Any thoughts/ideas/memories/images/feelings that are scary, weird, negative, dark, sinister, repetative, or confusing that pop up and create distress or lead to rumination that were not there and did not bother me prior to this benzo WD and my reaction that led to a heightened, highly sensitized state, need to be simply labeled as mental fireworks. A heightened system. Period. No ellipses. Drop the rope. Game over. The fear is always an illusion. Content is irrelevant. They will continue to morph and then circle back to a few main ones, the original ones, the thought/s that freaked you out the most. It is free floating anxiety and fear looking for a home. A host topic. It is all mental fuckery. Loosen and Accept. Adopt a “so what, whatever” attitude. Don’t take thoughts seriously and don’t take your background neuro-emotions that leave you feeling as if something terrible was done to you or that you have done something terrible — they are all chemical lies. Fumes cast off a hot, raw nervous system. Stop the excessive self-reflection and the constant mental engagement. This happens to be one of your primary symptoms – your main course in the terrible dinner of benzo withdrawal/heightened state and it will continue to find new topics, flavors, people and events to disturb you. These are simply strange and scary thoughts in a tired and sensitized mind and body. I choose not to engage them and to employ an attitude of utter allowance to leave things alone. State drives story and as these chemicals plow through my dysregulated fear circuitry – all sorts of normal things will feel scary, ominous, foreboding and distorted. And anything that was ever a tiny bit scary or uncomfortable will feel terrifying. Any possible mistake or misstep by myself or others will seem tragic and out of proportion. Try not to add second fear with all of the “Oh NO” or the “I hate this” or “Why am I thinking this?” “Why does this keep coming up?” And don’t be bluffed by the neuro-emotions of despair — that is simply nothing more than complete depletion caused by the exhaustion of a nervous system on the fritz. The question of “why?” has been answered! The average person does not have control of their thoughts and you have the added disadvantage of having an amygdala that sends out a million false negatives a day —– turning even a teddy bear into a grizzly bear. Stop thinking about your thinking! It is not true that everything we think, feel, think we remember, ruminate on, etc is of importance or is deserving of our attention. Again, if it didn’t bother you before you entered this heightened state, then we know exactly what it is. Scary mental fireworks! You will be faced with many clay pigeons in this process in the form of memories/thoughts/images/ etc and you cannot control the system glitching out or what or how many clay pigeons are shot off. Your goal and job is not to aim, focus and fire and then run into the field to assess the carnage. It is to get good at doing nothing. As these thoughts began as you entered into a heightened state, they will calm when the state settles. Remember, its like a glass bottle with sand all shook up —— only takes a few seconds to shake it up but a long time for things to settle. While I know that these are the mental fireworks of my mind, they scare me with the illusions they convey, and they cause me pain. I got into this situation not of my own volition. It is something that happened to me, just as healing will happen to me. I know I am a good person and the core of my being stands firm, unspoiled, and untouched even as the fireworks cast the flashes and shake me with their concussion. I get glimpses of this when the fireworks quiet as they now do, from time to time. The nature of my being remains true to who I am. And I love myself for who I am.