A FORMER mayor has warned about the risks of becoming reliant on anti-anxiety drugs after she said they left her feeling paralysed and “like a vegetable”.

Pat Senior �— the former town mayor of Blackrod �— was prescribed benzodiazepines, after suffering anxiety following an attempted mugging three years ago.

The 65-year-old was accosted by two men when walking back from a council meeting, when she was the mayor of the village.

She said: “I was hit in the attack but managed to hold onto my bag, but it left me shaken up and scared to leave the house, so I was prescribed the drugs to help with that anxiety.”

Over the next few months, Mrs Senior, who lives in Blackrod with her husband Charles, said her health rapidly deteriorated, her memory faded and that she could hardly move or speak.

She said: “I didn’t know what was happening. I love to write and to paint and I couldn’t do either of those things. I was basically comatose for a long time.”

“I wasn’t getting any better but I kept being prescribed more of the benzodiazepines. After a while I was virtually paralysed from the neck down. I was tested but nothing was found to be wrong with me.”

Doctors told Mrs Senior that her symptoms were similar to that of Multiple System Atrophy — a progressive neurological disorder that could have seen her die within 10 years.

She said: “To be told that news, that I may only have years left was really scary.”

Soon after, the then mayor of Blackrod, who had been absent from council meetings for months, chaired a special meeting to apologise and resign her position.

Fellow councillor Stephen Laycock suspected that her symptoms may have been linked to the drugs she was taking, having experienced a similar situation with his own mother.

He said: “I asked if tests had found anything wrong with Pat and was told no. I then asked if she was being prescribed benzodiazepines, and Charles informed me that she was.”

He said his mother had too been in a “zombie-like state” years before and it was only when she slowly stopped taking the drugs that she “came back to life”.

With the support of Cllr Laycock and her family, as well as her GP and the Council for Information on Tranquillisers, Antidepressants and Painkillers (CITA), Mrs Senior had ceased taking the medication within a year.

She said: “Because of Stephen’s intervention, I have now been given my life back — you could say he saved my life, for which I will be eternally grateful — no one can imagine the horrors of what I endured.”

CITA information states that the long term effects of benzodiazepines include drug dependence as well as the possibility of adverse effects on cognitive function, physical and mental health.

There is evidence that reduction or withdrawal from them can lead to a reduction in anxiety symptoms.