Where's the insomnia buddies? no action on the threads.

AD,

I am glad your sleep has improved overall but sorry you had a rough night. Hope you get it back soon.

 

My sleep is touch and go. Good one night, bad the next. I'm still waiting for it to even out.

 

HM

X-ray, glad you got some sleep 2 nights in a row.  Sleep makes everything better. 

 

HM- how's everything else been going for you?  I'm sorry you still don't have any consistency.  Though from a lot of old members including theway, it sounds like sleep is always last. 

It's not just the insomnia that sucks, but most ly the anxiety or inability to calm down at any point in the day, including at night.  But I guess that's a different thread, haha.

 

I agree AD,

I felt wired and tired all day. I try to keep a positive outlook on this but every day that goes by like this makes it even harder. It’s not even about the quantity of sleep that I get, it’s about the quality. 7 months ago I might only get 4 or 5 hours of sleep, but it was good sleep. Now I fear even if I start getting that amount of sleep again it will still be empty sleep and I’ll still feel as rotten as I do all day.

 

Xray

It's not just the insomnia that sucks, but most ly the anxiety or inability to calm down at any point in the day, including at night.  But I guess that's a different thread, haha.

 

I agree AD,

I felt wired and tired all day. I try to keep a positive outlook on this but every day that goes by like this makes it even harder. It’s not even about the quantity of sleep that I get, it’s about the quality. 7 months ago I might only get 4 or 5 hours of sleep, but it was good sleep. Now I fear even if I start getting that amount of sleep again it will still be empty sleep and I’ll still feel as rotten as I do all day.

 

Xray

 

Yep, wired and tired is right!  For me it is about quantity.  For some reason, 4 hours is my cut off- more, and I'm not rotten- less and it's a rotten day. 

So here I am at 6 am getting the kids up and ready for school and in the back of my mind already is the thought of how well will I sleep tonight.  For the last 4 months all I think about is sleep. Before all this I never really gave a sleep a second thought. It was just something that happened every night when I got tired. It’s amazing how one little pill changes every aspect of my life. I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever be able to get back to that point or if this has now become my new normal.

 

Xray

Same here xray, I get zero sleep most nights then maybe a few hours one night through sheer exhaustion.

Same here xray, I get zero sleep most nights then maybe a few hours one night through sheer exhaustion.

I’m so sorry to hear that SJ.  I hope our insomnia clears up soon. These last 4 months have changed my entire life. I’m so tired of worrying about how well I’m going sleep tonight. Between the exhaustion and the worrying about tonight’s sleep, it makes it very hard to enjoy life. Ok, that’s my pity party for the day.

So here I am at 6 am getting the kids up and ready for school and in the back of my mind already is the thought of how well will I sleep tonight.  For the last 4 months all I think about is sleep. Before all this I never really gave a sleep a second thought. It was just something that happened every night when I got tired. It’s amazing how one little pill changes every aspect of my life. I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever be able to get back to that point or if this has now become my new normal.

 

Xray

 

Well put x-ray, I feel similarly.  Although, while getting the kids ready for school I'm thinking/worrying more about my morning chemical anxiety and akathesia and don't worry about sleep until the afternoon/evening.  Such a nasty drug and totally not worth it.

Xray,

 

When you don't sleep, the thought of not sleeping consumes all of your thoughts day and night.  I went through the same thing and so did countless others.  Many describe it as a "form" of "PTSD" to indicate how awful it is.  I was right where you are now some time ago and I thought I'd never be able to sleep again on my own without taking something.  I thought I was permanently broken.  It was ALL Benzo lies....

 

Last night I slept for 8 hours and 31 minutes according to my Sleep Number Bed...and it seems to be fairly accurate.  I am not saying that to "rub it in," but to give you hope that sleep WILL return for you given enough time.

 

At 4 months off,  I was in the worst of my insomnia...so what you are experiencing is "normal" for a short-term (or any other) user!

 

Just do the best you can to power through each day, being grateful and thankful for any and all sleep you get the night before and one day this will all be a distant memory of a "season" in your life that no longer exists! 

Xray,

 

When you don't sleep, the thought of not sleeping consumes you day and night.  I went through the same thing and so did countless others.  Many describe it as a "form" of "PTSD" to describe how awful it is.  I was right where you are now some time ago and I thought I'd never be able to sleep again on my own without taking something.  I thought I was permanently broken.  It was ALL Benzo lies....

 

Last night I slept for 8 hours and 31 minutes according to my Sleep Number Bed...and it seems to be fairly accurate.  I am not saying that to "rub it in," but to give you hope that sleep WILL return for you given enough time.

 

Just do the best you can to power through each day, being grateful and thankful for any and all sleep you get the night before and one day this will all be a distant memory of a "season" in your life that no longer exists! 

Hey TW,

Been wanting to ask you about the sleep anxiety. What did it take for you to stop worrying about sleep all day? Did sleep start coming back and the linger you went with good nights the less you worried about it or where you somehow able to not worry about it even though you weren’t sleeping?

 

Xray

Xray,

 

It was a bit of both...the better I slept the less I worried about sleep, but there was always that subtle, small voice, in my mind, that constantly worried about sleep.  That's why I and many others thought we had PTSD from not sleeping and that somehow we were permanently broken.

 

It took quite some time, as I was mentally very weak when the insomnia started, to learn how to not care (as much) and give insomnia the "middle finger."  I was in charge, not the insomnia...or at least that is what I repeated to myself hundreds of times each day.  Even though I could logically understand that the amount of sleep I was going to get would be the same whether I worried or not, It was super hard to do.  As long as I didn't freak out, punch the pillows, swear and toss and turn I usually nodded off most nights for some sleep.  As I got better at not caring if I slept or not (and again almost impossible to do while not sleeping much), it just made things a lot easier on the nights when I got maybe 1-3 hours of sleep. 

 

I remember getting 3 straight hours one night in January 2017, from 10:00 pm to 1:00 am and I literally thought I was healed...LOL..I had a great day the next day, but mostly because I had a positive mindset and was so elated I slept for 3 straight hours...so some of it is also how we react to not sleeping much or at all.  I know you will still feel like crap, but your mindset can help some.

 

 

 

 

I am right there with all of you. I had the best night in a year just a few nights ago. I slept a solid, deep, 8 hours. The last few nights have been 3, 2 and another 2. I can't wait to sleep like theway. We have to just hang in there.

 

HM

Hi buddies. I ended up reinstating, albeit a little bit less.

15 mg flurazepam + 8mg zolpidem. On average low quality 5h.

 

Actually lots of the shi**y drugs I prescribed during my tapering were worse than benzo. Psy gave me 25mg quetiapine then 50, 75, 100, 150..200mg then tried olanzapine. Then I got akathisia and so I stopped. Once I quitted antipsy by myself akathisia disappeared.

The only sleep aid I allowed myself to take other than benzo now are antihistamine and trazodone 50mg.

 

Recently I decided to downdosed flurazepam to 10mg twice I week. This time I've no timetable. Just symptoms based tapering. Tinnitus from first withdrawal it's still there so I do not expect being able to sleep again without med in my life. I decided even going to Zolpidem only would be a success. Not a great one perhaps but life isn't always as expected. No grand plans this time , just managing to survive trying small improvements sometimes.

Sorry to learn that you reinstated and now believe that you will be on Benzos for life...

 

Good luck!

Yes reinstating it's shitt* and benzos don't work like before. Actually I'm on a lower dose equivalent compared to my tapering.

But as I said my journey had been basically downdosing benzos - updosing seroquel or adding something else to the mix. A bad deal.

Now I'm more careful. I decided to consider every small reduction a success even if won't be drug free.

 

I'm pessimist because of tinnitus I've got after going c/t with lormetazepam. It's annoying at bedtime and doesn't improved. It's more difficult managing insomnia with ringing ears. But at the moment even getting rid of one benzo and sleeping with zolpidem only would be a milestone for me. Not the end of the road but an achievement for sure.

I got tinnitus too from doing a CT.  It was pretty bad for about 4 or 5 months and then started to slowly fade, but it wasn't my worst symptom, so I basically did my best to ignore it. I know not everyone can do that and I wouldn't suggest that as a solution. 

 

After I was off of everything and my sleep started to return on its own, all of my symptoms slowly faded too.