u/TegustaTmobile

I had one of the worst years of my life, dealing with trauma and chronic migraines that were eventually diagnosed as vestibular migraines. I’ve been on antidepressants since I was 14, and I just turned 25. I’ve been through the whole process of trying different medications, and I’m currently on Viibryd. More recently, I’ve been taking Ativan, which I actually had a really hard time getting off of years ago. Back then, I ended up relying heavily on hydroxyzine just to get by.

Thankfully, my physical/medical issues are more under control now, and I’m finally starting to feel some sense of normalcy again. Being out of work because of my health created this horrible feedback loop of pain, anxiety, and isolation. Now that the medical side is more manageable, I feel like I’m mostly left dealing with the anxiety and depression. The depression seems to be helped by my medication, but I really don’t like being back on Ativan, even though it’s helping me get out in public again without experiencing the severe, body-altering anxiety I’ve been dealing with.
I also get blinking tics and make a lot of facial grimaces, which I’m not really sure how to explain. But Ativan seems to help with those as well, and honestly, it’s helping me feel like myself in public again.

My psychiatrist has told me the plan is to use Ativan temporarily, mainly to help me become functional again. But I’ve seen people who end up taking benzos for years or even the rest of their lives, while I’ve also seen people successfully come off them but struggle immensely in the process. On top of that, there’s been a lot of anti-psychiatry/anti-benzo rhetoric online lately. I understand why people are concerned about these medications, but it also feels complicated to me. This medication can save lives and also cause serious problems.
Right now, I’m trying to use Ativan as a bridge while continuing to expose myself to things that make me anxious. My therapist feels like jumping straight into the level of exposure therapy I was doing before is too big of a leap right now, so we’re taking smaller steps.

I guess what I’m wondering is: is it possible to come back stronger from this after eventually tapering off a benzo? Or am I setting myself up for a cycle of tolerance, increasing doses, and eventually feeling like I can’t function without it?
I’ve come out of these funks before, but I’ve never truly recovered from the anxiety without eventually relying on something like hydroxyzine or propranolol. My last major episode also left me pretty much housebound, and I think the vestibular migraines played a big role in that.

I’m still hopeful, but I’m also skeptical. Learning that vestibular migraines can contribute to anxiety and some of the experiences I’ve been having has helped me understand myself a little better. At the same time, I feel guilty almost every time I take Ativan, even though my friends and family can clearly see me starting to come back to life when I take it.

I’m not looking for medical advice as much as I’m looking to hear from people who have been in a similar situation. Have any of you used a benzo temporarily to get functional again and then successfully tapered off while continuing therapy/exposure? Did you feel like you were able to come back stronger afterward? I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences.

I had one of the worst years of my life, dealing with trauma and chronic migraines that were eventually diagnosed as vestibular migraines. I’ve been on antidepressants since I was 14, and I just turned 25. I’ve been through the whole process of trying different medications, and I’m currently on Viibryd. More recently, I’ve been taking Ativan, which I actually had a really hard time getting off of years ago. Back then, I ended up relying heavily on hydroxyzine just to get by.

Thankfully, my physical/medical issues are more under control now, and I’m finally starting to feel some sense of normalcy again. Being out of work because of my health created this horrible feedback loop of pain, anxiety, and isolation. Now that the medical side is more manageable, I feel like I’m mostly left dealing with the anxiety and depression. The depression seems to be helped by my medication, but I really don’t like being back on Ativan, even though it’s helping me get out in public again without experiencing the severe, body-altering anxiety I’ve been dealing with.
I also get blinking tics and make a lot of facial grimaces, which I’m not really sure how to explain. But Ativan seems to help with those as well, and honestly, it’s helping me feel like myself in public again.

My psychiatrist has told me the plan is to use Ativan temporarily, mainly to help me become functional again. But I’ve seen people who end up taking benzos for years or even the rest of their lives, while I’ve also seen people successfully come off them but struggle immensely in the process. On top of that, there’s been a lot of anti-psychiatry/anti-benzo rhetoric online lately. I understand why people are concerned about these medications, but it also feels complicated to me. This medication can save lives and also cause serious problems.
Right now, I’m trying to use Ativan as a bridge while continuing to expose myself to things that make me anxious. My therapist feels like jumping straight into the level of exposure therapy I was doing before is too big of a leap right now, so we’re taking smaller steps.

I guess what I’m wondering is: is it possible to come back stronger from this after eventually tapering off a benzo? Or am I setting myself up for a cycle of tolerance, increasing doses, and eventually feeling like I can’t function without it?
I’ve come out of these funks before, but I’ve never truly recovered from the anxiety without eventually relying on something like hydroxyzine or propranolol. My last major episode also left me pretty much housebound, and I think the vestibular migraines played a big role in that.

I’m still hopeful, but I’m also skeptical. Learning that vestibular migraines can contribute to anxiety and some of the experiences I’ve been having has helped me understand myself a little better. At the same time, I feel guilty almost every time I take Ativan, even though my friends and family can clearly see me starting to come back to life when I take it.

I’m not looking for medical advice as much as I’m looking to hear from people who have been in a similar situation. Have any of you used a benzo temporarily to get functional again and then successfully tapered off while continuing therapy/exposure? Did you feel like you were able to come back stronger afterward? I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences.

I’ve been on 40mg of Viibryd for about 3 weeks now, when I first increased I was constantly having nightmares about home invasions, crying all the time, and feeling scared I was going to hurt myself. Lately, I’ve suddenly been feeling almost overly happy. It’s nice compared to how depressed I was, but it also feels kind of weird and not really like me.
I’ve also been really nauseous, my anxiety feels different, and I’ve been dissociating a lot and feeling like I’m not real. That’s making me think about going back to Lexapro because even though it didn’t help my depression that much, I felt much more grounded and like myself on it.

I’ve been recommended to take Lexapro + Lamictal before, and I was hesitant because I didn’t want to take a mood stabilizer with an antidepressant and didn’t want to take a bipolar med since I haven’t been diagnosed with that but who knows at this point. But since she’s now suggesting Lamictal with Viibryd and going down to 20 mg, I’m wondering if Lexapro + Lamictal might actually be a better option for me. I’m just really hesitant to keep trying new antidepressants because I seem to get a lot of side effects from them and lexapro only really caused sexual side effects that were mostly manageable.

I’ve been having medical problems that have been effecting my mental health which has been a big contributor to my mental wellbeing the condition is vestibular migraines and finally found a med that works for that so I’m also thinking going back on lexapro I might be more stable because I’m not in excruciating pain and dizziness all the time which contributed to my anxiety and depression. I’ve been going out in public more and trying to ease myself back into a normal life now that the vestibular migraines is being helped but my social anxiety is through the roof and I feel very manic in a way which other anti depressants have made me feel like that especially when I tried Zoloft for a couple weeks.

Also the side effects of nausea, nightmares, constipation makes this med not feel worth it

“This RVR upper limit of normal is 20%. From the four irrigations, left beating nystagmus was 42 % stronger than the right beating nystagmus. The Directional Preponderance upper limit of normal is 25%. “
 They told me everything is normal and I have vestibular migraine I’m not 100% sure I believe in that I read the results and everything says “probably normal” because I didn’t say I was dizzy during the tests which I was I just was so uncomfortable I didn’t want to say anything 42% thing doesn’t seem normal and I just want advice please.

I’ve been on lexapro for a while but my anxiety and depression have been at an all time high lately, also ever since being on lexapro I have to take hydroxyzine or propranolol to function doing normal tasks out in the world. To give some context I’m going through a really bad episode of pain which they think could be vestibular migraines or occipital neuralgia, I just got a nerve block injection that has relieved a lot of pain and have been trying to be able to function again. At this peak of my mental health issues along side this has made me become more introspective about my relationship with this drug and thinking about the pros and cons. Some of the pros are I’ve had really good times in my life while being on this drug but also I’m always taking at least 10mg of hydroxyzine, what keeps me going is that lexapro has seemed to really help with dpdr and I never ever ever ever want to deal with that again. The cons seem to outweigh the pros, I go through many depressive episodes and have extreme health anxiety which has been through the roof because doctors were worried what was going on was a brain tumor (it wasn’t thankfully) but I when the going gets tough I always obsessively think about the same think and become a burden to the people around me. I have a pretty bad relationship with therapy and have been considering maybe that’s a key in this. But it’s so hard for me to find a therapist that even stays with therapy provider. I don’t know what to do and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading me ramble if you’ve made it through this.