Electricity jolts from your body to your brain
Any more of this won’t leave you sane
Food can no longer stay down
Is it you or the room spinning round
Does it matter? no it can’t
The sound of your breath is a screaming rant
The tile floor is cool against your flaming skin
Such tiny relief of the monumental pain you are in
Your body aches and shivers and burns
Everything hurts no matter how you turn
Worse is the pain your heart feels like an attack
Reaching out, begging for someone to reach back
Your body violently protests while you kneel
You sob as you beg for a kind word to heal
A little of the hurt inside and out
For someone to remind you what this is all about
Right now you just want to die
Because you just can’t remember why
It’s so important to get past this
Something as gentle as a familial kiss
On the brow pulsing with pain and sweat
A simple pat on the back
Or a text that says: you got this
But I am alone
As I atone
For my attempt to stop the pain
Now I know I have no one
Really is there much to gain
By making it through this tortured detox
By living through this hell
By trying to make myself better and well
I’ve come to the understanding my life is a living, lonely, hell
Authors blurb: withdrawal and detox are a bitch. I went cold turkey off of Cymbalta, my anti-depressant, when my doctor refused to listen to the fact that it was giving me a very strong suicidal drive. Side note- find another doctor. It’s a damn stupid thing to just stop. Damned stupid.
Another note: don’t ever, ever, start Cymbalta. That stuff is dangerous and impossible to get off. It causes EXTREME withdrawals, paresthesia, paranoia, nausea, aches, really the list doesn’t stop and your doctor won’t tell you about how awful it is. Anyway- I will climb off my soapbox now. I was alone going through this. I had no idea what I was getting into, the nightmares, hallucinations, the paresthesia… It’s terrifying. I really just wanted to die. This lasted about two weeks at such a severe level. The paresthesia is still hanging around. Some people claim it never goes away. I needed a kind word, a cool wash rag, some supportive texts, anything. What I got was a long rant from my brother about how stupid I was and it was my own fault and get over it. He stopped by a few times to make sure I was alive. Never more than a minute or two. I don’t deny it was stupid but it would have been nice to have something kind to help me through. The night before I stopped it I was sitting in my bathroom with a knife trying to talk myself out of opening my arm up.
I sobbed for hours because I have never felt so alone. I slept on the bathroom floor most nights while going through the withdrawal. Breathing hurt. Existing hurt. I will say that I’ve made it through and I’m working my way down the other side of the hill. I stopped having the suicidal drive within the first week of stopping Cymbalta. Now I have monumental anger issues I have to relearn to deal with.
If you know someone who is going through withdrawal or detox, alcohol, illegal drugs, prescription drugs, please please support them in small ways. This is a terrifying ordeal and more pain than you can imagine. And help them find a doctor worth his fudging paycheck.