When Parker Posey’s character Victoria Ratliff first uttered “Lorazepam” on The White Lotus, I was flooded with feelings that ranged from wistfulness to horror. While some viewers were curiously Googling “What is Lorazepam?” I was wide-eyed and on high alert, wondering: How would the popular show portray a woman who was clearly addicted to—or at the least, reliant on—the prescription drug that almost ruined my life?
My relationship with the benzodiazepine Lorazepam, also known as Ativan, began when I was a teenager: In the beginning, when I was prescribed the benzodiazepine drug by my psychiatrist for my paralyzing anxiety, there were no warning signs of its dangerous side effects. I took it on an “as needed” basis when I felt the terror of a panic attack coming on—like when boarding a plane (I was also on antidepressants and in therapy). It worked like a charm, almost immediately calming my frayed nerves and queasy stomach. I carried the Rx bottle everywhere “in case of emergency,” my prescription safety blanket.
It wasn’t until almost 18 years later, after I had my second child, a daughter born in 2018, that Lorazepam became a “problem” for me.
Benzodiazepines have been prescribed to treat severe anxiety, panic, and sleep disorders as well as seizures since the 1960s—the drug tells your brain to release a neurotransmitter called GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), which calms your body and mind, as well as sometimes results in drowsiness. “Outside of the hospital, these drugs are generally prescribed for anxiety disorders that don’t respond to other medicines,” says Daniel Morehead, MD, the Director of the Adult Psychiatry Residency Program at Tufts University in Boston and author of Science Over Stigma. “However, Benzodiazepines should not be a first line of treatment for severe anxiety,” he explains. “They should be used in conjunction with an SSRI, talk therapy, exercise, and other coping strategies such as meditation.”
This drug class colloquially called “benzos” is a controlled substance and includes Xanax, Klonopin, Valium, and Lorazepam or Ativan. Benzodiazepines have become polarizing in the psychiatry world—especially in the past few years as an increasing number of people take them: The percentage of adults in the United States who filled a prescription per year from 1996 to 2013 increased by about 30%, with an estimated 92 million benzodiazepine prescriptions were dispensed in 2020 according to the FDA. They are also more frequently prescribed to women, due to higher rates of anxiety disorders.
