Dear Lindsey:

I can share with you a certain technique that made it possible for me to stop taking Klonipin, the anti anxiety drug which I took for 17 years or so. I tried to stop taking it several times but when I stopped I felt panic stronger than before I took Klonipin. Oct 2013 was my last effort to stop, the last stage in a gradual weaning off process. I felt the panic and I didn’t think I will make it, but I did the following (something I was taught before by a therapist): I looked at my big toe.

So I am sitting and looking at my big toe. The big toe represents my panic/ intense anxiety. So not all of me is that one big toe, right? You can look at your own big toe and agree: there is more to you than that big toe.

Literally it is the same thing in the brain, not everything in your brain is panicking, not all is panic. Just that one part. So remove your attention from the big-toe of the brain, that is, the panicking part and go elsewhere, go to the part of the brain that is not panicking and look around from that location.

This exercise made it possible for me to get  off Klonipin Oct 2013, never to take it or any tranquilizer ever since.

anita