Identity Crisis After Psych Drugs

I remember walking around my neighborhood shortly after psych med discontinuation and feeling a profound sense that I had lost my identity. I was struggling to know who I really was in light of the extreme personality change that brain damage had brought about due to my rapid drug cessation. I had always prided myself on being funny, witty, and quick with a comeback or joke. I amused myself with my ability to find the humor in a stressful situation and expose it in an attempt to lighten the mood, and make people feel more comfortable. I was generally lighthearted around groups of people and always looked for an opportunity to turn something serious on its head. I delighted in conversations about music, art, history, philosophy, and was quick to call upon my memory of events when engaging in discussions on such topics.

However, in the autumn of 2015 after my rapid detox, I found myself walking my 2 Westies around my neighborhood and wondering where all that had gone. Most of the time I was too anxious to talk to people, and when I tried, I couldn’t find the right words to say. It felt as if I had to force my mind to put sentences together to covey my ideas; as if it were a literal struggle in the joining of words. I would keep my head down and stare at the ground when in public to avoid anyone around me striking up conversation. I strategically wore plain colored black or grey shirts, a hoodie, and very plain clothes in an attempt to avoid drawing any unwanted attention to myself. As a father, I wanted to give my daughter a dad who was active, funny, creative, and helped her to explore her world. My addiction robbed me of much of that, and now I was too damaged to even read her children’s books at nighttime because I had too much trouble reading simple words on a page. Still, I tried my hardest and knew that I was somehow going to heal from this, and find a way to live life again without the use of any drugs.

It was a very hard road. I found myself reassessing everything in my life. What did I value? Who were the people I could trust? If I make it out of this, what am I going to do with my life? How do I want to live? I was a slave to the psychiatric system for so long that I didn’t even realize how little freedom I had left. Now that I was free from it, I felt too damaged to move forward. But, I had to take it slowly, one day at a time. There was no way to tell how long I would suffer the debilitating symptoms from benzodiazepine withdrawal, but from what I was reading, I knew there was a chance that I could have a long uphill battle in front of me. I chose to keep my social circle very small. I spent free time walking, exercising, driving, and being with my wife and daughter. My akathisia prevented me from sitting down, so I restlessly kept moving about and made myself keep busy, even though I was fatigued. I remember being out of breath walking up a small flight of stairs. I was always hunched over due to the extreme tiredness and anxiety. I preferred to be alone when outdoors and spent lots of time in public parks and nature trails. Thankfully, I was living in Florida at the time and took advantage of the year-round warm weather.

Slowly, I began to find out who I really was underneath the façade of the character I had created for the world to see. I believe that most people are an amalgam of authenticity, masks, and anxious veneers. Sometimes we act as our true selves, and other times we may act in a way that we think people will approve of. The process of going through benzo withdrawal forced me to strip away the old masks because it whittled me down to bare-bones. I was a shivering, shaking, bundle of nerves and all pretense had to be discarded. The slate was wiped clean, so to speak. For a period of time I had no idea who I was anymore. My only identity was a benzo damaged person trying to survive.

But, as I began to recover I found that I was being fashioned into something better than I had been. I found that I was someone who was compassionate, and longed to help others out of the depths of despair and loneliness. I found a new desire to go help anyone and everyone who was struggling with psych drug damage or alcohol issues. As I felt new life flow into me, I forged a new personality, one who could maintain a certain degree of strength and dignity while facing life’s adversities. I began to find that as I offered myself to be useful to others, I would feel that I was being made anew. In helping others, even as I still felt like garbage, I was being fixed in many ways. I decided that my life would have to be used in service to others and that even if I never healed much, I would still keep trying to do the best I could. This took a ton of radical acceptance, perseverance, and dedication to my recovery, and it still does today. I’ve found this to be an ongoing process of forging new paths. I feel as though I’ve gotten to live 2 lives inside of one. The first life ended on a low note, and this new life keeps expanding, if I’m willing to just give it time. It’s not always easy, but I know that I’ve already gone through the hardest test. You can’t scare me anymore, I’ve been through benzo withdrawal. I’ve been forged in the fire. If you’re still going through it, please know that there’s another life for you on the other side. When it’s dark, we can’t see the forest from the trees. How you feel today is not how you’ll feel next week, next month, or next year. If you could see all the beautiful days ahead you’d take today in stride, and there are many beautiful days in recovery from psych meds.