Day 3 of Withdrawal

9:30am - I'm driving. I haven't taken those 3 pills. Ok, so I'm not going to take the pills today. It's going to be ok-I feel fine, fine. Not like yesterday. I ckd my email and 1 friend encouraged me on my quest. 1 friend told me instead of quitting or skipping a day to "titrate". So instead of skipping those 3 pills start weaning off. Now I'm at my mom and aunt's house.

12:00- I checked with my friend to make sure "titrate" means to wean down. It was agreed. So normally I take 3 pills-75mg. Right this minute I'm taking 2 pills-50 mg. I don't feel any "fuzzy" head feeling or disorientation. There's a tropical storm swimming in the air and I'm feeling the effects of allergies instead. I still feel good. I'm shocked. But I also don't want to feel what I felt yesterday and that's why I'm taking 2 pills right now. And yes I'm a chicken I admit it. I'm still scared of the dark and I sleep with a couple of night lights. I also find I'm able to think just a little bit better since off the Ativan and now knowing what I need to do to get off of EXR. But one of the long term effects I'm feeling from the Ativan is short-term amnesia. I hate this part. I can't remember simple things. My stomach is hurting though. One of the side effects of EXR is constipation (sorry, I'm real and talk about it all). I've had enough of this. So I don't know if my stomach is hurting for this reason or that I just need to go to the bathroom.

7:20pm- Well I'm glad to say I took those 2 pills at noon and I'm still feeling good. My friend says decrease the dose and each day decrease the hours. So yesterday I took 3 pills at 10am. Today I took 2 pills at noon. So tomorrow I wish I could say I'll take 1 pill at 2 and be off. I'm quick to rush and jump into things. So I'm taking this slow. After reading what other people went through trying to get off and what I felt last week, I don't want to go through that again. Talking it through and taking my time and a lot (and I mean a lot) of self-talking and praying and singing has helped me today. I used to love to sing and I thought I was good at it. I lost it 3 years ago. Today I heard a me I haven't heard in a long time. Well, one of the side effects I think I've had from the medicine is not being able to sleep. But then I had that problem before I started taking EXR. Some months ago, it got bad and I decided to go back to my Melatonin, my doctor agreed this was good. He said I should only need 1.5, half of the pill which is 3mg. Well a couple of nights ago, I got up around 3am and couldn't sleep. I came and laid in my recliner with the TV on. Around 4 I began to get drowsy again so I went to back to bed. The night after this which I think was Saturday I couldn't and didn't sleep the entire night. I decided I was taking the entire 3mg. I slept the entire night and was up though really early, like 6am. But I made myself stay in the bed and fell back asleep and then got up at 8am. I'm also trying to make sure I eat good foods. I used to eat lots of pasta and then I stopped for some reason. Well in one of my many herbal medicine books, it says pasta is good for depression and it makes so much sense. When I was eating all of that pasta I wasn't on any type of antidpressant. So I need to remember what I used to do. One other thing-I'm a stickler and totally anal about tying errors. I'm finding lately even while re-reading this (and I should have left it like it was so you would see)I missed entire words. I heard it in my heard and thought I typed it but it wasn't. Usually I do this 1 or 2 times, but this time it was like 6 or 7 or more. My concentration is not totally back yet. I used to be able to read 500-page boks in three days and now I can't even read a paragraph. I really can't wait for my concentration to stabalize. I'm going to start drinking green tea and gingko biloba.

Well it's 7:30 pm and I'm still feeling good. We'll see how the night goes...

Just remember: I'm not a doctor or psychiatrist and do not take any of this as medical advice. This is what I've gone through and it's my trial/error in everkything I'm doing. Please talk with your doctor and discuss you want to get off any synthetic medicine. If you're feeling helpless, hopeless or suicidal call 911 or 1-800 SUICIDE or go to this website: http://suicidehotlines.com/

I also remembered something else I wanted to write when I was driving and I forgot but just remembered when I was typing 911. Just a few months ago I was ready to give up. I felt hopeless and helpless. I was in the "pit"-you know what I'm talking about. I wanted to committ suicide- or I should say I thought about it. But I know when I get like this to self talk myself out of it. But I also realized I had given my power to my orthopaedic doctor who told me some really demeaning and un-professional things in an office visit. I let this pull me in the pit and I stayed there and wallowed in it and was covered from head to toe. But today when I was driving and singing and talking to God, I realized how beautiful everything was around me and that I wanted to live. I took my time driving, drove the speed limit and stayed in the slow lane except when to pass another car. This could be the side effect of the medicine that slowed my brain down r because of my back injury. Ok, I'm really going now.