Exberliner Issue 138, May 2015

tions, because, being so high all the time, I was unable to perceive – and
most times simply didn’t care – what they might be feeling and thinking.
Most of the few friends I had distanced themselves from me.
As I was nearing the end of my degree, I was being given ridiculously
high amounts of Valium and Klonopin. Every day for months, I
would wake up, go to the grocery store, eat breakfast, pop four or five
pills and lie on the sofa staring out of the window or at the ceiling. It’s
around this time that the memories start to fade away. Somehow, I
don’t know how, I was able to graduate.
BERLIN: Resurrection
In 2009, in Berlin, having taken these meds since 1996, I finally decided
it was time to stop.
My doctor here told me that my withdrawal would have to be carried
out in a detox clinic at the hospital because coming off such high
doses over such a long period of time could lead to severe symptoms
like seizures. Since I lived in Neukölln, I would have to be treated at
Neukölln Hospital, so I went and checked myself in. Drug treatment
was in one of the several older, smaller facilities separate from the
giant, gleaming, modern building. To get in, I was escorted through
one of two electronically locked doors to a security checkpoint, and
then we were buzzed in through the other door. All those locks were
imposing – wasn’t I supposed to be there voluntarily?
Inside it was gloomy and dark, much like the nightmare dorm
where I had first lived in New York. On the wall, there was a shoddily
made sign listing the different steps of recovery, obviously drawn up
by some of the patients a long time ago. A few of them were walking
up and down the hallways wearing jogging clothes and bathrobes.
I sat down while I waited to be shown to my room. Very quickly,
other inmates came to me. They were there because of heroin and
alcohol. A nurse came over to take me to my room. I would have
to share it with four other drug addict strangers. That was when I
thought, “I can’t do this here.”
A few days later, I made a plan with my doctor to do the withdrawal
at home. I was supposed to reduce the dosage by half four
times over two months until I got down to zero. I can’t make it
sound easy or empowering, because it wasn’t. It was like having a
really bad flu for a week, getting better and then getting sick again,
over and over. The panic attacks came back – the crippling conviction
that everything in my life was absolutely wrong. It was worse
than anything I’d felt before.
Somehow I got through it, and by summer, I was off the drugs. But
no one had really explained to me what it would be like afterwards.
My ears were always ringing. I had recurring panic attacks and a constant
feeling of restlessness and fear. I also lost a lot of weight, around
100 pounds in six months.
The way I understood the world around me had changed. Time
moved a lot more slowly than before. The U-Bahn travelled at a snail’s
pace. Songs that I loved before seemed to drone on annoyingly for
hours. Written language and grammar were hard for me to comprehend,
and it was very difficult to translate ideas into words. I had set
up a photo lab in my bathroom, but when I went to take pictures I
couldn’t see things the way I had before. Before, scenes popped out
from the background as if they were just waiting to be captured, but
now everything was muddy and blended together at wrong angles. I
dismantled the lab.
Benzodiazapine withdrawal syndrome can last for years – sometimes
it can even be permanent. Six years on, I’m still coping with
the aftereffects of my addiction. Things I learned while taking the
medication are hard to access now. I once spoke fluent Dutch and
even wrote stories and poems in that language. Now, a lot of it is gone.
On the other hand, quitting the medication made everything seem
refreshingly new. Every experience felt like it was the first time. The
streetlights buzzed brighter at night. Even tastes were different. I
started to love spicy Thai food, which I hated before. I stopped going
to university – I had lost so many years to addiction, and couldn’t
stand the thought of more days stuck in a library. I’m now a photographer,
and I work twice as hard as before. I’ve got to make up for those
half-remembered years. n
ENGLISH WITH GERMAN SURTITLES
MAY 27 - 30, 8pm
GRITTY
GLAMOUR
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