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I got off of benzos after shirt term use in 2014, and from 2015 until present, I've been sleeping decently.

 

Mind you, I always go to bed at like 3am, but I'm able to get 6-7 hours and feel alright.

 

3 weeks ago, I missed a complete night off sleep which hasn't happened since 2014. The following night I barely slept. Then I had 3 decent night's, followed by 2 nights of no (or very little) sleep. This has pretty much been the pattern the last three weeks.

 

I'm obviously frustrated, and I do have anxiety about going to bed now, but I'm doing my best to try not to freak out about it.

 

I'm now on my second day of no sleep, and even if I wanted to nap, I most likely couldn't.

 

I'm trying to now roll my bedtime back to about midnight.

 

Has anyone had anything like this outside of benzos???

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It has been almost 4 years since my last dose of Ambien or a benzo and my sleep has been very poor lately. It took about 4 hours to fall asleep last night and then I kept waking up about every half hour or so (just like the back in year 1). Sleep has been mostly good to at least decent enough for the past couple of years, but from time to time it has been pretty crappy for no apparent reason. I am not really sure if sleep will ever really turn back to total normal after such a withdrawal experience, but at least decent sleep and a normal life for the majority of time is possible.
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Those would have been very similar words to mine a few weeks ago. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going through right now but the missed nights of sleep are really putting a pounding on me.

 

From sleeping every single night to now having multiple nights per week where I get little to no sleep is definitely not something I was expecting.

 

the problem is after a couple of bad nights I start to get anxious about sleep and obviously that doesn't help with sleep.

 

not really sure exactly what I should do at this point but it is definitely affecting my life.

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I wish that I had some fool-proof advice to give, but if I did I would follow it myself. When something disrupts our sleep it can create a cycle of anxiety that drags continued insomnia along with it so the trick is to try to minimize those disruptions as much as possible. I know that you are a night person, but you have to think about what you are doing late at night and how it could potentially affect your sleep.

 

Once you get a couple of decent nights under your belt the anxiety cycle will probably be broken and sleep will return.

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I'm two and a half years off and have similar experiences. I can sleep fine for a few months, then get a bad week or a few days of dreadful insomnia. Sometimes I can see an association with stressful events in my life, sometimes there's no apparent reason. I tell myself that if I got through it the first time, when I didn't know what the outcome would be, then I'll definitely get through it now my brain knows how to fix it, and has experience of fixing it already.

I hope you get through this one soon.

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I had 4 years of waking at 330 and having to get up.

I dunno what broke the pattern. A hip replacement with no more night pain might have helped.

I sleep well now on pregabalin for pain and mirtazipine— both of which I hope to stop soon. 

However the other things I do

2 paracetamol or ten mg promethazine

Calomile tea

I listen to a sermon on y tube or to my audiobooks. 

Those induce sleep.

If I wake I get up and light the fire , sort the dog and have sweet tea. Oddly that usually works and I remake my bed methodically and put on the book again.

I never get cross about it....as above it makes it worse.

I think a low blood sugar often causes it!!

Hope something works for you.

Dick

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I had pretty much two sleepless nights, and last night was shaping up to be the third.

 

After laying around for 2 hours, I finally went downstairs, took 3 shots of alcohol, then came back and fell asleep.

 

I know it's not the answer, but I got desperate. I slept well from Tuesday-Thursday, but Friday and Saturday night the insomnia hit me again.

 

I'm worried about this, so obviously I fill myself with stress and then that makes it impossible to sleep.

 

I try to meditate and CBT my thoughts, but it's very difficult when I know that it could be another sleepless night.

 

I think my OCD brain is obsessing over sleep, and in return I'm not sleeping.

 

I had a long walk in the forest yesterday, and broke down crying. Not sure how to get out of this :(

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Damien,

If you find that you can't sleep again tonight, take the thoughts and feelings that you had while walking in the forest when you broke down and build them up in your mind until you break down again then just let it all out and keep it going until there is nothing left. I would be surprised if you don't drop off to sleep shortly after. It has worked for me many times, but I didn't think of offering it as advice earlier because I just thought of it as something that happens on its own.

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I just want to know if anyone else had insomnia like this before. I literally can go 2 days without sleep and on the third night I'm still not exhausted enough to drift off.

 

and of course because many nights bring little or no sleep I spend my day being anxious about it.

 

I feel like I'm alone here. I feel like this insomnia is worse than what most people ever experience. Has anyone been here before?

 

I'm not talkin about withdrawal. I want to know if anyone has had anything like this before they ended up going on sleeping pills.

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I am not sure if it is totally accurate to discount withdrawal as the cause of your current insomnia. Damage takes place during withdrawal that appears to be very unpredictable and slow to heal. Also the intensity of withdrawal creates some pretty powerful thought patterns that interweave themselves with the physical symptoms, creating cycles that take on a life of their own and are hard to break.
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If it's any comfort to you knowing, I'm going through a really bad spell of insomnia myself at the moment, similar to yours.

 

I've been off of pills completely since half a year back and have been sleeping pretty soundly without them, sometimes up to nine hours per day. Felt great overall, thought I had everything under control. However, for reasons unknown to me, things have gone downhill since the beginning of March and now I hardly sleep a wink. I often go two days without any (perceived) sleep and when I finally get some it's only for a very short while and of the crappiest quality possible. I feel energized all the time, like there's electricity flowing through my body. Under normal circumstances I should be a little bit exhausted from being up all night, but I'm not. And yes, along comes the high anxiety. I dread going to bed in the evenings again, because I'm pretty much guaranteed another night of little to no sleep.

 

I'm calling the doc today to see if he can come up with something to add some relief, but he'll probably put me on a stupid z-drug again. That's not going to happen. They put me to sleep just fine, but the consequences are not worth it. In my case, the insomnia gets even worse and I'm plagued by weird numbing headaches afterwards.

 

Hope you'll get better soon!

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Sympathy to yer all.

Didn’t realise coming off Seroquel would effect sleep so much and the anx increases of course.

Let’s hope for better nights.  We are not alone thanks to supportive posts

Dickie

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Dunno how you CT Seroquel, I am nauseous, trots, sleepless agitated and corneal soreness.

And that coming down at 20% For ten days and shaking. Ugg

Dick

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