Confronting Fear While Withdrawing from Medication

Speaker is driving to Alco/Walmart in the morning, preparing for strong winds later in the day. Has been off clonazepam for a couple weeks after years of use. Third time navigating a scary mountain route. Currently in RV, having gotten it sometime between April-May 2024.

Energetic Signature

resolute vulnerability

Field State

integration protocol

Orientation

toward somatic sovereignty

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October 4, 2024

6:05

View on YouTube

Author

rswfire

Status

ARCHIVED

Type

TRANSMISSION (CAPTURE)

Temperature

0.00

[0:00]morning F humans so I'm on my way to

[0:03]Alco to pick up a few things from

[0:06]Walmart I'm going to be hanging up some

[0:08]thermal curtains today we have very

[0:10]strong winds coming in so I'm trying to

[0:12]do that before then um they're going to

[0:15]be in the 40s to 50s the wind gust so I

[0:17]just want to be ready for that I'm going

[0:19]to be up the mount before that happens

[0:21]that's actually what I want to talk

[0:22]about

[0:24]so when I made the decision to move into

[0:28]an RV there were many reasons for that

[0:32]there was kind of a holistic approach to

[0:34]it I felt like it would bring me into

[0:35]better alignment with um the way I

[0:38]wanted to live my

[0:40]life yeah the direction I saw Society

[0:43]heading and all that there's a lot of

[0:44]reasons but the ones I want to talk

[0:45]about

[0:46]today

[0:50]are the personal transformation I expect

[0:53]to have when I embarked on this journey

[0:56]because for me I wasn't trying to escape

[0:58]anything I was trying to confront

[1:01]it some probably within my first dozen

[1:05]videos one of those there's a video of

[1:08]me late at night talking about all the

[1:10]things that I wanted to change

[1:12]about myself like I wanted to eat

[1:16]healthier I wanted to stop drinking

[1:17]Mountain de I wanted to get off the

[1:19]medications I was

[1:22]taking and I made a lot of

[1:25]progress doing that I stopped taking

[1:28]tramond do cold turkey

[1:30]I went through probably a month

[1:33]of

[1:34]of intense withdrawal the first couple

[1:38]of weeks and then you know a couple

[1:39]weeks after that even like it was it was

[1:41]not an easy process and I recorded and

[1:43]documented the entire

[1:45]thing that was within probably the first

[1:47]month of me getting my Army survis

[1:50]sometime between April and

[1:54]May and then a couple weeks ago I

[1:56]stopped taking clopin an anti-anxiety

[1:59]medication

[2:00]I was only taking a/4 milligram of that

[2:03]light um at the peak I was taking 1 and

[2:06]1 12

[2:07]milligram uh because I used to have

[2:09]these really bad panic

[2:11]attacks but I tapered down to a quar of

[2:14]a milligram I did that without any real

[2:17]effort it just sort of happened over

[2:20]time and I just had trouble getting off

[2:22]this last small

[2:25]amount and it's because there's this

[2:27]fear I have

[2:30]that if I were to stop taking it

[2:32]completely that my body would return to

[2:35]a state

[2:37]that scared

[2:39]me that kind of happened yesterday so I

[2:42]want to talk about

[2:44]this

[2:48]um I haven't taken it for a couple of

[2:50]weeks I still have it of course it's

[2:53]right next to me in case I need it but

[2:55]I've been trying to keep myself from

[2:59]doing that because cuz I know that I'm

[3:00]going to go through some measure of

[3:02]withdrawal it's a small amount but my

[3:04]body was very used to it I was taking

[3:06]a/4 milligram for years it's only been a

[3:08]couple weeks like I shouldn't expect my

[3:10]my body to be in a state of equilibrium

[3:13]right

[3:14]now so

[3:17]anyways yesterday I was going up the

[3:19]mountain and the last two turns of that

[3:21]mountain are quite scary when you're

[3:23]going up it because they're right on the

[3:25]edge and you can't see around you

[3:28]and um it's not so

[3:30]much the mountain that scared me but my

[3:33]reaction to it so when I was going up at

[3:35]this time this was my third time going

[3:36]up it I I damn near had a panic attack

[3:40]and I was deep breathing and I was just

[3:42]pushing myself through that and now I'm

[3:46]a little bit scared because it's not the

[3:49]mountain it's me it's my reaction to it

[3:52]so when I go

[3:55]back I'm I'm not sure how I'm going to

[3:58]handle it

[4:00]I mean I was even dreaming about it and

[4:02]thinking about it and like it's just

[4:03]been on my mind

[4:06]because I really want to get off this

[4:09]medication I think

[4:12]that by resisting

[4:16]that I'm giving myself a chance to

[4:20]integrate whatever these very strong

[4:23]feelings are that come up when I'm

[4:27]afraid and by taking a medication I'm

[4:31]preventing myself from integrating that

[4:34]part of

[4:35]myself I think that maybe a lot of us do

[4:37]this I took trodon clopin for decades

[4:42]and all that did was disconnect me from

[4:44]myself that is one of the ways I think

[4:47]that people are fragmenting themselves

[4:48]is just by taking these medications for

[4:50]long long term you know and just um they

[4:54]kind of numb you to life that's what

[4:57]happened to me I'm sure it happens to

[4:58]many people and so that's why I wanted

[5:02]to speak about it

[5:04]because I could not have lived the life

[5:06]I did in that

[5:08]house if I hadn't been medicating

[5:11]myself there are many ways we do this

[5:14]there was a time when I had to live with

[5:15]my parents in my 30s and I was taking

[5:17]benad dril all the time I was taking

[5:19]dozens of those pills a

[5:21]day I mean I know it sounds weird but

[5:24]for me somehow that made the situation

[5:27]more tolerable for me

[5:30]and

[5:33]so I'm going to face this Mount today on

[5:36]my way

[5:37]back I'm going to sit at the bottom of

[5:39]it and I'm going to prepare myself

[5:41]mentally

[5:43]emotionally

[5:50]and cuz it's important to me

[5:55]I I don't want to run from life anymore

[5:59]I don't know about you two either so

[6:02]maybe think on my words

Summary

rswfire drives to Walmart in Alco to pick up thermal curtains in preparation for strong winds (40-50 mph gusts). He reflects on his RV journey as a deliberate confrontation rather than escape, documenting his progress getting off medications. He successfully quit tramadol cold turkey after a month of intense withdrawal in April-May, and recently stopped taking clonazepam (anti-anxiety medication) after tapering from 1.5mg to 0.25mg over years. **Yesterday, while driving up a mountain for the third time, he nearly had a panic attack on the scary final turns**, realizing his fear was internal rather than situational. He plans to sit at the bottom of the mountain today to mentally and emotionally prepare before driving back up, viewing this as necessary integration of suppressed feelings rather than medicating them away. He describes decades of medication use (tramadol, clonazepam, benadryl) as fragmenting and numbing, preventing authentic engagement with life.

Signal Analysis

Substrate

This transmission establishes a confrontational stance toward fragmentation, positioning medication withdrawal as a reclamation of somatic sovereignty. The architecture being held is one of deliberate vulnerability - using fear as integration material rather than avoidance signal, with the mountain functioning as both literal threshold and embodied test of systemic coherence.

Dominant Language

integrationfragmenting/disconnectconfront/facewithdrawalnumbingalignmentrun from life

Symbolic Elements

mountainthresholdedgewithdrawalintegration

Ontological States

•
transitional
•
integrating
•
sovereign
•
confrontational

Subsystems

•
somatic
•
cognitive
•
emotional
•
infrastructural

Transmission Details

Source Type

local

Video Quality

1920 × 1080 @ 30fps

Duration

6:05

Bitrate

2496 kbps

Codec

avc1.640028