3 weeks off!

hi everyone!

thanks for everyone's support. i could not be doing thsi without all of you!!

it has been 3  weeks for my last dose and i am doing better! i have had several good night where i get enough sleep to feel good the next day. also, i am not having any "no sleep" nights and no panicking in the night and needing to get out of bed.

but i am having more nights where i wake up several times and am awake for awhile. by 6 i am awake for the day. but i feel sleep deprived the whole day. does anyone know if this is a stage of recovery, or just a new difficult stretch i am in? i am just so tired.

thanks!

Hi recoveringslowly,

Congratulations on 3 weeks!  Glad to hear you've had some good nights.

Fatigue is very common in withdrawal.  Can you take a nap?  If would be good as long as you don't nap too late in the day when it might disrupt your sleep at night. 

Your fatigue will fade just like other symptoms, with time.  For now it's another symptom that may challenge you for a while.  You sound strong though and you will get through this!  One day you'll say, oh wow, I'm not tired anymore!

Take care,

Brighterday

Not trying to rain on your parade, but you are doing very well at only 3 weeks off, which can still be acute WD for most. 

Ashton says that insomnia takes 6 - 12 months to resolve for most.  Some take longer, some less time. 

You should be completely happy with just waking up throughout the night...many on this forum were hit with endless days of zero sleep and/or very little sleep.

I was averaging 5-10 hours of sleep per week for months and months.

The tiredness/fatigue is most likely a benzo WD symptom?

Everything fades with time.  Time is the healer. 

However, just a word of caution, symptoms WAX and wane.  Recovery and healing is very nonlinear.  You could be doing well for awhile only to get hit again with symptoms and poor sleep.

thanks so much. yes, it is up and down. today is a rough day. just about anything sets my nerves on edge and i am awake for most of the night. probably got 2 last night. it is so reassuring to hear that there is nothing to do but just go to bed every night and that the sleep will come eventually. i just get discouraged that i will be like this forever. it is hard to not get down and tearful. it's been hard on my marriage, and feeling motivated to do my life. my son surprised me for mothers day and it was hard to even the feel the joy in that.

the good news is that when i get a pretty good night i do feel great, yesterday i made granola and knit and felt like my old self.

but today has been very hard. hearing that eventually i will get better helps so much. i don't even think about taking klonopin now!

any words of encouragement are so welcome. today is really hard, and i get scared that i will be like this forever.

Believing you will be stuck with symptoms and lack of sleep forever is actually a WD symptom.  For some reason, during WD, our thoughts always go to the negative and think the worst no matter how much sense other people's experiences and advice make.

You will make it through this.  Just take one hour or one day at a time. 

On the bad days, remember the good days.  If you had good days before, you will have them again for sure.

Time is the healer.  The nice thing is that time always passes no matter what you do or how you feel.

You'll cross the finish line one day and this will all become just a memory rather than a large part of your current life.

Hang in there.  It slowly evens out and gets better.