Dear Mr. Ritz:

You mentioned taking various psychiatrist drugs aimed at treating major depression (SSRI antidepressants) and anxiety disorders.

“I need a Klonopin about every 2 days.. . I’m trying not to get a tolerance to it where it won’t work anymore, so I avoid taking unless I just can’t stand the anxiety anymore“-

– Klonipin (Clonazepam), is a highly addictive benzodiazepine prescribed for anxiety, seizures, etc., it is supposed to be prescribed short term because it is very addictive. But I was on Klonipin for 17 years, taking 4 milligrams of it every single day. In the last couple of years of taking it, I tried to get off it but the anxiety I felt while withdrawing was too intense (way more intense than the anxiety predating psychiatric drugs), and I failed to successfully withdraw every time I tried. Finally, I succeeded withdrawing  back in October of 2013, ten years ago. I will tell you how I did it in a moment.

“Woke up today with a fast heartbeat and a knot in my stomach….not reason, just another panicky day… this anxiety has been going on for years“-

– Back in 2021 I had a unique experience, one I didn’t have before: on my daily walk in the forestry area where I live, I heard and then saw what looked like a big, beautiful dog with white and grey fur. It passed me on my left, running and panting,  and then, it made a sharp turn and positioned itself in front of me, looking at me up and down, not moving otherwise.

There was no one there, on that private road at the time. It was just me and it. It was then that I realized that it was not a dog but a big, strong coyote. It was looking me up and down, checking if I was a good idea to pursue as breakfast. I figured its friends were hiding near by and it could be a group killing. It was a potential predator-prey moment, a very long moment.

Looking back, the fear that I felt then, in that real-and-present danger situation, was very different from the anxiety I felt for decades. At the time,  I wasn’t aware of my heart beating or of any physical manifestations of fear. I was singularly focused on the coyote, and not at all on my physical sensations. It felt like being suspended in time, as in a different world, a very raw, very real situation.

I had nothing on me to protect myself. picked up a stick and threw it at the coyote but he didn’t budge. Eventually, a vehicle drove by and the coyote ran away.

The reason I am telling you this is that as a result of that experience, I realize what anxiety is about, that “no reason (no clear and present danger situation), just another panicky day anxiety:

When anxious, we are focused on- and scared of- our physical reactions to fear: the heartbeat, the change of temperature, the racing of thoughts, etc. When scared in a real-and-present-danger situation, there is no thinking, no noticing of physical sensations: we are afraid of the real danger out there, not of how fear feels inside us.

You wrote back in May 4 this year: “my heart was beating fast and uneven, and I was hot and sweaty. I took a Xanax”- reads like indeed it was your physical reactions to fear that scared you, and therefore, you took Xanax.

Back to how I stopped Klonipin back in Oct 2013: I was on the last day of taking a very small part of a Klonipin tablet,  after a very gradual withdrawal over months. It was evening and I felt the beginning of an anxiety attack, feeling that I was getting consumed by the attack and that no way can I survive it and that I have to take more Klonipin right there and then.

It is then that I remembered an exercise I read about and I did it: I went (figuratively, of course) to a place in my brain that wasn’t panicking, the Observant Part, if you will (you can call it OP), and from there I observed the panicking part.. and as a result, I was no longer panicking.

Maybe, just maybe, what I shared above an help you somewhat.

anita

Dear Mr. Ritz:

You are very welcome.

“I will try to place myself in the OP as you call it. I think it sounds difficult to do, but I will try“- try it when you experience smaller distress than anxiety attacks so that you get experience and have a bigger chance of success when an anxiety attack happens. There are online worksheets on mindfulness skills, emotion regulation skills/ distress tolerance that include information and guidance on how to pause between a difficult emotion and the overreacting to it (getting consumed/ overwhelmed by it). One way to pause is to remove your attention from the center of the emotion.. to a distance away, and observe the difficult emotion from that distance.

Post again anytime, Mr. Ritz. I would like to read from you about how things progress.

anita