You Are Not the Exception

Hi friends, this is Carolina's story, one person's path through withdrawal. The taper details she shares are what worked for her. If you're thinking about coming off medication, move carefully and with support.

❤️‍🩹 Joanna

Carolina's Story at a Glance

Age: 64; she took her last pill at 61
Why she started: Lifelong depression and anger outbursts that were hurting her family
Years on psychiatric drugs: About 27, from 1996 to 2023
Drugs over the years: More than 20, starting with Paxil; SSRIs, SNRIs, tricyclics, Wellbutrin, benzodiazepines, and sleep drugs
Final cocktail: Effexor, Xanax, and Lamictal for about a decade, plus Ambien and trazodone as needed
How she came off: A linear taper of all three in about 8 or 9 months; she now believes it was too fast for her nervous system
Withdrawal began: Spring 2023
Knew it was withdrawal: About two years in; she had mistaken years of crashes for relapse
Hardest symptoms: Anxiety she had never known before, near-agoraphobia, deep darkness, overwhelm around people and noise, trouble forming sentences, and two bouts of insomnia lasting two months each
Biggest setback: Surgery for a broken arm in May 2025, followed by her darkest stretch
What helped: Faith and Scripture on days the words felt flat, her husband Ralph, church from the back row, journaling, and a treadmill in her bedroom
Milestones: A 10K at 62, then a slow half marathon; a women's event in May 2026 where she felt like "the old me"
Longest window: Three straight good months, late 2025 to March 2026
Where she is now: About 3½ years in. The worst is behind her. Waves still come, but they are lighter and shorter, and her recent weeks have been her most peaceful yet.
Read more: These Things on Substack, including her article Protracted Withdrawal
Song she recommends: "All Shall Be Well" by 10th Avenue North

Transcript lightly edited for readability

Joanna: This morning I am sitting here with Carolina, and she is going to share her story of hope. If you are going through psychiatric drug withdrawal, and you are at the end of your rope and feeling like there is absolutely no future, we want to share hope with you today.

Carolina has been through a long story. She has had many ups and downs, has suffered through psychiatric drug withdrawal, and has experienced healing. I am so thankful to be on the other side of this myself and to be able to offer hope to those who are on their healing journeys of getting off psychiatric medications.

Carolina, thank you so much for being willing to do this.

Carolina: Thank you for having me, Joanna.

Joanna: I'm so glad to have you. I have met with you before, and I was looking forward to the day I'd be able to do this and hear what you've learned through the journey.

Carolina: Well, thank you. I'm going to give a word of caution to your listeners: this is my first interview. This is not my comfort zone, but I just adore Joanna, and I'm happy to have this experience and hopefully encourage somebody.

Joanna: That's what we need so much in the depths of this: to know someone else actually lived through it. Not just a professional giving theoretical advice. We need hope that we can live through it and that there is something on the other side for us. It makes a big difference to hear real stories.

When Something Is Wrong and You Don't Know What

Joanna: I love starting in the middle, because it's the crux of it, and it's where a lot of our people are. What was some of the absolute worst part, when you knew something was so wrong and you didn't yet know what?

Carolina: That's a good question for me, because I didn't know what was going on until I was probably more than halfway through. I think it was about two years.

Joanna: That's so wild.

Carolina: I'm going to back up a little bit and then go back to the middle.

Twenty Drugs and Years of Cocktails

Carolina: When I started tapering, I had been on... I don't have count past the year 2007, but up to 2007, I was on at least 20 different drugs.

Joanna: Twenty at once?

Carolina: No. At the most, probably five different things at one time.

Joanna: So you were on cocktails.

Carolina: I was on cocktails constantly, at different times in my life, and then crashing, and thinking it was relapse. Thinking, "Oh, I'll need these forever," because that's what you're told. And not until last year, learning more about the drugs, did I realize, "Oh my God, it's not that. I was probably in withdrawal for most of those years."

Joanna: Yes. It rewrites everything.

Carolina: It does. I've mostly been through my anger stage. I might start weeping while we're talking.

Joanna: I may too.

Carolina: But it's not necessarily bad, because for so many years when you're on the drugs, I couldn't cry. I couldn't cry. When I started crying again after I'd been off for a while, one of my friends said to me, "Doesn't it feel good? I'm so happy to see that you're able to cry."

Joanna: Just to have your real emotions back.

Why I Decided to Come Off

Carolina: I'm off track already. When I first went off, I was angry. I was motivated by COVID to go off. I had wanted for many, many years to go off, and it never worked, because now I know I would go into withdrawal.

But after COVID, and I'll spare you my thoughts on all of that, my eyes were opened. The anger, seeing the corruption, all of it. It was like, "You know what? I am done. I'm going to get off these drugs. I don't want to be beholden to these big pharma people anymore." I was in a very angry stage anyway, so I was just like, "I'm going to do it."

Joanna: At that point, you were starting to have a revelation that these are not good for you. Did you have any information on safe tapering?

Carolina: No.

Joanna: So it was just in your gut that you needed to do this.

Carolina: Yes. The only thing I knew was that I had to go slow.

Joanna: Was that also in your gut?

Carolina: Well, I knew from trying to go off before. It wasn't great information that I had, but it was all that I had. I knew it was going to be hard, and I was going to have to go slow. So I did a linear taper. I think I did 25% at a time, cut the pill in a quarter, and then just gauged by how I was feeling.

I was on three drugs: Effexor, Xanax, and Lamictal. I had been on that about a decade, if not longer. I was also taking Ambien and trazodone for sleep as needed. I thought I was slow, Joanna, but I was done with all three of those in... I can't say exactly, because I wasn't tracking. I track everything now, but I didn't then.

Joanna: Same. I can relate.

Carolina: But I was off all of them within about eight or nine months.

Joanna: So less than a year, a linear taper of all three. But you probably thought that was so slow compared to what you were hearing from doctors. They say six weeks.

Carolina: Yes, I thought so.

The Crash After My Last Dose

Carolina: Then it seemed to be going fine. I did the Lamictal last. After I took the last dose of my last pill, I think all of a sudden my brain just said, "No. What are we doing? No, we're not doing this."

Joanna: Because then there was none of the drug for your brain.

Carolina: And so I crashed. I got slammed with withdrawal, which I didn't know that's what it was at the time.

Joanna: Were you bedridden at that time?

Carolina: I was not. One thing I will say, kind of a disclaimer, when I'm explaining to people: as bad as my experience was... and this will make me start crying... I almost have a bit of survivor's guilt compared to what some people have gone through. Mine was, I would say, on the easier side, to be honest with you. It was debilitating. The hardest things for me were the anxiety, just off the charts (I became, in a lot of ways, what I feel was borderline agoraphobic), and the darkness. I've battled depression, suicidal depression, as long as I can remember, since I was probably an older teen or maybe a young adult. For me, the darkness gets dark, and then to have it compounded by the withdrawal was bad.

I know you were raising children. Celeste was raising children. I've heard different people, and I think, "I can't even imagine trying to function through that while raising children." My heart just goes out to you. I have a wonderful, supportive husband, and I'm retired. I'm 64 now. I was 61 when I took my last pill. We're both retired, so a lot of things in my life were just a lot easier. I didn't have a lot of obligations.

Joanna: So you could take it at your own pace.

Carolina: I spent a lot of time in my room. I had to quit socializing. I used to be super social. I used to host New Year's Eve parties and Fourth of July parties with 70, 80, 100 people. I would just love planning, and I would feed off of it. Very social, outgoing, energetic.

During the worst of withdrawal, I couldn't even have somebody I knew well over. Most of that has not returned for me. That's an area where I'm still... but I don't think it's bad. At first it was like, "Well, Lord, what are you going to restore to me?" And maybe He's not. Maybe it's going to be a new, different kind of season for me.

But that part was weird, because it was so different. I wasn't used to that. It was like, who are you?

Joanna: Did everyone feel alien to you while you were going through it?

Carolina: I don't even know if that's the right word. It might be. It just felt overwhelming.

Reading From One of My Worst Days

Carolina: Back to the original question, being in the middle of it. That was hard, the resocialization. But if I can, I'd like to read a journal entry from one of my worst days. This was in August of 2025, so just over a year ago. Not long.

"Hell of a morning. Not pretty. Not pretty at all. Somehow Ralph sat calmly through it. The man amazes me sometimes. He quoted Luther when I stopped throwing things and stopped spewing so much ugliness in my pain and weakness. I don't know that I have what it takes to survive this."

That was one of my worst, and I want to describe what that was. We were sitting in our bedroom, and I had just had enough.

Let me interject. I broke my arm last year, at the end of April, and had surgery May 1st. I had actually been doing a lot better and thought I was mostly through withdrawal. I still didn't know it was withdrawal even at that point, so I didn't know going into surgery that I needed to be careful with the drugs. No clue at all.

That surgery plummeted me, absolutely plummeted me. I'm convinced it was the anesthesia and the drugs I took after. You're just so sensitive to everything. I can't prove that's what happened, but it seems awfully coincidental that that's the timing.

And then my world just kind of went dark. Even my normal support people, which weren't a lot... I don't know what happened. It was just a weird, weird thing. It just got to be too much.

I was sitting in our room one day. Ralph and I were kind of chatting, and I was in tears, and I was a mess, and I just started taking everything off of my nightstand. I keep a lot of stuff on there: all my coffees, all my books, everything. I just started picking things up and throwing them across the room. One by one. I threw and threw and threw and threw until everything was gone. And I was just bawling.

God love my husband. He just let me. And when I was done, he quoted Luther. I don't know if you know much about Martin Luther, but he struggled a lot with darkness, and he cursed God once in his anger. I was saying, "God can't possibly love me. He must hate me," all these nonsensical things that go on in your head when you're in so much pain.

That was one of the worst, worst days, where it was just like, "I don't think I'm going to survive this. I just don't think I'm going to make it."

It Passes

Carolina: And then it passes, because it passes. Please, whoever's listening, if you think it's not going to pass: it passes. It really does. Please know it passes. Here I am now.

Joanna: The worst of the worst of the worst is not the forever.

That's a beautiful picture. I think it really does capture how dark and despairing this process can be, how it can bring us to the utter end of our rope. We just feel like we're losing our minds. We have no hope.

Carolina: It's crazy how it takes over. And the funny thing is, I've battled depression my whole life, as far as I can remember. So I shouldn't be surprised at how dark and consuming those thoughts get. But protracted withdrawal adds a whole new layer to it.

Joanna: It's like a chemical extremity to it that feels completely different from just a regular kind of depression.

Why Surgery Can Set Us Back

Joanna: And I think you're right about what was happening to you after that procedure, because I have heard that so much. Our bodies, I think, become sensitized. A new medication, even a temporary dose, can aggravate all of those symptoms when we're still sensitized, which can be so discouraging. So it sounds like something like that must have happened, and your nervous system just got completely kicked up.

Carolina: That's what I think. As you say, it's basically a nervous system injury. I don't know all the science. I still can't comprehend everything. I don't think anybody fully understands. But I think the receptors in your brain are already struggling from the withdrawal, because they were dependent on all those chemicals. And with those sensitivities in the receptors and your nervous system, it's like when another drug comes in...

I won't even take any over-the-counter medication anymore. I don't think I've taken a single pill of anything since I learned what's going on. I'm terrified.

Joanna: Same.

Carolina: If something extreme happens and you have to, then you just deal with it and trust that the Lord's going to take care of you.

The Darkness That Drove Me to Answers

Carolina: So the surgery, the darkness that followed, is what drove me to really get on the internet and find out what was going on with me. This must have something to do with not being on the drugs. I had heard a little bit about protracted withdrawal, about not coming off the drugs correctly. But I was doing better, and when you're doing better, it's like, "I don't have the energy for this." I just wanted to move on. But after the surgery, when everything crashed in my world, it was like, "I need to know what's going on."

That's when I really started looking. As awful as it was, I'm so thankful that happened, because that's what drove me to learn more about what was going on. That's when I really learned about protracted withdrawal, and just how wrong I tapered, and the effects of the drugs from the surgery, and all kinds of things coming across the groups and the information.

I didn't have the capacity at that time to understand any of it. It was all I could do to get on the internet and look stuff up, and then I was just sending links to Ralph: "Read this and make it make sense. Read this and explain it to me." It sounded like it made sense, but I couldn't...

Oh my God, I was so incapable. For a while during that period, if it wasn't for Ralph, I probably would have just curled up in a ball on my bed and starved. He was doing everything other than spoon-feeding me. I was getting the food in my mouth, and that was about it, for the most part. There were days where I just was not functional and couldn't take care of myself. But I'm thankful for the time, because it took me on a journey of learning and education. So that part was good.

Joanna: It really sounds like that time after the surgery was some of the darkest for you, would you say?

Carolina: I would agree with that. It was really strange and really bizarre, and it knocked me down and threw me for a loop. But it drove me to get answers, and for that I'm grateful, because that's when I really delved into withdrawal. That was when my eyes were opened more to what was going on with me and gave me more of an understanding.

Joanna: Your deeper aha moment, learning about the injury and how medicines can affect us.

Carolina: It was pretty wild. It was dark.

Twenty-Seven Years on Psychiatric Drugs

Joanna: Do you want to tell us a little bit about your medication history? I know you've had a long medication history, and there are a lot of people listening who can relate to that.

Carolina: It was interesting, for lack of a better term fun, hearing Alissa's story for the first time, because we were very, very similar in when we started. I first went on an antidepressant in 1996. My first one was Paxil, and I'm pretty sure that's the same as Alissa. We were both medicated for, I think, the same number of years, 27-ish.

I avoided them for years. I've battled depression since I was probably a teenager. A lot of times depression and anxiety go together hand in hand. I know a lot of people will have those together. I never had the anxiety. I just had horrible anger issues. And I say had; sometimes I still do. That was often how it presented itself. At times I was just a raging maniac.

My husband and I are great now, but we weren't always great. We had some very difficult years. It was hard, married, raising kids, life. And I didn't deal with it very well. I could see where it was starting to affect my mothering, being a wife and a mother. I just thought, "I can't do this to my family." These anger outbursts and these depressive episodes. "I guess if it's going to take a pill to help, then I'm going to have to do that."

So I went on Paxil, the first one they gave me. And it did seem to work. I'm so hesitant now, Joanna, to say...

Joanna: No, I completely get it. I experienced that too. That first year, we were good.

Carolina: I will give a disclaimer right off the bat that I'm not anti-medication. We need to be way more careful and way more informed about using them. That would be our biggest caution, all of us who have been there.

But it did its job, and it did it the way they do. They tone everything down. They numb you. They blunt everything. And when you're in a crisis and you need to function, there's a purpose for that, and that's okay. They're good until they're not. And eventually, for most people, they're not. That's the part I think the whole mental health community needs to learn how to navigate and figure out a little bit better.

When the Pills Stopped Working

Carolina: It did seem to work for, I would say, three years. I can't remember those years very well. I do remember that for about a year, things were going even worse than normal. I was still having episodes, I'm sure. I know I wasn't cured. Things were toned down. Then finally, after a year, it dawned on me: "I don't think this is working anymore." I was struggling again.

As a matter of fact, in the year 2000, four years after, I was struggling with suicidal thoughts very badly. I was struggling to stay alive. Home life was difficult, and I ended up checking myself into... back then it was the Minirth-Meier New Life Clinic. You're probably too young to have heard of it. Which was kind of a joke in my case. It was actually just a psych ward of a hospital. That's a whole other crazy story.

I was doing so poorly that I checked myself in. It was like, "I can't live like this. I'm just consumed with thoughts of death."

That's when my whole trail started. I have my list printed out. That's the first page of the medications. Here's the second page. And this is only up to 2007.

Joanna: Those are medications you were on?

Carolina: Different things we were trying. This medication, then back to that medication, then changing the doses. My gosh, no wonder I was having such a hard time settling anywhere. I was probably in withdrawal a lot.

Joanna: So many times.

Carolina: So many times. So there were probably over 20 medications total, bouncing between them. Maybe even more, frankly, because I don't have all the records. I did that for years, just bounced around, and I finally got on a cocktail, like I said, probably over a decade ago, of Effexor, Lamictal, and Xanax. I still struggled, but at least it was familiar. It was a familiar struggle, and I wasn't going through these huge highs and lows, so I just stuck with that and said, "Well, this is just how it is."

The Side Effects Nobody Mentioned

Carolina: One thing I want to say about the medications that people don't talk about, though they are talking about it more, thankfully, is the side effects. Now I know, and now I'm really upset about them, where before I just thought, "Oh, well, this is just what you have to do when you have depression." And it's like, well, no, I didn't have to go through all that.

The blunting. I didn't realize. I knew I wasn't the same, and I knew I couldn't cry like I used to. I wouldn't have had a term for it, but I did get the sexual dysfunction. That started very early for me, so I had years of that.

I was taking Wellbutrin for a while, and I had a grand mal seizure on it. I didn't know that was a possible side effect. The only reason I didn't lose my license after the seizure was because they linked it to the Wellbutrin. So as long as I stopped taking the Wellbutrin, I could keep driving. That was my big freak-out when I had the seizure. My biggest concern was, "How am I going to take care of my kids and get them to school?" But did anybody tell me that was a possible side effect? No.

And the fatigue. Oh my God, the fatigue when you're on them. I'm still trying to accept that I'm not a lazy person by nature. They rob you of your energy. It was hard. It was hard.

Joanna: I know there are so many people who can relate to that. So much of the on, the off, and being told, "This is what you have to do. This is what the expert says." You just take your pills hoping for the best, not realizing all the ways it's affecting you.

"Let's Just Try This One"

Carolina: And the thing about the way they prescribe them... I made a note here. It's, "Well, this isn't working. Okay, we'll just try this. We'll up this. Let's take away this." I made a list of the types of drugs I was taking: Z-drugs, which are sleep drugs, SSRIs, SNRIs, tricyclics, NDRIs, benzos...

Joanna: And there are so many interactions too.

Carolina: And then they're throwing them at you, and then they're taken away from you, and then throwing more at you and taking it away, and it's just like, "Who thought this was a good idea?" And we go along because we trust the doctors.

Joanna: A hundred percent. And then often it's, "Oh, I have increased symptoms," and it's, "Well, that's because of your diagnosis. That's because you have this disorder." It's never, "Let's talk about whether that medication may be bringing you that side effect." So many of those medications list these things as effects, even increased suicidal thoughts. I remember being amazed, because I was never told when I first got on them for depression that this pill could increase my depression. And really, that's the reality of it.

Carolina: Who knew? I don't know if even psychiatrists are told.

Joanna: I don't think they're fully aware.

Carolina: You can't blame them for that. They go on the information they have. But I think now they should know. That was understandable for a while. To me, it's not understandable now. There's just way too much information and too much conversation going on. If you don't know, you choose not to know.

Joanna: I think there are a lot of practitioners who don't fully know, because it's not what their training provides.

And there is deception within the pharmaceutical companies. There's a lot of motivation for keeping things quiet. I remember being completely shocked when I found out, through watching Medicating Normal, about a study apparently done by pharmaceutical companies. There was a blind group and a medicated group with the same conditions, and the medicated people had increased mental health issues. I was just like, "That's what's been happening to me."

Carolina: And they bury that.

Joanna: They buried it. They only showed the first six to eight weeks, which showed improvement for the medication, but never all the risk of the side effects, the risks of withdrawal, and the reality of increased mental health issues for the people medicated. It's like, "No wonder this has happened to us."

What the Drug Trials Don't Show

Carolina: I think that's another thing, maybe a good time to throw this in for people who are learning about all of this. Most of the trials for any drug on its own go from a matter of days up to six to eight weeks. There's only, I think, one drug that even goes up to a year in clinical trials. Just one drug. Most of them are very, very short, and that's another thing people don't understand. They're definitely not studied long-term at all, and most of us who are prescribed the drugs are on them for years.

Joanna: And told to stay on them, and encouraged to stay on them.

Carolina: To be on them for a long time. They don't know. And the other thing: I don't think there were any studies at all on being poly-drugged. No studies showing what it's like when you're on two or more drugs at the same time. I think we're going to look back at this time in history and find it pretty shocking.

Joanna: It's the bloodletting of our era, I've heard.

When Nobody Says "I'm Sorry"

Carolina: That's kind of one of the sad things. I don't know if you ever go through this, but sometimes I just feel like nobody understands this. A lot of people don't even believe it. When you tell people about all the suffering, there's nobody who says, "You know, I'm really sorry this happened to you." It's skepticism. Like, "Hmm, maybe it's all in your head."

Joanna: Yeah, well, a lot has happened to my head, and my whole body, actually.

Carolina: Did that cover the question?

Joanna: It did. It's sad, but I do think our stories and our voices will make a difference. That's why I love doing this, because when we speak up and share, not only does that become a voice for people who are going through it, but it's more evidence that this is not okay. So you're helping many other people by sharing this. And I think even surviving this is a way of helping so many other people, and you have done that.

Carolina: Thank you, and that's a good opportunity to say thank you for all that you do, Joanna. Your videos have been very, very helpful. I came to them late, but...

Joanna: Oh, I'm so glad. I don't know how you did it without that. You must have grit.

Carolina: I never really got too involved in the groups. By the time I got the information... but the information was there. I read the information, I watched all the videos, I gleaned from it for sure, and I jumped in a couple of times. The timing just wasn't right for me. But I'm very thankful for everything that was out there. And I want to thank Angie Peacock. I don't know if she'll ever see this.

Joanna: Yes. A hundred percent. Her videos got me through some pretty horrible, horrible days.

How Do You Cope When You Can Hardly Function?

Joanna: I would love to hear what helped you cope when you were in the worst of it. Were there things that kept you grounded and helped you survive and weather those storms?

Carolina: It's funny. How did I cope? Did I cope?

Joanna: Well, you're here to tell the story, so somehow you did.

Carolina: I must have coped, because I'm sitting here today with a smile. But to whoever's in it right now: it may not feel like you're coping, but you're coping. You're here. You're still here, and it's going to get better. It doesn't feel like coping.

Black Writing on White Pages

Carolina: What kept me grounded was, first of all, my faith. Being in the Word, praying, just knowing. I know you and Alissa have talked about the effect on your faith, just because of your thinking at the time, the blunting, the darkness.

Sometimes it's just nothing. I read every day, but sometimes I have to go to the Word and say, "Lord, these are words on a page. This is black writing on white pages. It's nothing to me right now. That's what withdrawal does. But I'm going to trust that your Word doesn't return void, and I'm going to go through the motions. I'm going to trust that you're with me and that you're working whether I feel it or not. I can't grasp any of it right now, but I'm going to go through the motions."

So whoever you are, go through the motions. That would be my encouragement. Those days are hard. I hate when I don't feel it. I hate when I don't get joy, or when I'm not touched by a passage that should be very touching.

Joanna: It feels like it can't even touch you. You can't connect with it.

Carolina: Those are the worst. And again, for whoever might be listening who's struggling with that, just know that's not you. That's the injury. That's not you. And God knows. God knows, and His love way covers that.

Church From the Back Row

Carolina: Because of the social anxiety, I would make myself go, because not going to church was not an option, even though I didn't want to go and be around anybody. So we would go and sit in the back and then skip out as soon as the service was over. For a while I just couldn't handle talking to anybody. I couldn't stay for Sunday school, those kinds of things. That changed. But being there certainly was helpful.

A Husband Who Is Just There

Carolina: Having my husband was a coping mechanism for me. Just having somebody who's just there. I know you had that with your husband too. There was security in that.

Writing Again After Decades

Carolina: And then for me, writing. I started journaling. I've always loved to write, but it sat dormant for many, many years, for decades. I think I started in 2024, so about two and a half years ago. I had some thoughts I was writing down. The intention wasn't to journal my experience. I had something I wanted to do with some thoughts I had, and I said, "I'm just going to make notes as I go along." And then it evolved into journaling and some other writing.

So if you have a creative outlet, if you're a writer or an artist or a musician or whatever you are, I hope you don't give up on that. Stick with it. Go to it. Let it lift you and encourage you and give you hope. The writing for me was super, super, super helpful.

Joanna: I have heard that from others too. I think Alissa was a journaler. For some people it really does help to have that outlet.

Carolina: So I think those were probably my main ones. And again, I was in a season of life, and still am, where I just didn't have many obligations. I know some people can't help that. I was very thankful I didn't have to... I don't know how I could have worked. I don't know how I could have. So for anybody out there in that situation, I feel you. I am so sorry you're going through that.

Joanna: But writing gave you some sort of productive focus. "When I can write, I will."

A Whole-Person Plan

Carolina: Let me go back to two things I want to address. One, going back to when I went off the drugs. COVID was my impetus, just having my eyes opened. I'd always wanted to be off, and I was just determined. I don't want to take these drugs anymore.

So I put my plan in place: spiritual, physical, and relational. The first thing I knew I needed to do was get my relationship with the Lord in order. That was never really a priority to me, reading. I was in church all the time and did a lot of studies, but my personal walk just wasn't a priority. So it was like, no, this needs to change, and that was going to be the foundation.

Then I also decided I needed to start exercising, and just learn how to do life differently, learn how to relate to people differently, learn how to be an adult. If this is going to work, we have to have all these things working.

Joanna: You kind of whole-person rehabbed yourself.

Carolina: I guess I did.

A Treadmill in the Bedroom

Carolina: So relating that to coping: I'm not by nature an exerciser. Even what I do now, I do because it's good for me, and I've worked really hard to get where I am, and I don't want to lose it, so I keep going.

I was a sprinter in high school, so I used to enjoy running. I got the Couch to 5K app on my phone and started training for a 5K. But because I had a hard time leaving the house, we put a treadmill in our bedroom, and I did it all there.

Joanna: Wow. So you were still kind of agoraphobic at that point, but you said, "I will exercise in my house, then."

Carolina: And I worked up to a 5K. Looking back now, I think, "I don't even know how I did that." When I turned 62, two of my friends did this with me. I said, "I'm going to do 6.2 at 62," which is a 10K. I'm slow. I'm slower than molasses, but that's okay. I got it done. Then I worked up to a half marathon, with the caveat that it was a very, very slow half marathon.

Joanna: That's amazing. I did not realize you had become a runner in this.

Carolina: I don't know how I did that, but I did. By the grace of God, I did it. And then I got hit with my first bout of insomnia. I didn't sleep for two months. It was miserable. I was just starting to get some endurance back with running, I think up to a mile, and you just can't when your body's not sleeping. Then I was starting to come back again, and I got hit with another bout of insomnia that lasted another two months. And then I was starting to come back again, and then I broke my arm, and then all hell broke loose. And it was like, "Yeah, I think I'll just walk."

Joanna: For now we're going to walk.

Carolina: But in the meantime I had been working with a fitness trainer, doing strength work, and I really worked hard. He did a fantastic job.

Joanna: Did you have exercise intolerance at all in your withdrawal?

Carolina: No. I didn't have much of the physical. There was the fatigue I had to fight through, but I'd been doing that for so long because of the drugs. That wasn't new. Most of it was my head, just functioning.

Joanna: The mental symptoms. The terror.

Carolina: The depression, even though it's horrible, was familiar. I was used to it, because I'd been doing that for a long time. But the anxiety was very unfamiliar.

Joanna: I can relate to that. Having a chemical anxiety that's just new.

Carolina: So exercise was another coping thing, just to keep me going. I knew it was good for me.

Joanna: And it is kind of like that with healing. We do something, and then we figure out if it was too much, and if we need to pull it back a little. It's trial and error. How much is too much for exercise? How much is helping?

Carolina: You do what you can when you can.

Joanna: That's so much of healing.

New Eyes for Chronic Pain

Carolina: Breaking my arm gave me new eyes. All my problems throughout my life have been in my head, and in fatigue for sure, but I haven't had to deal with pain. For the most part I've been healthy. Breaking my arm opened my eyes to how living with chronic pain is not fun. I am not made for rehab. After the arm, I was in such a dark place. I was in tears doing my rehab a lot. That was not fun. So again, my sympathy to anybody who has compounding pain. I had a whole new appreciation for people who have to deal with that.

Windows, Waves, and the Game Face

Carolina: One thing I wanted to say, I was thinking about this earlier: I think one thing people misunderstand about withdrawal is that I'll talk about how bad it is, and how I'm hardly able to function at times, but then I'm doing a lot of stuff too. Sometimes that's confusing for me, and I think it's confusing for people who are trying to understand and not judge you. You say it's this bad, but you're doing this, this, this, and this. I question myself sometimes. Like, are you really that bad? Because here you are doing...

Joanna: Right. Why can't you go to the barbecue?

Carolina: And it's not linear. That's what the whole windows and waves thing is. You have good days and bad days, and some of it is really just sucking it up when you are able. And sometimes you're not able. Sometimes you're just not able.

Having lived with depression for so long, I know how to put on the game face. I've been doing that for years. If I cannot put on a game face, you won't see me.

So when people talk about going through all this suffering, but then they're doing this, this, this, and this, it's because they're either in a window or they're sucking it up. Props to them for being able to do that, because it's not easy. You don't want to disconnect from your family, your family events, your things. I would just pray a lot, "Lord, just give me a happy heart and decent energy for the time that I need to have it, to be with people and do what I need to do."

And then you come home, and you crash.

Joanna: And you can't leave.

Carolina: You can't do that for very long. So that's another thing I want people to understand, people who aren't familiar with it and are trying to understand. It's just a facade.

Joanna: It's managing the symptoms.

Carolina: The best you can, when you can.

Rounding the Bend, Then Waves Again

Joanna: When did you start feeling like you were rounding a bend and seeing some of your self, a cheerfulness or a lightness?

Carolina: It's gone in cycles where I thought I was done, and then I would go backwards again. The first time was probably a couple of years ago, when I had windows at the end of 2024. I was writing a little story. I did all kinds of writing, and I thought, "I'm done, and I'm going to do this and this and that." I was just full of energy, and then all of a sudden I crashed.

Joanna: Was that around the arm?

Carolina: That was before the arm. Then in '25 I was gaining some endurance, and then I broke my arm and had more insomnia, rehab, darkness, whatever. Toward the end of that year I started getting things back again. From then to March of this year: the best three months. That's the longest I've ever had of a straight good season. I thought, "Ooh, I'm really done now. I'm good."

Joanna: Then you had some waves again.

Carolina: In waves again. It just wasn't time yet.

Bubbly Like the Old Me

Carolina: Let me give you one thing that happened in May. This was a big one. Even though I was in this turbulence between March and, I would say, even now, in May I was invited to a women's event at somebody's church. I used to love those things, big conferences, learning, fun. I hadn't been able to do anything like that since withdrawal, at all. I thought, "Should I go? Am I ready? Can I do this?" I talked to Ralph about it, talked to a friend about it, and they said, "Yeah, just give it a try. I think it's a good time."

I was able to go, and it was the first time... it was really weird. I was bubbly. I was like the old me. I was interacting with people the way I used to. I enjoyed it. I thought, "I'm back. I'm back." But it didn't last. I don't know. But it's okay.

Joanna: You got glimmers. You got a window of being like, "That was me. That was me."

Waters of Rest

Joanna: So what is it like right now, these last few weeks? In what ways do you see yourself re-emerging and connecting with life?

Carolina: Lately, part of what I've been going through really feels like the Lord trying to teach me to rest and receive. I don't do that well. I learned something new. You know in Psalm 23, "He leads me beside still waters"? The Hebrew word, I'm going to butcher it, is menucha, and it's literally translated "waters of rest." Doesn't that just sound so much... Still waters sounds really nice, but waters of rest...

I've never really been able to just rest. I've always been bracing, always defensive. So simultaneously with coming out of withdrawal and this whole process, there's just been this need to learn how to rest in the Lord. And these last three weeks have probably been the most peaceful in that regard. I'm very thankful for whatever it took for me to get there. So the answer to the question is, it's just felt very peaceful.

I need to re-emerge at some point. I've been reserved and pulled back a little, not doing very many social things at all. But it's been very nice.

Joanna: Like a period of rest?

Carolina: It has, and I think because I needed to learn how to do that. That's been really, really nice, learning that's what those seasons are like.

Joanna: That's wonderful. May it continue.

The Substack, and Overcoming Fear

Joanna: Are you writing right now?

Carolina: Not at the moment. I'm journaling just a little bit. I seem to go through seasons with that. Starting the Substack was a really big deal. I think I'm just in a quiet season right now. I'm hoping I'm in a quiet season. I think the writing will come back. There are some things I want to write about. But I think the biggest thing in doing that was overcoming a fear. Emerging, right?

Joanna: That's been a way you're emerging.

Carolina: And overcoming a hurdle. It was hard. I'm a very insecure person. I am incredibly insecure. I have no confidence in my abilities. The voices in my head hate me. So just getting that done was a huge, huge accomplishment. And then I wrote the article on protracted withdrawal, which was important for me to write.

Joanna: If you'd like to read more of Carolina's story, she shares it on her Substack, These Things, including her article Protracted Withdrawal.

Carolina: We'll see what comes of that afterward. But I'm at peace. I'm learning to just trust the Lord, rest in the Lord, and trust that He'll guide me. When the time is right, I'll start writing again, or whatever I'm supposed to be doing. But the rest right now has been really restful. It's been nice.

Joanna: That's beautiful. If you are reading this and you think, "I will never have peace about my story. I will never feel calm again. I will never feel like I'm okay in my body," I want you to hear what Carolina is sharing with you now: she's experiencing peace, and she has come through so many symptoms.

Words for Someone at Their Absolute Worst

Joanna: What words would you say to someone who's feeling the absolute worst right now, Carolina?

Carolina: I'm going to try not to cry. Hang in there. Hang on. Hang in there. I wrote a couple of things down, in anticipation of you asking.

Let the Anger Go

Carolina: One thing I wanted to bring up ties in with giving hope too. I haven't been in a lot of group settings, but I have heard it come up in the protracted withdrawal groups: some people really have a hard time with the anger. I was thinking about a quote I came across. I think I'd heard it before but had forgotten it, and I saw it on Substack earlier this year. It's just so true: "Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." It only hurts ourselves.

Be angry. It's legitimate. But at some point you have to let it go. So if you're in withdrawal and you're still struggling with the anger at what's been done and what happened to you, my encouragement would be: let it go. Let it go. We can use that anger. We can take it and turn it for good, just like you're doing. We can address that. I know it's hard. I know it is so hard. But if that's something really holding you back, my encouragement would be to just let it go.

All Shall Be Well

Carolina: There's a song by 10th Avenue North called "All Shall Be Well." It's a beautiful song. And that's the message I want to say too: all shall be well. It will be well. I know it doesn't feel like it, but it will be well.

Dear Aching Soul

Carolina: And the final thing: I want to read this last portion of my article. I'm talking to you who are in protracted withdrawal. Hear this from me as my encouragement.

"If you are a protracted withdrawal sufferer who is currently in the thick of it, hear this, and hear it loudly and hopefully: It's on its way out! I know you can't see it, I know it doesn't feel like it, I know it's impossible to believe at the moment. But it's the absolute truth! No one can tell you how much longer it will take (I'm truly sorry about this) but please, dear aching soul, hold on. It gets better! It really does! You are not the exception to this! Many of us who are looking back from a distance of healing and clarity thought we were the exception, too. We thought we were that one person who would never get better because of some hidden uniqueness to our circumstances. This thinking is common, and is itself a symptom. None of us were the exception, and you won't be, either! Glory, hallelujah!"

And then there's this. Your story isn't over yet.

Joanna: Aw, a semicolon.

Carolina: The story continues. Your story isn't over yet, so hang on. It gets better. It gets better. It really does. Look at Joanna. Look at what she's doing.

Joanna: And you too. I was so excited to see your articles when you sent them to me, and to see that you were writing, and just to hear everything you had to share. So thank you, Carolina, for being here and sharing your story and opening up, because so many people need to hear that it gets better, and that they aren't the only ones who have gone through this. They aren't alone. So whoever's reading, you're not alone.

Passing It Forward

Carolina: And I think it was from you I heard it for the first time. I was so late coming to everything, but I think it was in one of your videos that you taught me that thinking, "Oh, I'm going to be the exception. I'm the one who'll never get better. There's something different with me," is a symptom. It's very common. And I thought, "Oh, it's a symptom."

Joanna: Oh my gosh, yes. And I learned that from Angie, so we just keep passing it forward.

Thank you so much, Carolina. I appreciate you.

And to you reading this: things are going to get better, and your healing is coming.

❤️‍🩹 Joanna