That one time Xanax saved me

And how I burned myself out trying to heal

By the end of 2017, I had done regular weekly therapy, trauma therapy (EMDR), somatic therapy, a silent meditation retreat, MDMA therapy, and weekly yoga classes. I ended the year with a shamanic plant medicine retreat. Also I enrolled in psychotherapy school which on its own has been a lot of personal growth work. Suffice to say, I take healing my trauma seriously.

By the time I got home to Lebanon over the holidays, my body went into panic mode. I could not sleep for days in a row. I could not eat. By day 4, I started noticing that I was losing agency over my behavior. I kept feeling as if I am dying and I am in danger, and asking to be taken to the hospital.

Few days later, I ended up at a psychiatrist, being told I am having a panic episode due to overload of trauma healing work, that brought up a lot of unprocessed material with no space to process. My brain was in hyper-arousal. I was put on Xanax for 10 days.

And Xanax did wonders. It helped me get some sleep. Start eating again and soon enough I was back in San Francisco off Xanax and slowing down my life again.

While I have personally been resistant to taking anti depressants, or anti anxiety medicine, and instead, gone to a lot of therapy (note that I have the privilege to go to therapy…