Well, one HUGE thing to consider is diagnosis. I've been bipolar since I was a teen, and had severe GAD/OCD since I was a little kid. One of the probs with benzos is that they cause mood swings. Ack. Bad news for me, because my biggest challenge is battling mixed states (depression/agitation/anxiety/mania all happening at once).

No, I have no more side effects from the k-pin. Those stopped years ago. The bad effects come only when I drop the dose, even by a tiny sliver. Starts out with weird brain zaps - onto flu-like symptoms - onto puking - onto HORRIBLE fear/psychosis/agitated anxiety...yes, at that time death IS preferable. Anyone seen the movie "Candy"? The part where they're trying to w/d from the heroin? Well, the k-pin w/d is, for me, that and worse because of the psychotic s-hit.

The reason I need to go off, or at least cut back, is because I'm experiencing what's known as "paradoxical anxiety" - i.e., the k-pin is causing me to feel anxious....it's kind of like working in reverse, due to damage to brain receptors from being on the k-pin for so many years.

I've seen about 30 p-docs in my life. Out of those, about 12 have told me I need to decrease/go off of the k-pin. They say this: "Decrease it very slowly over a few months. You will feel worse at first, but eventually you'll stabilize." Yeah. Right. The "feel worse" means, for me a psychotic-suicidal-depressed-anxious-agitated-INSANITY. When I've asked the parade of p-docs for a med to HELP me come off the k-pin they tell me there "isn't really one".

Welcome to 20 years on a benzo

Anyway, I'm getting down even thinking about this. So have a good evening, you all