My Story

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I asked my prescribing physician for help with benzos in 2008, when I knew it was what made my anxiety way worse.

I have been a prisoner of war for 17 years now.

I’m not free.

I am both the captor and the captured.

If it only tortured me it wouldn’t be that bad. I tortured the best friends I ever had because of this medicine.
I am sorry Bella. 

You are the only one who believed me and I shit on you.

My family didn’t believe it was my meds.  That has tortured me in different way.
So, as far as me and my captor…

Neither of us know what to expect?

But I always try to remember. 

It’s not me, it’s my meds!

May 18, 2025 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 

I was burning an old memory in a brass bowl on my stove, when I did something stupid. I poured a flammable liquid on the fire. As I was watching the memory burn, my hand started getting warmer. The bottle of 90% alcohol was burning like a candle and was ready to blow!

I turned towards the sink, and as I did, the bottle blew up In my hand. At first I didn’t realize I was on fire and started running towards the basement for the fire extinguisher. That’s when the pain began.

I am very fortunate, I stopped, dropped, and rolled within seconds. Unfortunatey, my kitchen is tiny and I am not. It was kind more of a gentle roll side, to side than a stop drop and roll. 

My leg and hand were burning the longest. One of my feet was toasting on the house fire while I put out the body fire.

I jumped up and started to extinguish the kitchen. I had a bag of paper grocery bags that I use as trash can liners that were blazing, the alcohol bottle to my left, drink mix blazing on top of the counter and curtains starting to singe.

I managed to smother some and douse others before driving myself to the hospital. It was pretty f-ed up. But nothing compared to withdrawing from my medicine.

 September, 2001, Tucson, Aizona

I graduated from Northern Arizona University in the spring of 2001. earned my BS in Elementary and Special Education. I was going to change the world!

Teaching is the most rewarding and hardest job in ever. In the 1990’s I worked in asphalt paving. Some days we would shovel for 14 hours nonstop. Teaching is way harder.

Needless to say, I developed some anxiety about my new career. 

I was teaching 5th grade at Craycroft Elementary in Tucson. Our property backed up to Davis Monthan Air Force Base.
one might find that comforting. I found it completely horrifying when the terririst attacks happened on September 11th.

I freaked out! Went to urgent care. Saved with 1 mg of Klonopin a day. Take it as needed he said.
It worked! I felt so calm and ready to conquer the world!

As the next few years passed, my dose was increased to two milligrams a day. It worked for a while, or at least I thought it did. Teaching was tough, it only made sense that I had more anxiety. As a couple more years passed I was increased to 3 mg a day, as needed. Some days, I took one mg. Other days, I needed all three.

What I didn’t realize was, my brain didn’t know what it could count on. It wanted all three milligrams every day. The anxiety got so bad that my personality began to change. I skipped a free trip to Hawaii with my girlfriend’s family. Sorry Kellie! I loved you and your family. I was messed up.

It was just the beginning.

2006-2098 Vail, Arizona

In the beginning, the medication worked. I was on top of everything! I worked my way up, starting a new school with my assistant principal. I started an alternative to suspension program and worked as the math, science, technology, and special education teacher. I was the “assistant to the principal” in charge of the school in the principals absence. I was in position to be a principal the next year and have a great future. 

But instead..

My life started to spiral a bit. I used to be so sharp and so much fun. I was definitely falling apart.

I began researching the wonder drug, klonopin, that seemed to fix everything.

I came across the work of Dr. Heather Ashton, at the Neurological Institute of Newcastle, England.

Everything made sense. it wasn’t me! It was my meds!

I couldn’t wait to share my research with my doctor. After all, he was so cool that he once wrote me a prescription to “Fire a large caliber handgun, preferably a 45” for stress/anixety.

Of course he was going to help me. He was a doctor after all! Helping people is what doctors are supposed to do.

I told my doctor about the Ashton Manual. He didn’t care.

While while he had no problem with  me firing a 45 caliber on 3 mg of Klonopin a day, he could never prescribe me 15 mg of Valium a day to safely start tapering.
“You are an addict! I’ve never prescribed more than 5 mg of Valium ever in my career, and you want 15?”.

So he did what any respectable doctor seems to do. He didn’t give a shit about me, called me an “addict” and cut me off cold turkey.

The feeling of Benzo withdrawals is so detached from reality. There’s a feeling of a haze around me, an uncontrollable panic and a fear of everything. 

This was the first time I was called an “addict” in Tucson and was forced off cold turkey, I had a seizure. I also left my best friend, the most wonderful woman in the world for someone who didn’t want me. She believed the drugs made me that way, but I never recovered in time to keep her. Sorry Bella, you were the only one who believed me.

7 -1-9 could tell you when it was close based on my anxiety

Alabama doctor refusing to fill

wrnt to Chicago-nobody believed

rocky said he’d help me….

the downhill slide

first hospitalization- assaulted

second hospitalization- verbally assaulted

chemical dependency center-harassed and bullied

prescribed abilify lost the rest of my savings and retirement

provident-crazy behavior at work- warned of termination and sent to another job down $10k plus in my retirement

It has been 17 months as of June, 2025, since I have taken a benzodiazepine. My last dose of Valium was taken without a proper taper. I am still having difficulties, but nothing like it was. My brain is healing and I feel more and more like myself every day.

Despite what my family and many doctors thought.

It really was my meds.