DON'T GIVE UP !

Following a period of severe grief I was prescribed oxazepam.  It was supposed to be most beneficial.  My doctor told me so and, frankly speaking, I was quite exhilarated through the whole funeral.  So it continued during a couple of years.   I resigned from my job and went to a college for adult education for one year.   My economy was devastated.  It wasn't long until all sorts of phobias and severe anxiety started fettering me.  I was trapped in my armchair for five years.   My doctor diagnosed me as suffering from chronic phobic disorder and I was granted a disability pension and put under psychiatric treatment.  I admitted myself for three weeks.  Then, the phobias were so severe that I didn't dare being alone for even one second a day.  I asked for help with tapering the oxazepam at our marvellous psychiatric unit.  The response I got was that I was the problem, not the medication.   They tried to train me to get rid of the phobias during my worst anxiety attacks.   Everything turned out wrong, but I have the ability to shout and scream.  I fought for my life.  I wasn't that cooperative then which was why they forced me out of the psychiatric unit to cope on my own which I couldn't.  But it was this that saved me.  I found a social worker and continued to shout and scream.  This proved fruitful.  They payed a private therapist for me.  During this ordeal I had daily panic attacks and constant terror and fear of death.  The hardest period lasted one year.  My 18-year-old son supported me more than anyone else.  He gave me one year of his life.  I can never make this up to him, I can only love him.   During this period I wrote many letters to the editor in our local paper.   That was how I came to know Unni Torgersen, she contacted me.  It was also she who saved me from the hell.  She instructed me on how to taper correctly.  It was at the second try that I succeeded after a long while.  I had daily contact with her over the phone and when the anxiety was so severe that I crawled on the floor I had Unni's reassuring voice in my ear.  Like I said it took a long while.  The 29th of November this year I've been free from pills for five years on.  Nowadays I have only minor symptoms of drug withdrawal and it gets longer and longer between them.   Last summer something tremendous happened, I was able to travel alone to Paris.   My feelings of happiness as I sat alone in a cab in Paris cannot be described.   I couldn't believe that this was me.  Again, I was alive and kicking and I will never be able to thank Unni enough.  It is thanks to her that I can sit here and write. Thanks to her I cycle to the post-office, the bank, the grocery and I can walk alone in town.  I want to thank her here in this letter and I wish that all people who stop taking pills meet someone like Unni.  I also urge you not to give up, the rescue will come when there seems to be only darkness, fighting is worthwhile.  Thank You Unni for giving me my life back.

Signed: Inge Borg