Post Divorce...Still Looking for Answers

[Husky]

Again I'm new here, but wanted to share my experiences with meds that I got prescribed after the BD when I lost 20 lbs, couldn't sleep, couldn't focus...couldn't live.

It took me a few weeks after the BD to finally pull myself together and go to a doctor at the urging of the therapist I started seeing after the BD. He almost immediately prescribed me zoloft as an antidepressant (for longer term anxiety that I always seem to be dealing with), and Klonopin for the intense panic attacks I was getting after the W moved out.

I should say that every part of the following was absolutely my fault for not truly understanding the drugs I was taking...I just wanted to feel anything different. The combination of the two drugs actually did wonders for me throughout the first couple of months after the BD. In fact, therapy with wife was going well, we were at least sort of talking regularly and seeing each other a couple of times a week. This went to the point of the W actually saying she thought we were making progress in a therapy session.

Fast forward a few weeks and the W really starts making some questionable decisions and starts really acting more like she was MLC. Switching on and off between saving the M and trashing me in counseling appointments. Within a two week span, she spent $8000 on a 3 week trip to africa the following march, told me that the only reason she was still in therapy was bc I was her "fall back plan" (as if she had a plan to begin with), and made plans for a 2 week trip with a bunch of 22 year old male co workers to Iceland the following January (I was decidedly NOT invited on these trips regardless of where our future was going)...and I found out she had herpes since before we were married (she outright lied to me for years about this telling me several times she never had an STD. Oh, and I "discovered" that rather than "fooling around with women for a couple years in her 20's" was actually exclusively dating women before she "decided" she wasn't a lesbian (to be clear, I have no problems with her choice in partners...just that she lied so profusely about it).

So I backed far FAR away and started drinking...a lot. This is where the problems started. Although I was giving her a bunch of space and she kept trying to contact me to test the temperature to apologize, I'd had enough after the past three months hell she put me through. Well, as I found out, you tend to develop a tolerance to klonopin relatively quickly and although it was a life saver for the previous couple of months, I had to supplement it with alcohol to stave off the panic attacks. This is a recipe for disaster as you end up building up tolerances at an even greater rate when combined. Keep in mind, I wasn't even taking more than what my doctor had prescribed for the klonopin.

As I wanted to start going dim on the W, I also wanted to start GAL (as I now know it's called). I also wanted to kick the klonopin and zoloft as I was tired of depending on drugs to feel half way decent. Even bigger mistake. I found out later the only effective way to do this, even if you haven't been on klonopin long is to taper VERY slowly off for sometimes months. Worst hell I've ever been through...and the irony the only way to feel better is to drink more.

So GAL started to fail, and I started talking to the W again. But now instead of the changed history person I had become to her at BD, I'd also become a huge drinker...right in phase where I couldn't afford to be. I won't lie, I think it's a major reason that we didn't end up trying to work on things for longer as it made me look like even worse of a human being to her at that point. As an FYI, I'm no longer taking anti-anxiety drugs anymore, and back to a somewhat reasonable drinking schedule.

Anyway, thanks for listening and if this helps anyone, wonderful. I just wanted to drop those two cents in for those that are in the same despair that I was in the first couple of months after the BD. Be VERY careful about medicating yourself...I'll never know how much it hurt my sitch, but it in now way helped.