Fun with Xanax
All of this was leading to some kind of collapse. June 19th, 2009. I had celebrated my 31st birthday the evening before. True to my new and boring “mature” self, I only had a couple of drinks and dinner with the family. I called it an early night, expecting to get out and celebrate more during the weekend. Compare this to ten years ago when I went barhopping, smoked a joint and woke up in a bathtub, fully clothed with vomit on my socks. Much like ten years ago, however, I had to go to work the night after celebrating. I woke up, drove my normal car to my boring, repetitive job as a QA call analyst at EchoStar. Everything seemed normal. Technical support representatives were helping old people figure out how to change inputs on their remote controls while other old people were complaining about the $0.50 difference from their bill last month to this month. I had a bottle of Fiji water that I was sipping on, and I was sending IMs to my friends, deciding on where I wanted to go out for my birthday. OK, that’s a lie. I don’t have friends. I was recirculating a chain email about “funny things to try in the office.” One of them seemed feasible: replace the coffee with decaf, wait until everyone’s cured of their caffeine addictions and then switch to espresso.
A sudden jolt. Then your heart races. Usually you can shrug this off, but it gets more intense. Sweaty. Light-headed. You feel like you’re wearing a tight necktie, and it feels like your soul is about to be sucked right out of your shoes. In a panic, but trying to maintain your cool, you walk as fast as you can through the east wing of the building to the lobby.
I remember making eye contact with the security guard at the front desk before blacking out.
“The company still has to pay….” the director said. That line will stick with me for a while. Even though my response was “Anything for a day off,” I was really just happy to be alive. It’s terrifying to lose consciousness, but it’s also embarrassing to pass out at work in front of everyone. This isn’t the way you want to stand out in your company.
A week later, it was back to the doctor$. My doctor has been practicing medicine for over 20 years, so I have to believe that he’s developed a more complex system than typing symptoms into a computer program and letting it determine the diagnosis. I sat there in the cold, sterile office full of human anatomy diagrams, and Doc asked generic questions without looking up from the laptop.
“Do you feel tearful, sad, or overwhelmed?” he asked.
“No.”
“You’re exhausted and you’re having panic attacks,” Doc said. “I am going to start you out on some Xanax$. We’ll see how that goes, and we’ll go from there. In the meantime, we’ll take some blood and run some tests.”
At this point, I didn’t want to believe that all that was wrong with me was panic attacks and exhaustion, but the way I felt was absolute hell. I was a wreck, and I couldn’t even sit at my desk at work. My mind was completely consumed with whatever was wrong with me—whether it was something serious like a brain tumor, or something less serious like exhaustion or dehydration. Every second of every day, I thought about dying and death. No one wants to feel like this. It’s the most difficult mental problem that I’ve ever had to deal with—and one time I was pulled over by the same cop twice on the same night with a head full of LSD. This was worse. I had to explain the death of my grandfather to my children and be there to absorb their helpless tears at the funeral. This was worse. The drug was appealing, because I figured whatever it was that was really wrong with me, at least the Xanax would mellow me out and help me sleep for a while.
And that it did. I could tell that it wasn’t fixing anything; it was just masking the real problem. But even that being the case, I was so relieved to have it. I felt so much better…to the point that it restored faith in my doctor and his ability to diagnose me. The panic attacks were gone, and for the first couple of weeks that I was taking the pills, I slept full nights. But I still woke up feeling terrible.
After 30 days, the pills ran out. I tried to go one day without the pills before my supply ran out so that I could gauge my response while I still had some to take if I needed them. This went terribly wrong. My first day off the pills, the panic attacks came back in full force, causing me to leave my desk several times throughout the day. Finally I gave in, took another Xanax, and called Doc to get some more pill$.
For eight weeks, I took Xanax at least twice a day. I had to pay for the second prescription out of pocket$ since they only cover you every 60 days. The good part of this all, was that I was able to think clearly and focus on schoolwork and my job while I had the medicine. The bad part was that without the pills, I was worse off than I was before.
In a book called Your Drug May be Your Problem by Peter Breggin, M.D. and David Cohen, Ph. D, they explain that antianxiety drugs like Xanax and Ativan cause serious withdrawal symptoms that are worse than the patients had when they began the treatment (7).
After eight weeks of using the drug, I began to wonder if my problems were being caused by the drug, or if I was still experiencing panic attacks because of my mental or physical state of health. Even though I had been sleeping, I felt like I lost touch with life. There were no emotions…only the cold, plain feeling of stable nothingness. I wanted to quit using Xanax, but I was afraid based on the few times in the last eight weeks that I’d gone without.
After two sets of blood test$, my doctor determined that there wasn’t anything in my blood work that indicated a serious illness. He went over the results when I went to talk to him about coming off the Xanax. He suggested that I keep some Ativan or Xanax on hand and take smaller doses for now. Doc said that Ativan stays in the body longer and is less prone to abuse, so it might be a better idea to come off of the Xanax with this drug.
What I thought was hell before was nothing compared to the next couple of weeks. Whatever chemical differences exist between Ativan and Xanax, they were significant enough to rearrange my brain’s neurological activity. I have never in my life experienced true depression like this or suicidal thoughts. I couldn’t think into the future; everything was a dead end. I tried to think about finishing school, playing music, or being with my kids. None of that mattered. It was terrifying and true indifference to life. New cars, new computers, money, making something of myself—none of this mattered. Panic attacks were nothing compared to this feeling, so before I was on the brink of taking my own life or checking myself into the mental health clinic across the street, I dumped the bottle of Ativan down the drain.
I have quit smoking, quit drinking caffeine, stopped taking painkillers, quit smoking pot, conquered a methamphetamine addiction, and wrestled with a ruthless email addiction. Xanax turned out to be my most difficult challenge. Every day I thought about these past vices, and wondered if I had drugged myself into a psychosis to the point that I actually needed drugs to keep me sane. Every day was a struggle to stay at work, turn in my assignments on time, and be engaged with my family.
A sudden jolt. Then your heart races. Usually you can shrug this off, but it gets more intense. Sweaty. Light-headed. You feel like you’re wearing a tight necktie, and it feels like your soul is about to be sucked right out of your shoes. In a panic, but trying to maintain your cool, you walk as fast as you can through the east wing of the building to the lobby.
I remember making eye contact with the security guard at the front desk before blacking out.
“The company still has to pay….” the director said. That line will stick with me for a while. Even though my response was “Anything for a day off,” I was really just happy to be alive. It’s terrifying to lose consciousness, but it’s also embarrassing to pass out at work in front of everyone. This isn’t the way you want to stand out in your company.
A week later, it was back to the doctor$. My doctor has been practicing medicine for over 20 years, so I have to believe that he’s developed a more complex system than typing symptoms into a computer program and letting it determine the diagnosis. I sat there in the cold, sterile office full of human anatomy diagrams, and Doc asked generic questions without looking up from the laptop.
“Do you feel tearful, sad, or overwhelmed?” he asked.
“No.”
“You’re exhausted and you’re having panic attacks,” Doc said. “I am going to start you out on some Xanax$. We’ll see how that goes, and we’ll go from there. In the meantime, we’ll take some blood and run some tests.”
At this point, I didn’t want to believe that all that was wrong with me was panic attacks and exhaustion, but the way I felt was absolute hell. I was a wreck, and I couldn’t even sit at my desk at work. My mind was completely consumed with whatever was wrong with me—whether it was something serious like a brain tumor, or something less serious like exhaustion or dehydration. Every second of every day, I thought about dying and death. No one wants to feel like this. It’s the most difficult mental problem that I’ve ever had to deal with—and one time I was pulled over by the same cop twice on the same night with a head full of LSD. This was worse. I had to explain the death of my grandfather to my children and be there to absorb their helpless tears at the funeral. This was worse. The drug was appealing, because I figured whatever it was that was really wrong with me, at least the Xanax would mellow me out and help me sleep for a while.
And that it did. I could tell that it wasn’t fixing anything; it was just masking the real problem. But even that being the case, I was so relieved to have it. I felt so much better…to the point that it restored faith in my doctor and his ability to diagnose me. The panic attacks were gone, and for the first couple of weeks that I was taking the pills, I slept full nights. But I still woke up feeling terrible.
After 30 days, the pills ran out. I tried to go one day without the pills before my supply ran out so that I could gauge my response while I still had some to take if I needed them. This went terribly wrong. My first day off the pills, the panic attacks came back in full force, causing me to leave my desk several times throughout the day. Finally I gave in, took another Xanax, and called Doc to get some more pill$.
For eight weeks, I took Xanax at least twice a day. I had to pay for the second prescription out of pocket$ since they only cover you every 60 days. The good part of this all, was that I was able to think clearly and focus on schoolwork and my job while I had the medicine. The bad part was that without the pills, I was worse off than I was before.
In a book called Your Drug May be Your Problem by Peter Breggin, M.D. and David Cohen, Ph. D, they explain that antianxiety drugs like Xanax and Ativan cause serious withdrawal symptoms that are worse than the patients had when they began the treatment (7).
After eight weeks of using the drug, I began to wonder if my problems were being caused by the drug, or if I was still experiencing panic attacks because of my mental or physical state of health. Even though I had been sleeping, I felt like I lost touch with life. There were no emotions…only the cold, plain feeling of stable nothingness. I wanted to quit using Xanax, but I was afraid based on the few times in the last eight weeks that I’d gone without.
After two sets of blood test$, my doctor determined that there wasn’t anything in my blood work that indicated a serious illness. He went over the results when I went to talk to him about coming off the Xanax. He suggested that I keep some Ativan or Xanax on hand and take smaller doses for now. Doc said that Ativan stays in the body longer and is less prone to abuse, so it might be a better idea to come off of the Xanax with this drug.
What I thought was hell before was nothing compared to the next couple of weeks. Whatever chemical differences exist between Ativan and Xanax, they were significant enough to rearrange my brain’s neurological activity. I have never in my life experienced true depression like this or suicidal thoughts. I couldn’t think into the future; everything was a dead end. I tried to think about finishing school, playing music, or being with my kids. None of that mattered. It was terrifying and true indifference to life. New cars, new computers, money, making something of myself—none of this mattered. Panic attacks were nothing compared to this feeling, so before I was on the brink of taking my own life or checking myself into the mental health clinic across the street, I dumped the bottle of Ativan down the drain.
I have quit smoking, quit drinking caffeine, stopped taking painkillers, quit smoking pot, conquered a methamphetamine addiction, and wrestled with a ruthless email addiction. Xanax turned out to be my most difficult challenge. Every day I thought about these past vices, and wondered if I had drugged myself into a psychosis to the point that I actually needed drugs to keep me sane. Every day was a struggle to stay at work, turn in my assignments on time, and be engaged with my family.
