 Don't let me drown Thanks for watching my channel, if you're new here, hi, hello, my name is Lydia and I'm in mental health videos here on YouTube pretty much every day. Today I wanted to do another medication theme video and today I want to talk about how you can clean as a pam, which is a bender that I have to be in. But before I do that, just bring that. I'm in no way sure performance in medication is the only option to support your mental health. I'm more so not saying that medication is necessary for you. Everyone has different experiences and sometimes therapy can be enough without medication. In other circumstances, it works the opposite way. Hey, what I say with this video has my airing experience. I'm not a professional nor do I try to. I'm not trading to be professional and I have no intention of being professional. Canazapam is a benzodiazepine. It's a group of drugs that are very restricted and are very controversial. I take 0.5 milligrams of Canazapam at night to help me sleep because I have really bad anxiety, right? I take lorazepam during the day and I take Canazapam. Because Canazapam is, I find it stronger than lorazepam. I'm going to do another video talking about lorazepam at another point, but today I want to focus on Canazapam. I used to take 1 milligram of Canazapam at night. Now I take 0.5. The 1 milligram was too much for my body. 0.5 has worked and has been working since February. There's a huge misconception that comes with benzodiazepines and that is that shouldn't be prescribed large quantities. You can't have it for more than a week, you know? I've been taking this tablet since around February time when I was in hospital. I got prescribed it on an inpatient setting and I've continued and maintained using it since then. Yes, I cure without a dose and no, I don't think I'm addicted to it. I can go without it. I just feel like shit because my anxiety skyrockets because I use it as an anxiety relief. When it comes to my anxiety, my first thoughts were I'll have my medication and be like, shit, I don't want to sleep. What if something happens? What if this happens? What if that happens? If all these what-ifs and my brain just goes wild. Without the benzodiazepine in my brain, my brain really does run around circles all the time. So I'm taking a planada pump. It kind of stops it. I just take standard release planada pump. Like I said, I'm on 0.5 milligrams. And that is a tablet for me. Get let me get my med box up. This is the brand I take. And you can see the dosage of it is 500 micrograms. What the box is for me is fun to be taken at night as advised by a psychiatrist. Do not stop taking this medication. And I should have to tell you to stop warning. Do not drink alcohol after taking this medication. Warning, this medication may make you feel sleepy. If this happens, do not drive. Do not use tools or machines. I get my medication weekly. But I've only got like, I only have seven tablets. Seven tablets a week. So the 0.5 milligram dose or 500 micrograms in a word, it works well for me. I know someone who takes that twice a day. So one of my friends, Elle, who lives the other end of the country, she takes benzodiazepines as well. She uses it to help calm her anxiety down and it works very well. What I also want to say in this is just because I take a combination, doesn't mean my anxiety is worse than someone else's. It doesn't mean I'm ill or whatever. Mental illness isn't a competition. Medication is a game of hit and miss. So this is my video about antidepressants and I'll say it again. It's not a competition. I need medication to help me get through a day and that's okay. Some people don't and to them, awesome. I wish I was one like a few people. I really do because I don't find therapy helpful, especially with anxiety. Anxiety is being one of my longest going on diagnosis. I've had the diagnosis of anxiety since I was a kid. I can say that I have tried a significant amount of therapy as I've tried cognitive therapy on several different occasions in several different areas and not once has it helped. So taking clenazepam, how does my evening go? When I take clenazepam, how does it go? I will have the tablet in combination with my medication and it very quickly slows down at my rate of thinking and I fall asleep. I cannot name one occasion that I've taken that tablet and managed to stay awake. Which is why I had to stop taking it in the mornings because I was just sleeping all the time. I also want to say that there's a huge misconception that people with BPD shouldn't have access to benzos because of the predisposition to addiction and is known on my NHS record and on my police record that I used to use and abuse cocaine. I've never once abused my prescription medication and I just wouldn't. I don't like feeling slowed down, which probably sounds backwards given the medication that I take. I hate feeling slowed down. So why would I want to take it for fun? I totally get it though. Like some people do struggle with addiction when they take it and benzodiazepines can cause addiction. I'm not going to beat around the bush. They are potentially dangerous medications but you know, sometimes they need it for treatment and I don't think people should be little other people's experience with them or how you use them, how they prescribe them. What you have to remember is you don't know how that person got put on it. I got put on it in an inpatient setting because my anxiety was unmanageable and I was kicking off. I was kicking off because I was so anxious and I couldn't close the door because it was a dorm and I kept kicking off. I was on one to one observation and I still kicked off and then I saw a consultant who one gave me leave because that was one thing that I didn't know me and two, she wrote up something as I planned to take twice a day and definitely chilled me out. It also helps a lot with my... When I'm having flashbacks, this is the only thing I do differ from with how it's written on the box. If I start to have a flashback episode, I will take the answer back. Below is my anxiety saying, what should I do? Yes, I still have the flashbacks but the intense anxiety that comes with flashbacks, I don't have. And that's the only thing I'm going to say that I do twist what it says on the box a bit of that because yes, I respect and understand that it needs to be at night because of how sleepy it makes me. But if I'm having a flashback episode, I'm more at risk than I like because when I have flashbacks, I will do anything to make them stop. So by taking a laser plan, mellows out my anxiety so I don't get the urges to self-destruct and one simple tablet, no matter how addicted it might be or no matter the dangers that come with it, I would much rather take a tablet than try and kill myself or so far. Like I said, I'm not saying that therapy isn't an option for people. I'm not saying you have to be on medication. I'm not against therapy. And like I said in the beginning, if there are words for you, I'm so bad. I just thought I'd make a video talking about this because people always ask questions about my medication, especially the benzodiazepine. Can a laser plan be one that people are like, oh my God, how'd you get subscribed to that blah blah blah blah blah? It's like a consultant did it. I'm going to end the video here. If you're new to subscribe and if you haven't already, make sure you hit the thumbs up button and if you have quite any questions at all, please leave them in the comments section down below and I'll answer them as soon as I can. Thank you for watching and I'll see you soon. Peace.