Christine Anne Narloch passed away on June 16, 2017 at the age of 48 after a long struggle with benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome that ended in suicide. Her husband, Mike, describes her as “an intelligent woman who loved life. She was a joyful and happy person with an infectious smile. Everyone who met her loved her.” She was a woman of faith and active in her church. In an email a few months prior to her death, she wrote, “I’ve been happily married almost 23 years and loved being a housewife and serving in my local church. I have family, a lot of friends, and enjoyed people. I loved to smile, I loved to sing, I loved to read, I loved to help people, I loved to take care of my husband and my home, and I loved so many other things. But my life has now changed beyond human comprehension.”
How does such a happy, loved, and fulfilled person end up committing suicide? In April of 2015, she was prescribed 1mg of Ativan (lorazepam) that she took 3 times daily for symptoms of anxiety and tremor resulting from hyperthyroidism. She was not given informed consent at the time of prescription that the drug could cause physical dependence and/or severe side effects or that it was not intended for long-term use. Initially, Ativan helped the symptoms for which it was prescribed, but after 2 months of taking it as prescribed, Christine developed a new cluster of symptoms. Her husband recalls she was not acting like herself and wondered if these new symptoms could be a result of the drug. Christine noted she was “now in tears most of the time and experiencing the inability to sleep and think properly, losing weight, having episodes of horrible fear and terror, burning nerves, episodes of severe pain, and thoughts of suicide.”
She became unable to drive or care for her husband or her home. She visited multiple physicians who could not diagnose the cause of her symptoms. Ultimately, she had her thyroid removed in July 2015 at the recommendation of a panel of doctors. They simply had no idea what else to do. The surgeon who performed the procedure told Mike that he didn’t think the thyroid was the cause of her symptoms, but he still reluctantly agreed to do the procedure at the urging of her other doctors.
After the surgery, Christine’s condition continued to deteriorate. She became increasingly suicidal. Knowing her life was at risk, she admitted herself to the hospital under the care of a psychiatrist, hoping that she would be helped. She was promptly diagnosed with a “nervous breakdown,” generalized anxiety disorder, and fibromyalgia. The psychiatrist made the decision to stop the Ativan abruptly, assuring the Narlochs that this was safe. What ensued during that hospital stay was not any sort of relief, but instead a rapid onset of mental and physical torture that Christine would endure for the next 21 months.
Within a day of stopping Ativan, she had severe skin burning from head to toe. The next day, bright lights appeared before her eyes, combined with the feeling that her head was exploding, followed by a loss of consciousness for 30 minutes. When she awoke, she could barely walk for the next several hours and her pleas for help were ignored by the nursing staff. She was released after 6 days in the hospital on a cocktail of risperidone, gabapentin, and hydroxyzine, while still suffering horrific symptoms. Two days after discharge, she sought help again in the emergency room where the ER doctor diagnosed her symptoms as ‘benzodiazepine withdrawal’, noting in her chart that she had not been tapered from the drug.
For the next 21 months, Christine continued to suffer. One of Christine’s most severe symptoms was akathisia, a state of inner restlessness with outer movement that compelled her to pace the house for hours on end. Mike was extremely supportive and understanding of her situation and he did all he could to help her. As a caregiver, it was difficult for him to feel so helpless, knowing that nothing could be done to make it better. Everyday he saw her forehead scrunch up as a wave of painful symptoms began. She would break out in a sweat, tremble, and cry. He remembers thinking how lonely and trapped she looked.
