@grumpypants When I tapered off very slowly, I too noticed increased anxiety.

@grumpypants My personal journey in slow tapering off Ativan was as long as I was on it…years.

At this point I'm not even sure it's withdrawal that i'm feeling, since it still take 0.5 in the evening.

This drug is terrible......I have taken it for about a year now and find that .5 is hardly making a diffference any longer. I was taking .5 in the morning and .5 in the late afternoon but recently had to go up to .5 three times a day. I want to taper off and get this out of my system but it is so hard. Everything just starts to feel like it is shaking inside. Has anyone tried Buspar as an alternative? My psych doc is suggesting it.

I am on 0.5 in the evening for 1 year. During this time i also took 0.5 in the morning 2 times for a few months and successfully tapered that 2 times. Now i just finish tapering the morning 0.5 for 10 days and things are kinda strange. I don't even know what or how bad withdrawal gets with these doses. My doc says it's all fine and nothing bad will happen, but so many horror stories on the Internet makes me questions everything.

I read somewhere that if you develop an addiction to a drug your doctor prescribed for you, the onus falls on you and the doctor. I mentioned this once to my php and he said no because I was in my forties at the time I started on them. I’m now in my seventies so what’s his point and to further add insult to injury, he is definitely pushing me away. I can still have phone appointments and he basically does whatever he can do for me without an office visit. I feel so sad that I’m being treated this way, I’ve been with him for 23 years and I don’t know how to deal with this at this time.. I’m also a cancer survivor twice in two years and in the past 3 years I’ve been in the php’s office twice to remove my stitches from cancer surgery. I realize I need to find another doctor but it’s difficult here due to a shortage of doctors and nurses, so I truly feel trapped and worried as to what will become of me. I’ve fought my share of battles over the years and I will try to find a solution because I can’t do it his way anymore.

Ok, thanks. I was actually more interested in the dosage of Buspar?? If you know...

Thanks for all the info. I'm not going to read anymore about benzo withdrawal as it will only scare me more. Whatever happens it will happen.

The word “ Reba” is a spellcheck error that I failed to notice during my proofreading and the word is “Rehab”. I found it easy to quit klonopin but I was placed on Seroquel as I have GAD and I need to sleep at night and it makes a big difference when you sleep as I get 100 mg at bedtime instead of klonopin.
Is it the same thing as klonopin? I don’t know but all I know is I get a good nights sleep. Very important for us to sleep and stay asleep all night.
Was I abandoned by my psychiatrist? I don’t think so because he is a phone call away whenever I need him.
He’s not just medicating me and flying off to the Bahamas.
I can reach him anytime.

This is a request for simply encouragement from others who are going or have gone through this. I have taken Lorazepam for a little over a year, and am now on my third attempt at tapering off. In both cases, I had a 'stressful event' occur toward the end of the taper, and my Dr. upped the dose right back up to 1.5mg daily the first time, then 2.5mg the second time. I wish I never would have allowed that, but one can't go back in time. I'm seeing a really good neurologist now, who immediately dropped the 2.5 back to 1.5 because it wasn't doing anything other than making me sick. And to say the last 6 weeks have been hard would be an understatement (I've had almost every withdrawal symptom listed). I'm holding at 1.5 for another week, then will drop in much smaller increments, next is .25mg off the current morning dose of .5. And we will go much slower going forward. I'm just feeling pretty low (I feel like this drug has made my life miserable for the last 9 months), and would appreciate hearing a few 'you can do this' and 'it's so worth it' from a few who are also much more sensitive to this drug and a painful withdrawal. Thanks in advance.