anxiety
"Yes, this medication works. It works very well for chronic anxiety disorder and  sudden onsets of severe panic attacks. Knowing what I know now, I wish with all my being it had never ever been prescribed to me, and without the absurd nonchalance dozens of practitioners have portrayed. 

I'm 32 and have been prescribed clonazopam for 14 years. Ive been in situations where my health insurance is in transition and I must go off the medication abruptly-- this is when I realized how deep I was. Weeks upon weeks of non stop physical, emotional, and psychological withdrawal effects that are like hell. Words cannot accurately describe just how awful it is. This, again, has been my experience during withdrawal as a long term clonazopam patient. 

All skin, especially the face, becomes numb. Vision gets fuzzy and difficult to see clearly. Panic attacks become extremely exasperated, frequent and debilitating. Severe irritability. Worst of all: a terrifying disconnection between your mind and body; as if you're an onlooker watching and feeling this horrible thing happen to you, but not actually feeling connected to any of it-- that one is tough to explain. All of this... It can lasts months, maybe more. That's right. Not just some one week hump to overcome. 

After finding how awful the withdrawal is I've been attempting to ween very very slowly down from 3 2mg doses per day to eventually zero, hopefully. After six months of gradually decreases in dose I'm now at 2- 1mg doses per day and I'm not sure how or if I can go much less than that. No doctors I've had have been of any help. The ween down was my idea and the rate of it was also my idea based on experience. It sure would be nice to meet a doctor that truly had knowledge of this withdrawal syndrome and took it a bit more seriously. I am confident that the medication is no longer treating my anxiety disorder, but simply preventing withdrawal from the meds themselves. And there don't seem to be any good alternatives. It's a long road ahead, please think it over and over with someone knowledgeable before being so quick to embrace this miracle drug. The truth is that most of us actually need very real psychotherapy, not chemicals that run our lives. 

Once again, all my point of view from my personal experience. It feels very good to share this."