Congrates Marlene. I know how nasty withdrawal could be. Been through it myself too. Very proud of you. After some bad encounters with medicine, I personally never like to rely on them anymore.

That' why I thought it will be good to share my bad experience with medicine (though not for ptsd) here. I think everyone should be extra cautious on what they are consuming daily especially for long term usage. I was prescribed to this daily combo (sleeping pill + diazepam + Xanax + morphine) for my pain management. On top of these, I did occasionally taking other medicine in overcoming side effects like additional painkillers for headache, gastric, diarrhea, stress, etc. So I was swallowing a lot of them in total daily.

After months on this combo and other medications, soon I realized that it was not only suppressing my pain messages in my Central Nervous System, but these medicines were also suppressing my mind, thinking ability, reflexes, and memory. Taking any drug for a long period is always not advisable, worst still for my case where my physician intentionally mixing them to give me better relief as not a single one was sufficient to give me a good rest at night then. Initially, I was happy and was feeling good especially for the first month as I was getting my needed rest at night but later they started to do me more harm than good. Soon I realized that I couldn’t even remember things said to me an hour earlier, I couldn’t even do very simple mental arithmetic , I couldn’t do simple calculation inside my head and I needed to use my fingers like small kids and I found that very annoying and terrifying. That’s when I decided to quit,and learning to cope the pain without them. It was not easy because I went cold-turkey voluntarily and not by phases because I did not want any further damage on myself. With a lot of perseverance, discipline, acceptance, better understanding and patience, I managed to stop relying on them. Unfortunately, the withdrawal was never easy and it messed me up a lot too, me plunging into depression

Even now after more than a year of quitting, I am still struggling with my poor memories and mind capabilities. I used to remember things well before this but 2 years of swallowing high doses of pills daily had really slowed me down. Though I am seeing a better me now than a year ago but I am still way back comparing to the old me. Indirectly this is affecting my current life, as there were times; where others were waiting for my response and my mind just went blank or I would just stare blankly with no response. It's like there was a short circuit in my brain or maybe the message just got lost during transmission.

I may not want to rely on medication,but I still take them during an emergency. I try to limit my usage, use only when necessary. If I can cope without them, I 'll because I rather have them out of my life if possible.

Lesson learned: Try not to depend on medication for a long period, longer than needed. Take only when necessary; never rely on them as a permanent solution as they will do you more harm than good.