Is Benzo Withdrawal a Mind-Body Condition?

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Hey everybody, good morning.

[00:00:02]So today I wanted to come on and talk about this question that I've been getting a lot is you know is what's going on with us just considered a mind-body condition.

[00:00:12]And I want to talk about what that means and I want to talk about our different thoughts about that. I think a lot of these questions lately are stemmed from there was a recent post on Dan Buglio's site pain free you. If you guys haven't ever seen that site, I actually really like Dan. He talks more about um uh perceived pain syndromes and and and more about body pain things like that.

[00:00:36]Um and people have sometimes felt a little dismissed by him uh that have gone through benzo or medication discontinuation syndromes and things that it's kind of written off that it's it's just a it's just part of a mind-body condition. It's not a real thing.

[00:00:50]That real withdrawal only takes a couple weeks that type of thing.

[00:00:54]So I think as he's posted a couple videos lately especially lately there was one done with a Dr. Schubner who's written a new book and he asked specifically about medication withdrawal. And Dr. Schubner you know validates that it's a thing um but also says that it's mostly fear generated and that real withdrawal um only lasts a couple of weeks and he ends up talking about you know some things that have gotten people a little heated and a little upset and a little scared and a little invalidated. So I wanted to come on here and talk about my perspective of this being a clinician for the last 30 years and having studied now the nervous system for the last almost 10 and looking at all the different things that are out there all the different models of that are out there. So is benzo or med withdrawal and the discontinuation syndromes bind whatever you want to call it um a mind-body condition. So first of all let's think about what we mean by a mind-body condition.

[00:01:52]So a a mind-body condition is one in which there there are not necessarily real structural or organic issues at play.

[00:01:59]You go in and they really kind of can't find anything kind of structurally wrong.

[00:02:05]Or if they are finding something structurally wrong, it's not explaining why you're having chronic syndrome symptoms and syndromes.

[00:02:12]And so many things can be related back to a mind-body condition and I very much believe in that. And what happens is that basically um we begin to give a lot of attention and a lot of focus and inadvertently create a lot of what we call and what Claire Weeks would call kind of secondary fear loops about the backache, the stomach ache, the IBS, the you know, and we get caught kind of in these loops and our world start to get small and we start to accommodate the pain and the experience as we focus in on it and we [snorts] get further and further out of our lives. We begin to lose confidence in our lives. Um and and our attention and our focus are solely on our symptoms.

[00:02:57]Um and and so you know how I answer this question is from my own experience. So a lot of times when people are asked, you know, maybe this is just a mind-body syndrome.

[00:03:13]What's implied in that is maybe you're making it up. So, do I think that you're making this up? No, I do not think you're making this up. I can say that with all sincerity. I can say that as a clinician who's been through it. I can tell you that I was a clinician that until I took that antibiotic and within hours of taking the antibiotic that started this process for me um my I had no fear. All I wanted was the antibiotic that I had taken an antibiotic many many times in my life. I wanted it to work and take away the bronchitis. I didn't uh anticipate um the onslaught of physical and mental symptoms that came on within hours.

[00:03:51]And initially as I was going it, I didn't do a lot of forevering or catastrophizing. I did move into fix it and figure it out mode, try to get to the doctors. That was very disheartening. If you read my book, you know that process. I won't have to go into it again.

[00:04:06]I But I didn't give it a lot of attention other than this is a problem I need to address. At that point, I wasn't getting stuck in the what if loops. I actually believed I was going to be just fine.

[00:04:17]Um as I moved kind of further along and um and was was looking back on it after I moved out of the worst of it, that's probably where I was a little bit more confused about what the hell just happened to me.

[00:04:29]Um but again, I I was feeling better, so there wasn't a lot of fear.

[00:04:34]You know, but I but I know that my nervous system really took a hit, a real hit with those things. I had real neuropathy. I had real blurry vision. I had um real stomach issues. I had, you know, strange My hand would clench for no reason. I you know, I I had Mentally, I wasn't as sharp and I was fuzzy.

[00:04:54]>> [snorts] >> Um and there weren't a lot of fear loops attached to that. And now I know, and that's why there's several black box warnings on that medication, that they can cause um an assault on the nervous system, which is what I think it did for me.

[00:05:08]As well as when it kind of was lingering around and maybe exacerbated and I went on uh gabapentin and benzodiazepines, they didn't work for me. They actually made things a lot worse. Um you know, do I think that's a mind-body condition?

[00:05:23]Not I I I I will answer that question in two parts. I do think there's a mind-body piece to it, and I'll get to that in a minute. Do I think there's also very much an organic um neurochemical shitstorm happening? I do.

[00:05:37]These medications are very powerful.

[00:05:38]That's why they've been on the market for so long.

[00:05:41]You know, we we wouldn't be having a benzo problem or a medication problem if they didn't work. And what I mean by work is s- you know, for many people stop panic attacks in their track, knock them out.

[00:05:53]Well, if they're strong enough to do that, we know they're doing something at the level of the neurochemistry, right?

[00:06:01]And for some of us, um it doesn't work very well. For some for some of us the the anticipated effect um worked for a while, or maybe it never worked at all, or it worked and then we decided to come off and and the adaptation that had to happen as we were coming off was problematic.

[00:06:19]So, do I think this is all in your head and you're making it up? I absolutely do not, okay? Um what I can say about my own experience and from so many people that I work with is that the symptoms that can come off of a system that is um a nervous system that is now destabilized.

[00:06:39]Again, um I don't like the word injured, or I've used it before, but I'm pulling away from that word. I certainly don't like the word damage, okay? But what I do think is that that the as the nervous system gets destabilized, and how does the nervous system get destabilized?

[00:06:56]You know, it's the stabilization of a nervous system is contingent upon the hundreds of chemical processes that have to go on being kind of working in symphony with each other.

[00:07:08]And so as you take in an agent, you pull out an agent, the body gets flooded with chemicals, there's you know, there's a sensitization process that happens. Um we get into this destabilized nervous system, and we can experience very, very scary symptoms as a result of that, and that's what I think happens to people when they're going through an adverse med effect or discontinuation syndrome.

[00:07:30]Where I do think the mind-body world does give us something to lean on and use, and I certainly use this in all of my coaching with people, and I used it with myself, um was recognizing that the the organic fear that came up as a symptom, I became terrified of.

[00:07:50]The pain that came, the discomfort that came, the feelings of unreality that came, the intrusive thoughts that came, the looping catastrophizing, you know, all of that, I know that I absolutely, over time, worked so hard trying to control it, get rid of it, wonder if it was going to be there forever, and then unfortunately went into all the forums and and got very immersed into a story of damage, and it was very abysmal, and it was very lacking of hope and lacking of the rest of the story.

[00:08:29]This was second fear, right? My second fear, as Claire Weekes talked about, came in.

[00:08:33]And so, there was the real event, there was the destabilization, and then there was my reaction to it. So, so much of what I do in my work is recognizing that if we can remove the fear loops, the secondary fear loops, a destabilized nervous system is going to make you afraid. You're going to be looking through a lens of fear. That's part of a symptom of a destabilized nervous system. Why is that? Because the primary function of the nervous system is to is to assess danger and safety.

[00:09:03]It's our most basic function. So, when that system is out of order and destabilized, that safety and danger mechanism is going to be off, and you're going to be looking through fear goggles.

[00:09:15]And and things that would normally be fine, I'm leaving the house, I'm going for a drive, I'm going to work, I'm talking to my children, I'm going to an amusement park, I'm taking a swim, everything becomes really, really threatening and scary.

[00:09:29]That's the primary fear. That's the That's the fear goggles.

[00:09:34]Being afraid of what you're seeing through those fear goggles, and that you're never going to not have fear goggles and that you're so different than you once were and will you ever be okay and who can you find like you and oh my god, what are the people saying on the forums? That's where the secondary fear loops come in and those stories are powerful.

[00:09:52]Okay? So, do I think that the symptoms are in your head? No. Do I think that your story about the symptoms, your response to the symptoms, the attention given, the focus given, the story we we we tell ourselves about them, how much we talk about it, how much we talk to it, how much we talk about it with other people, how much we talk about it to ourselves, those are things that are more in our control than we actually know, but they've become very very habitual. So, they're happening at lightning speed, they feel automatic.

[00:10:26]And so, that is where the mind-body world, I think, does come into play.

[00:10:31]That is where I use models in the OCD world um very successfully with this as well. In terms of um the um inhibitory learning model, which is um I'm not going to expose myself to this fear and habituate to the to the uh that eventually the anxiety will come down because I habituate to it. No, I'm going to do the thing that I'm scared of because the fear isn't real. I'm recognizing as I'm pulling from that theory, I'm also pulling from what's called an ICBT theory, which is saying that really if we can understand that the scary story in and of itself is our imagination. It's Our imagination has been hijacked and we're living in the forevering and the catastrophizing.

[00:11:20]And so, when we recognize that the story itself is unreasonable, the story itself is not true, we don't have to go and habituate to anything. The fear of the swimming pool is is is is absurd. We recognize it as noise.

[00:11:36]We recognize it as a distortion. We recognize it as the imagination we has created a story and we've bought into that more than reality. So, what we do in my practice with people is we get out and we start living life.

[00:11:51]So, you know, does that involve exposure? It does, but not in necessarily a strict ERP kind of way.

[00:11:57]And I know I'm throwing around a lot of terms here. But, I'm trying to show you that there's a lot of psychological theories here that I pull from that each one of them has some sense to it. An an exposure and response prevention module model is to go and expose yourself to the fear to habituate to that anxiety.

[00:12:17]I don't really love that because most people I talk to are living in an exposure. Waking up in the morning is an exposure. I don't need them to go and you know, touch you know, um drive a car over a bridge. I just need them to to get up and make breakfast.

[00:12:35]I mean, that's you know, maybe if you're listening to this you can relate. The world has gotten so small. And so, the way I look at it is I need to get people living again because as they're zooming out instead of zooming in, they're retraining the brain.

[00:12:50]And they're breaking those secondary fear loops.

[00:12:53]And those secondary fear loops are nothing more than, you know, my imagination has taken this symptom, has catastrophized it, has given me a worst case scenario, and I'm playing that out over and over and over habitually and automatically.

[00:13:07]And that's the piece that that we do have more agency over, and it's the piece that I work with people on when I work with people through that acronym deal.

[00:13:14]The decision to know I'm in a sensitized um destabilized system.

[00:13:19]I know what this is.

[00:13:21]I'm going to evoke a non-engagement stance, which is I'm not going to uh I'm going to leave it alone. I'm going to let it burn. I'm going to let it exist.

[00:13:31]I'm going to allow the symptoms to be there.

[00:13:34]Again, the kind of the radical acceptance is the D, the leaving it alone is the E, the allowing is is recognizing it's going to do what it's going to do for as long as it's going to do it, and I'm going to L live my life, and by living my life I'm going to be zooming out, going back into living, and slowly pulling the attention off the pain, off the symptoms, zooming out into back into the world of the living, and slowly retraining myself that these are false alarms.

[00:14:06]So, is it a mind-body condition? It can become one. Um and and this is not a weakness. I don't think anybody that I know could feel some of the feelings and sensations and experiences we've had and not get terrified of them.

[00:14:21]So, as much as I'd love to reach people before they're you know, kind of in this state, you're probably not going to because you almost can't imagine you could feel this bad, right? Before you felt this bad, could you imagine that you could feel this bad? I couldn't have. So, somebody coming to me and saying, "Hey, you know, you know, I think what's happening is you're having a discontinuation syndrome. Don't worry. I know it feels horrific, but there's really you're okay."

[00:14:46]Well, you almost have to kind of see it all the way through and get to your own rock bottom before you begin to make the change of like, "You know what? Staying on these forums, staying stuck in my room, staying focused on how I'm feeling, you know, staying in my journals about how I'm feeling now, constantly monitoring, constantly evaluating, constantly assessing, all of that is not moving me along."

[00:15:11]And that's usually where people reach out to me and say, "Help me move along."

[00:15:15]Or I'm been moving along, but I'm kind of stalled out, or I'm not getting as far as I need to.

[00:15:20]Anyway, guys, I hope this was helpful.

[00:15:22]Take good care.

[00:15:24]Um and if you need anything, you can reach out to me. I've been away for a couple of weeks. Um so, I'm just now getting back to a lot of emails, but uh Jennifer Swan, PhD uh.com is my um is my website, and I'll put it in the notes below. Thanks.