credit: MarylandFilmFestival (original)Supernino (derivative work) / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)
American actress Lena Dunham struggled with benzodiazepine cessation after taking the benzodiazepine Klonopin she was prescribed for anxiety. According to a 2018 Chicago Tribune interview, every doctor Dunham saw believed she was suffering from anxiety and needed medication, while none of them told her how horrible it would be to detox when she stopped medicating. Lena recounts:
When you try to get off this, it’s going to be like the most hellacious acid trip you’ve ever had, where you’re … clutching the walls and your hair is blowing off your head and you can’t believe you found yourself in this situation.
In a 2018 Vogue interview it is revealed that while Dunham felt that Klonopin was a fruitful tool for her in the beginning, it ultimately wasn’t quelling her suffering—but she was too afraid of the withdrawal symptoms, which range from headaches and fatigue to thoughts of suicide in more extreme cases, to come off of it. She laments:
Nobody I know who [is] prescribed these medications is told, ‘By the way, when you try and get off this, it’s going to be like the most hellacious acid trip you’ve ever had where you’re f*cking clutching the walls and the hair is blowing off your head and you can’t believe you found yourself in this situation,’ Now, the literal smell of the inside of pill bottles makes me want to throw up.
