00:20Before I began taking medication, my life moved very quickly.
00:25I thought about every possibility. What could go wrong? What could I do that would be wrong?
00:34How was it going to affect every possible aspect of my life?
00:40I was always the type of person that it took a lot to make me cry.
00:44I used to think that people who had anxiety were weak.
00:48I thought it was like you just can't handle life well.
00:51I was a senior in college and I was finishing final projects. I was finishing final exams.
00:58I was applying to graduate schools and I would just think about doing better and being perfect.
01:05The problem that I was having that brought benzodiazepine into my life was insomnia.
01:11It was becoming very severe and chronic insomnia.
01:13You lay there, you toss and turn, your mind races and none of the thoughts that are plaguing you are
01:20good thoughts.
01:21Some thought would break through that would say this is never going to happen.
01:25You are never going to get this success that you're hoping for.
01:31You're a loser and I would have a total and complete meltdown.
01:38I would be brushing my teeth and then all of a sudden I would look in the mirror and I
01:42would just not be able to breathe.
01:43And I would cry.
01:45But it wasn't regular crying.
01:48It was this sound.
01:52But this would happen really regularly.
01:55At one point I went a total of eight days without sleep.
01:58And then Klonopin was introduced and prescribed.
02:04When I first started taking Klonopin, I felt as if suddenly my world slowed down and I was walking.
02:14And I didn't realize until I was walking that I had been on this treadmill running at a very fast
02:23pace.
02:25When my life slowed down, when I took the medication that I was supposed to be taking,
02:29I started dating a very different type of person.
02:34I changed my criteria and I said I just want someone who is always kind.
02:40I met someone who was kind to everyone no matter what.
02:45We got married at City Hall, New York Marriage Bureau.
02:49I remember that every minute of that day and I was so calm.
02:56I took my medication when I was supposed to take my medication.
03:00And it was a peaceful and love-filled experience.
03:08I slept.
03:09It was miraculous in the sense that it put me to sleep.
03:13But what happens is that the dose that you start taking, you need a higher dose to get the same
03:19therapeutic effect that you were originally getting.
03:21You take a milligram.
03:22The doctor says, oh, we'll just take two.
03:24So here, slowly, you're ramping up.
03:27You don't notice it at the time.
03:29Next thing you know, I'm on Klonopin two years.
03:33When I decided to get pregnant, I had this idea of what a pregnant woman was supposed to be like.
03:41She would obviously just, you know, drink homemade almond milk and have only organic produce.
03:47And I walked into my psychiatrist's office and I said, by next year I'm not going to be taking medication
03:52anymore.
03:54And I've never seen anyone look as scared as he looked just for a moment and he just looked absolutely
04:01terrified.
04:02I was moving, had a lot going on in my life, and the prescription ran out.
04:08No big deal.
04:09I thought, you know, I probably won't be able to sleep at all, but I had bigger priorities.
04:16And I almost died without the drug in my system.
04:20Just laying there like catatonic and frozen and shaking, heart just pounding out of your chest.
04:27I mean, beating so fast and you feel it.
04:29It's like you feel your heart beat all over your body.
04:32Incredible stomach pain.
04:34I toughed it out for about two days like that.
04:37I went down to the doorman and I couldn't even talk.
04:41I couldn't get my mouth to get the words out.
04:44My hands were shaking.
04:45I got into my car to drive.
04:46I couldn't drive the car.
04:48Reached out to one of my doctors and she said, Heather, what's happening to you is acute benzodiazepine withdrawal.
04:54And I was like, what did you just say?
04:58What is that?
04:59She said, we have to get it into your system immediately.
05:02You have to go to the emergency room.
05:04And that's when I did my first taper off the drug.
05:07I made the decision to try to taper.
05:09I got down to about a half milligram from four milligrams a day.
05:13And I just felt awful.
05:18I felt sick, physically ill.
05:23I felt like I was going to vomit.
05:25I was shaking.
05:27A lot of people don't know this, but there are two drugs that can kill you with a sudden discontinuation
05:33of them.
05:34Alcohol and benzodiazepine.
05:36Most people don't know that though.
05:38I didn't know that.
05:39And I was on a benzodiazepine.
05:40I got a new job.
05:42I love this job.
05:43It's time to leave for work.
05:45And I'm sitting on the floor, hyperventilating, staring at my front door.
05:49And my front door is terrifying.
05:52My doctor said, in your case, I am really worried about the risk of suicide if you go off of
06:02your medication.
06:04I sort of stubbornly held onto this idea that I would rather not be medicated while pregnant, but that was
06:13the big reality check.
06:1518 months is the average time to recover from a benzodiazepine discontinuation.
06:2118 months.
06:23I mean, what is this drug?
06:28Heroin doesn't do that to people.
06:30Cocaine doesn't do that.
06:31But a pharmaceutical is doing that to people.
06:34The withdrawal is that horrific.
06:37I mean, it is absolute torture.
06:40When I ended up on exactly the same dose of Klonopin that I had started out on, I just felt
06:48like a total failure.
06:50There is this voice from somewhere else, from somewhere subconscious, that just comes up when motherhood is involved that says,
07:04you are not good enough and your baby needs better.
07:09You need to sacrifice yourself for your baby.
07:11And it's not possible.
07:12It doesn't work that way.
07:14Your baby needs you, so you can't sacrifice yourself for your baby.
07:18About a week after I came off, I literally sat up in my bed one day.
07:24Every single emotion came rushing back into my body.
07:28It was excruciating pain.
07:31And that's when I realized how emotionally blunting the drug was.
07:35It's referred to as emotionally anesthetizing.
07:39Like, what?
07:40I remember looking back now, I know what it was, but at the time when I was on four milligrams
07:46of Klonopin,
07:47I remember thinking, this is great.
07:50I'm not crying over the death of my sister anymore.
07:52I literally felt miraculously healed over the death of my sister.
07:57But it was the drug.
07:59Now I feel, you know, the loss of her, like, authentically raw.
08:07I was medicated throughout my pregnancy.
08:10The day I gave birth was the calmest day of my life.
08:16My baby was born in two hours without pain.
08:21And he didn't cry.
08:24And his eyes were open.
08:28I've never been as calm as I was when I became a mother.
08:35And I was calm because I had this tool with me.
08:38One of many tools that I used was Klonopin.
08:43The way the medical community treats benzodiazepine is cavalier, uneducated, unsafe.
08:51Patients should have, you know, all the information about this drug and they should be able to make the choice.
08:56If you still want to continue with a benzodiazepine, fine.
09:00But you should know that, you know, per the pharmaceutical manufacturers, it's not recommended that you take this drug for
09:07longer than two to four weeks.
09:08Who knows that?
09:10That's informed consent.
09:11My family is me, my husband, and my child.
09:17And we decide what our family is.
09:21When I testify about this drug, when I testified in court in Boston a couple months ago, I said to
09:27that panel, like, this drug destroyed my life.
09:30And it's true.
09:31The absolute best I have ever felt was the moment I gave birth and held my son and knew that
09:44he was perfect.
