety and depression.  I know this now but didn't realize it then.  I must have been scared.  I don't really remember.  I think I blocked out the first 10 years of my life.  She was loving and kind but always sad.

- my Dad was a functional alcoholic who always got up for work and provided for us (I'm the baby of 7), but wasn't engaged with me.  We weren't very close when I was young.  He survived his own bouts with anxiety and depression before I was born and survived cancer when I was 12.

- mental illness runs on both sides of my family so by age 17 I suffered my first of many anxiety attacks and became very depressed.  My parents got me help and I rebounded and was on an antidepressant for a short time.

- I graduated and went into the working world, no college.

I moved out on my own at age 19 and worked sometimes two or three jobs to pay my bills.

- I had a string of failed relationships, was never great with guys or had much self esteem, and I met my husband at age 21.

- We got married a year later.  I was 6 months pregnant with my oldest daughter.

- I was 22 when we got married 

- 23 when I had my oldest daughter 

- 24 when I had my son 

- by then I was having some bouts with ibs

- my husband became very controlling amd abusive not long into our marriage and when I quit working full time to stay home with the kids.

- I left once for almost a week but went home when he apologized.  We had a roller coaster marriage.  Really good times and very bad times.  He has a tongue that says the most hurtful things.  Once in a while he'd lash out in some physical way - throwing things, grabbing my arm, backhanded slaps on my arm or body - a few times in the face.

- I was diagnosed with ulcerative proctitis at age 27

- I got pregnant  (wasn't planned) with my youngest daughter when I was 30.

- when she was 2 she began having horrific prolonged seizures.  The kind that don't stop on their own.  We end up in the ER countless times.  We almost lost her on a few occasions.  She'd end up in ICU - one time on a ventilator for four days.   This went on for four years until her current neurologist got her on the right medication.

- she was diagnosed with ADHD and as the years went by it became apparent she was falling behind her peers and has had an IEP since grade 1.  She's since been diagnosed intellectually disabled.  She's now 16, in 10th grade, and at a 3rd grade reading level.  She struggles socially.

- when she 6 she was diagnosed with an ASD - atrial septal defect - and needed heart surgery to repair it.

- during that time my Mom's health was really bad and a year later she died (in 2008).

- my older two kids were busy in their teen years.  They both were excelling in school and playing sports but after my Mom died I pulled them from Catholic school and put them in our local schools and my oldest kept excelling while my son started going the other way.

- after my Mom died, my Dad moved in with us for the next four years.

- my sister in law died of breast cancer two years after my Mom died.

- my son continued to get in trouble in school and his grades were okay but not as stellar as they once were.  He showed a lack of drive and we found out he was hanging with the wrong kids.  He wrestled varsity as a freshman and some of the older wrestlers were pot smokers and trouble makers.

- he started getting into a lot of trouble at school and eventually with our local police (weed twice)

- his senior year he was kicked off his wrestling team for hazing a younger wrestler when the team was 15-0 for the first time in the history of the school.

- he was also told he had to finish his senior year at a reform school.  He was heavily into weed at the time and in a bad frame of mind.  I stood by him through it all and his Dad and him fought non stop.

-my oldest daughter graduated hs the year before my son and went off to college where she excelled and graduated in April.

- my Dad moved out of our house to go stay with my sister as his heart got bad and he died there 6 months later at the beginning of my son's senior year.

- at the time my ibs and proctitis were flaring badly and my gastro put me on a pill called Librax which had a benzo in it.  I hadn't been on anything daily since I was 17.  I didn't know it had a benzo in it and stopped taking it a year later cold turkey which sent me in to a tailspin of anxiety and depression.  

- it took four months and me going back on the Librax to get better plus other benzos and an antidepressant.  All of which I got off of eventually except for the Librax.

- my son continued to get into trouble and lived at home for three years out of high school.  He finally settled down and is currently enrolled in his first year at a major university 2,000 miles from home.

- my oldest daughter is now in her first year of veterinary school. 

- my youngest is in 10th grade.

-  and I lay in this bed.  Why you may ask?  Because I found out just how sensitive my mind is when I went into what they call tolerance withdrawal this past January due to the Librium in a medication that was suppose to be treating my ibs but was also treating my mind.

- I made the decision to wean slowly off it this time and even worse anxiety and depression set in. I panicked and went back on it feeling that was a huge factor in me getting better last time.  This time the medication would no longer work and no one wanted me to increase the dose because it would only be a matter of time before I needed more and more and couldn't have anymore.

- I've done everything I could to get better up until now.  Inpatient therapy (twice), outpatient therapy, I even went to detox to rid myself of all the benzos once and for all (I had started taking others that were prescribed along with my Librax).  BIG mistake there.  They did a rapid six day detox during which I was put on phenobarbital.  I thought I was ready to die at that point.  I wrote myself off.  That is when the worst of the negative thinking began.  

- I haven't been able to retrain my brain since.  I went through initial benzo withdrawal which was horrific - trembling from the inside out, all my senses heightened, fear and anxiety magnified - the list goes on and on.

- I've tried multiple antidepressants and sleeping aids over the past 8 months.  I'm coming off Effexor now, going up on Prozac, was already on Wellbutrin and Lexapro.  At one time was taking Remeron, before that Ambien, before that Seroquel, before that Trazadone, before that melatonin.

- For anxiety, aside from the Librax, which was no longer working, I had Klonopin first, then Ativan.  Once I detoxed off benzos, I was prescribed Hydroxyzine, which didn't come close to touching my levels of anxiety.

- it seems I flipped a switch  (maybe one that was alway there in the back of my mind growing up with a mother who always took prescription medications), and now I'm a hypochondriac.   

- at this point, I don't know what is what - protracted benzo withdrawal, side effects or the antidepressants, if I truly do have something wrong and no one has caught it yet.

- ibs is not conducive to laying in bed all day and yet that is what I continue to do.

- my husband and I tried to reconcile everything this past summer.  It took me coming home to him after detox trembling and wanting to die, to make him finally realize the gravity of my situation.  

- I saw him cry twice, and I never saw that before.  He tried to nurse me back to health on his own.  I have gotten bad again.  He is at his wits end.  I don't blame him for my genetics, or things I'm responsible for in my life, and even though I received a heartfelt apology and he agreed to go to therapy, and I did see some concerted effort on his behalf, I don't think he's truly changed.  I go to therapy weekly, he's not getting the help he needs with his temper and anger issues.

- sadly enough I waited way too long to do anything about it and I'm in a state where I can't make a move right now and he is fed up.  Maybe I should have left way back when or maybe a reconciliation and true change is possible.  I'm just not in any condition to do either.

- for those of you who have taken the time to read all my issues, thank you.  I know everyone has their own issues and problems.  That's a part of benzo withdrawal, you're so consumed with all your symptoms, they take over your mind night and day.  I suffer cognitively now and have foggy brain.  My short term memory is practically gone.  No one knows why some people can go on and off benzos and they're fine while others like me are very sensitive on the brain and become dependent.  

- these are the reasons that I've wanted to die for over three months now.  I truly don't want to die, I want to live.  I just don't know how much longer I can continue to live without relief.

I think about all of you out there who are suffering and in pain.  You're not alone.  But I know it feels that way.  I've never felt more alone in my life, incapable of living.  It sucks.  It's real.  I pray it ends.  For all of us.  And we can continue to live and smile again.

Even though I feel incapable of any, much love abd hugs to all.