Hi, all. I'm TryingtoGetWell (TTGW) from PP, and the founders of this group are my old friends from way back. I love them dearly but I've been increasingly burnt-out on posting and correspondence so have read here sporadically but didn't join until recent weeks and even then didn't post until now.

I've been noticing more and more that people I correspond with privately are here now, and I'm really getting confused what general information (not discussions about private or personal matters, of course) I've told to whom in private correspondence, so figured I might keep things straight better by posting those general discussion-type things re w/d here rather than wonder "Did I tell that to _________ or was it to _______?" and generally screw up less. (I more than fulfill my quota of screwing up in my personal life lol.)

And we'll get feedback that way, plus hey, I miss my old friends. (To those I correspond with - We can still discuss personal matters privately and I never reveal a confidence, just as I expect others to respect my privacy.)

For those who aren't familiar with me (and for those who are but have better things to think about than my med history!), I have a med history that is one for the Guiness Book of World Records in some ways. I'm remembering more and more of it than I've ever posted about but which I increasingly have reason to believe are relevant to what I've experienced. And I'm probably not even remembering most of the meds, much less all the names of meds they took off the market years ago. Much less the medical conditions that I've either come to accept and not think about, or which have resolved and I don't think about anymore.

So I'll create a signature when I can and try to keep it concise enough not to crash the server lol. In a nutshell, I've had medical problems, including some chronic conditions, since childhood (over 50 years since my health changed dramatically, with more conditions developing subsequently at various times).

I've been on one benzo or another for about 35 years as a last-resort anticonvulsant for epilepsy after other anticonvulsants either caused bad adverse reactions or just didn't work on my unusual type of epilepsy. During this approx 35 years I did numerous cold switches and brief c/t's thinking that doctors knew everything about meds and believing that I was getting worse. (I also had been on courses of benzos for severe muscle spasms from incapacitating back problems at times, etc. even before that.)

I was put on paxil the year it came out to address problems from a warp-speed taper off a truckload of xanax and another benzo. Doctors said ithis new med would "rebalance my neurotransmitters" from the benzo problems. (And that by its nature couldn't possibly be addictive.) Live and learn...

I then went off paxil 13 years later (after developing incapacitating side effects during the latter years on paxil) after an approximately 6-week taper of large drops in dose (that latter is significant, as I'll explain when time permits; don't hold your breath lol), and found myself living (not watching) a horror movie to end all horror movies. (Although my worst symptom being severe derealization, it did feel a bit like I was watching as well as living a movie.)

I'm seven years off paxil and for at least several years largely recovered now though still a few residual symptoms I can live with. I'm still on the 0.5 mg. clonazepam (klonopin) that was the last step of that old benzo taper back in the Pleistocene era.

In recent years I have been able to enjoy things again (and appreciate them like never before!) and have been doing so whenever possible. I do still have my original chronic medical conditions that limit me, and also have been dealing with some unexpected "God Said 'Ha!" (name of a play I haven't seen, but great title) life issues that have taken a great deal of my time and mental energies, not to mention causing my head to spin like the character in the movie Beetlejuice (something I also haven't seen, but saw the commercials and trailers). (I seem to be very knowledgeable about things I haven't seen or read lol. But I've been on a movie-going binge recently when time and circumstances have permitted, so making up for lost time, or more accurately, not getting further behind.)

Back to w/d - When I was too sick between w/d and also other medical conditions to do much (and often too sick to read books or even watch television), I've done a lot of reading on many websites and forums about w/d from various meds. I'll be honest - I'm long burnt-out on it and limiting my posting everywhere, or trying to. But for a long time have been thinking there must be better ways to do things and when too tired to do other things, have been focusing on reading things that pertain to that. It's my main area of interest right now and has been for some time. I will also be posting some thoughts from time to time, probably in this thread, about sundry thoughts I've had about w/d and related matters, if people are interested. (If not, no problem. More time to go to movies!)

I don't have any magic answers, but I am finding some people who have also been thinking along the lines I've been leaning toward, and have learned and am still learning some things that may help others. I can only speak for what I'm knowledgeable about, but hopefully some of the things I've done will help others. And I certainly have learned a lot of what doesn't work for some or even most people, though I keep becoming more and more aware that everyone's responses can be different in almost everything. So there are very few things I post as absolute fact. I've learned to say "in my experience" or "from what I've read frequently over countless years" etc. in posts and wish more people would do that in w/d groups. I see more and more unfortunate advice posted as concrete fact to newbies in most w/d groups - sometimes that advice is helpful and sometimes it is bad or disastrous. Writing qualifying statements makes for crappy writing, and I hate crappy writing, but that is what I'm trying to remember to do. When you read my posts, live with it (or don't read them, which is absolutely OK!)

As for my name (Davka) here --

It has about as many meanings as it has people who use the word. (It's a Hebrew word derived from Aramaic indirectly via Yiddish and through my travels through various multiverses via my beloved Tardis. The latter is a joke [or not!] that my old "partners in crime" from PP will understand lol.) Anyway, it took "the scenic route" in terms of what it means, but I use it for its loose translation (none of its numerous meanings is directly translatable to English!) of "In spite of everything."

Hence the title of this introductory thread. I'm here... davka.

P.S. By sheer coincidence, when I was writing this thread today to introduce myself even though I'd registered with this user name a while back, I wanted to double-check one fact about the word "davka," and when googling found that davka is the "word of the day" today in the newspaper Haaretz. I don't even read Haaretz and never had any possible reason to even think about whether it had a website. Certainly didn't know when I signed up here about a month ago that it would be the word of the day today! (So please don't ask me for winning lottery numbers lol) But... Hi, Sheila!

(Sheila loves synchronicity.)