🏄🏼‍♀️🌊❄️🦃 Cold Turkey Spoken Here 😺

 

Hello Friends!

It's so nice to see so many of you from SA on this brand new swanky, snazzy site! It looks amazing! Thank you so much @Luke and @Chippy! I am so grateful. 🙏 

 

I'm just popping by to say hi for tonight, close to bedtime for me! I will post my 11 month update, which starts tomorrow, sometime soon. My SA history link is in my signature. I am looking forward to reading everyone's success story here. Warrior on! ⚔️💖

 

 

Hi @HopePerseveres2.0

 

Thanks for starting your Intro topic!I 

 

Great to see your first post on here.

 

I'll look forward to your update.

 

Chippy

Thank you for joining and for linking to your SA thread.

 

I hope that in time you're able to update us with how your recovery is going and that perhaps even down the line this will be the place where you post a success story.

 

 

4 hours ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

My SA history link is in my signature. I am looking forward to reading everyone's success story here. Warrior on! ⚔️💖

Hi @HopePerseveres2.0 Very good to see you on this fantastic new website, we are going to be able to stay connected.

I hope you are doing as well as you can be. I look forwards to reading your 11 month update.👍

Take great care,         B.😺🤞

10 hours ago, Chippy said:

Thanks for starting your Intro topic!I 

 

Great to see your first post on here.

 

I'll look fo

Thanks @Chippy, good to be here! Quick question, for tags, I had just added escitalopram and lexapro. That was my main drug. The others were one week or one day cross taper attempts. Someone had added those tags. Could those extra tags please be removed? I want to keep it simple with the main culprit. Thanks!

8 hours ago, Luke said:

 

I hope that in time you're able to update us with how your recovery is going and that perhaps even down the line this will be the place where you post a success story.

Thanks @Luke and again fantastic job on this website. I look forward to posting mine here along with everyone else's!

5 minutes ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

Thanks @Chippy, good to be here! Quick question, for tags, I had just added escitalopram and lexapro. That was my main drug. The others were one week or one day cross taper attempts. Someone had added those tags. Could those extra tags please be removed? I want to keep it simple with the main culprit. Thanks!

Extra tags removed. 😀

 

6 hours ago, NT1100B said:

Very good to see you on this fantastic new website, we are going to be able to stay connected.

I hope you are doing as well as you can be. I look forwards to reading your 11 month update.👍

Hey B! I love your awesome new logo! It’s a total reflection of where you will be again! 👍🏍  I will update later, and catch up on everyone's pages too.

11 minutes ago, Chippy said:

Extra tags removed. 😀

 

Perfect, thanks Chippy!

🌊🏄🏼‍♀️🌊❄️🦃 Cold Turkey Update

Dec 19th 2025- Jan 19th 2026 

Month 11 begins!

 

Happy New Year to all, and how nice to start it on a brand new site! 🎉 A huge thank you to @Luke and @Chippy for spearheading this amazing website and allowing us all to stay connected and updated! It sure is a beautiful forum site too, and easy to maneuver around. Awesome job!

 

Month 10 was not my favorite month, and many times I felt I was going backwards into months 3 & 4! Healing is definitely non-linear! Symptoms rotated fast and reared their ugly heads often! New Years weekend was a bad one, and overall the windows seemed less in number than the last prior months. I must have needed alot of healing done! As I was typing this now we just had a small earthquake, and I did well handling it. Before WD I just shrugged them off. Last year one put me in hyper-vigilance all day, as I was in acute. Healing is happening!

 

My top three symptoms, not to be triggering but for documentation purposes:

🥂 Dizziness. Was all over the place. This has been my worst symptom that was brought on with the drug, and haunted me through discontinuation. Was worse in acute, and in windows now much lighter.

🎆 Pots like symptoms-tight chest and heart, worse in mornings when standing, heavy head. This seemed to kick up again hard this past month, especially in mornings or after exercise or pushing too much in a day. Never had this until the CT crash.

🎉Weepiness, flatness and negative mood. These all hit hard again when I thought it was lessening in month 8. Surprise! Kicked off my New Years weekend with a bang! Started with flatness, that lighter version of anhedonia. Then went full blown into negativity and crying jags. Wow, who knew these could come back with such intensity?

 

The positives this past month were in the windows. I hardly had any, and it felt very disappointing as the month of November was half windows. However, there seemed to be a shift in quality. The full one I had around the 7th felt different.  I felt the real me coming back more and stronger. Was content, peaceful, clearer minded, and though no true joy yet could feel it almost there. I could do a long walk with very little exercise intolerance. Most other days exercise intolerance still kicks up. Then a half day on the 10th went well and pretty normal too, felt lighter and more myself. Christmas Eve was a dirty window, so even though there were physical symptoms, the emotional was better. I'm also more picky now on what I call a window. This month I'd call most days functional waves, especially with so much rotating physical symptoms lately. If any negative neuro emotion pops up, it does not get a window rating at all. Sleep usually tracks about 7 hrs. I still have cortisol wake ups, but they are very light. The DR/PR was alot less this month, Hallelujah!

 

So I'm hoping month 11 has some stronger windows. But I'm prepared for a mixed bag. Melissa Boutellier has a great video going over the 10-14 month wave period that many experience that feels worse and like they are regressing. She hardly had any windows in her second withdrawal. Some if you may have seen it. I'm posting it here for those struggling in this same time frame for some hope:

 

Benzo & Antidepressant Withdrawal: Fearing "this Wave will be ...

https://share.google/images/Ea1A7dpMFeXFov3jK

 

I am trying to be grateful and look back at the healing that has been done and improved. I'll continue to join groups through Angie Peacock and Joanna King for encouragement with CT healing. I have some great healing buddies, and wonderful friends on this site. 💖🤗 It may not be on our preferred timeline, but we will all heal.

 

"...with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26 ❤️‍🩹❤️🕊

 

 

Hey @HopePerseveres2.0

 

1 hour ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

It sure is a beautiful forum site too, and easy to maneuver around.

Glad you like it. 😀

 

Thanks for the update 

 

1 hour ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

Healing is definitely non-linear!

I feel this atm. I suspect most of us do.

 

1 hour ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

I must have needed alot of healing done!

This is a very positive way to see your not so good periods. And I think it’s correct. 
 

1 hour ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

As I was typing this now we just had a small earthquake, and I did well handling it. Before WD I just shrugged them off. Last year one put me in hyper-vigilance all day, as I was in acute. Healing is happening!

As a Brit this blows my mind! My wife would not like this! I’m not sure I would either. Another thing to factor in. Great you coped with it! Healing is indeed happening. 
 

1 hour ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

The positives this past month were in the windows. I hardly had any, and it felt very disappointing as the month of November was half windows. However, there seemed to be a shift in quality.

This has been a feature for me. A shift in quality. Somehow gets worse and better in the same breath. Change. Sign of healing for sure. 
 

1 hour ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

I felt the real me coming back more and stronger.

Amazing 😀

 

1 hour ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

I'm also more picky now on what I call a window.

I find it hard to rate days. For a while things seem level so it’s easy to tell a 5 from a 6 or 7 but then things change and I can’t calibrate what’s a new 6 as I just feel different. This makes me adjust how strict I am about what’s a window what’s a wave.

 

1 hour ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

Sleep usually tracks about 7 hrs.

Sounds good. Are you waking during that time? What’s the quality like?

 

1 hour ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

The DR/PR was alot less this month, Hallelujah!

😀 Mines mostly gone. Get a little here and there. 
 

1 hour ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

So I'm hoping month 11 has some stronger windows.

I’ve got it all crossed for you 🤞

Look forward to hearing about it. 

Chippy

 

4 hours ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

So I'm hoping month 11 has some stronger windows. But I'm prepared for a mixed bag.

Hi @HopePerseveres2.0 Good to see you here.

So yes you are healing, this is so good and reassuring to see. So yes it's just hard that we are still hit with waves, but

you are using all the right resources to help you though all this, so here's wishing you all the best for a smooth transition

to a full recovery. That day is coming hope, God Bless.

Take great care,            B.😺💪😁 

On 1/20/2026 at 3:11 AM, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

Happy New Year to all, and how nice to start it on a brand new site! 🎉 A huge thank you to @Luke and @Chippy for spearheading this amazing website and allowing us all to stay connected and updated! It sure is a beautiful forum site too, and easy to maneuver around. Awesome job!

 

Happy new year.

 

The migration to the new version of this site was all @Chippy so you can thank him specifically for how nice the site is to navigate and use now.

 

The hack job we had before was more my doing.

17 hours ago, Luke said:

 

Happy new year.

 

The migration to the new version of this site was all @Chippy so you can thank him specifically for how nice the site is to navigate and use now.

 

The hack job we had before was more my doing.

@Chippy Well done, Chippy! It looks really cool!

On 1/19/2026 at 8:44 PM, Chippy said:

Sounds good. Are you waking during that time? What’s the quality like?

Hi @Chippy, in waves I may have a wake up at 4:30 with cortisol, but can usually go back to sleep and get those last hours. Quality still meh, not my normal great 8 hrs every night like pre drug. In waves, feel wired and tired. A few windows it has felt improved. Time, time, time!

On 1/19/2026 at 8:44 PM, Chippy said:

As a Brit this blows my mind! My wife would not like this!

As a Californian we're so used to it. I was in a big one years ago, my first experience ever with trauma. Got through that anxiety phase non- drugged! We learned to deal with emotions back then, earthquakes are good training for Claire Weeks methods😂. 

18 hours ago, Luke said:

The hack job we had before was more my doing

@Luke, your first version was not a hack job. We all appreciate how quickly you came up with a solution in response to the sudden SA announcement of pulling the support forum. You and Chippy are both amazing!🙏👍

55 minutes ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

Hi @Chippy, in waves I may have a wake up at 4:30 with cortisol, but can usually go back to sleep and get those last hours. Quality still meh, not my normal great 8 hrs every night like pre drug. In waves, feel wired and tired. A few windows it has felt improved. Time, time, time!

Sorry @HopePerseveres2.0 so typical of all of us this. Doesn’t sound too bad for wd sleep but still not nice. 
 

57 minutes ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

earthquakes are good training for Claire Weeks methods😂. 

🤣

55 minutes ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

your first version was not a hack job.

100%

14 hours ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

@Luke, your first version was not a hack job. We all appreciate how quickly you came up with a solution in response to the sudden SA announcement of pulling the support forum. You and Chippy are both amazing!🙏👍

 

I can assure you that beneath the shiny facade it was held together with duct tape and string, but it worked and it brought people together so it did what it was supposed to.

Thanks for dropping by my thread HP 2.0! I will see you on Monday! And then we will see how that group goes. 

 

It is something this up and down with WD. I hope that you level out and feel as great as you provide encouragement to others. It all gets sent out from our spirits and then I believe we receive it back 10-fold--not because we think we should, it is because that what happens when we truly do good things for others. It's a nice feedback loop. 

 

We also have to be patient with ourselves and not lose hope...just like your name indicates. We can do things to clean off our windows so to speak.

 

Off to make dinner as it gets later here.  Take care my friend!

On 1/22/2026 at 9:45 AM, Luke said:

I can assure you that beneath the shiny facade it was held together with duct tape and string, but it worked and it brought people together so it did what it was supposed to.

You've done a fabulous job @Luke. We are all grateful 😊

3 hours ago, HopePerseveres2.0 said:

You've done a fabulous job @Luke. We are all grateful 😊

 

The biggest thanks that anyone could give me or @Chippy is recovering, writing a success story and then living well.

 

I want that for each and everyone who posts here. None of the medical harm done to people here is ok.

Hi @HopePerseveres2.0

 

I hope you are keeping as well as you can since your last update and that the windows have been more abundant in this next month of your journey 🪟☀️.

 

I’m sorry to hear that there were very little in month 10, but also glad that there were some functional waves that feel a bit more positive and pleased that your reaction to the earthquake had lessened - I still think that is something that would rock me! 
 

DP/DR being less is great though, it’s such a horrible symptom to feel like you are out of your own mind, but something that we know in time settles.

 

keep on keeping on, Hope, and keep up the posts and positivity 💖 it’s so encouraging for us all. 
 

All the best, G x

Hey HP2.0 it was nice "seeing" you at the meeting yesterday. I am happy for you that you are still keeping yourself engaged with others despite the yucky waves. And kindness that you share will come back to you as well. Take care, my friend.  You know where to find me 🤗 ✝️ 🎼

6 hours ago, namastejen1 said:

Hey HP2.0 it was nice "seeing" you at the meeting yesterday. I am happy for you that you are still keeping yourself engaged with others despite the yucky waves. And kindness that you share will come back to you as well. Take care, my friend.  You know where to find me 🤗 ✝️ 🎼

It's always great seeing and chatting with you as well Jen! Just riding the windows and waves pattern, I know it’s healing. God's got us! Thanks for your friendship and support! 🤗💖