Need supportive words...

[[al...]]

I just turn my phone off when trying to sleep. Can't do much in the middle of the night anyway. If some distant relative died and family was trying to call me, they would still be dead in the morning and I can deal with it then. Sleep is a big enough emergency in itself. Kind of extreme, but you get my drift.

 

Anyway, was able to get at least 8 hours of sleep last night after a week of pretty poor sleeping. Can only do this on weekends when I have more time to sleep in the mornings. Feel pretty good so far today.

[[8d...]]

Aloha,

 

That's amazing!

 

I'm in a stretch of sleep that is unrestful (5-5.5 hours) and I can't seem to get back to sleep.

 

Felt like I was doing better a short while back, and now I'm feeling pretty low

[[al...]]

damien,

Your sleep will return. You know that to be true. Time will pass...it ways does. Hang in there.

[[8d...]]

Aloha, I hope you're right.

 

Got 6 hours last night and feeling slightly better.

 

Can't get back to sleep after waking up though. Hope that's not gone

[[Si...]]

Yeah I have my iPhone set to only go off if the person is in a favorites list between 11:30pm to 7:30am. I was getting sounds from junk emails and wrong number late night booty texts. Ugh!

 

you so sure they were "wrong number?"

 

lol

 

Hmmmmm now that I think about it!

 

Was passing out in he sofa last night. Get in bed and can't fall asleep until 3 or 4 am. Wtf?

[[La...]]

Aloha, I hope you're right.

 

Got 6 hours last night and feeling slightly better.

 

Can't get back to sleep after waking up though. Hope that's not gone

 

No predictability with this. Friday night slept just under 6 hrs woke up early. Sat night slept a solid 8 hr and woke up at a decent time. There is just no making sense of all this, but I'll take the good sleeps when I get them and remember that this is infinitely better than when I was in wd. Now that was bad.

 

laser

[[al...]]

I know what you mean by a lack of predictability. Friday night I logged over 8 hours of wonderful sleep so I was really looking forward to a repeat on Saturday night. Instead, I went to bed at 11 pm and finally fell asleep at 5 am. If the next day was a work day I would have been screwed. Started experiencing weird emotional mayhem at about 3 am. I guess that it can go either way tonight.

[[Si...]]

Yeah that almost drives me crazier than the insomnia is the unpredictability of it too. What's makes even less sense to me is some nights I feel really tired and somewhat sleepy, and then still can't fall asleep. Then I'll have nights where I'm really keyed up and anxious and fall right to sleep. Just bizarre.

[[8d...]]

Last night I fell asleep really fast, but was up 6 hours later.

 

Been a rough stretch here. Not sure if this is the new baseline, or if I'm bound to get back to better sleep?

[[8d...]]

Last night, I drifted off a bit with baby on my chest.

 

Then put him in bed, and tried to go to sleep since I couldn't keep my eyes open at that point.

 

Got into bed, and cortisol came rushing. Ended up getting vibrating ear drums and tingling arms. Guessing that is anxiety about not being able to fall asleep. Did deep breathing, and eventually fell asleep.

 

Woke right back up 4.5-5 hours later.

 

I don't know... Feeling like this has been going on much longer than usual. You guys can be the judge since you hear from me about it all the time. But I'm worried that the good stretched are done.

[[Si...]]

Last night, I drifted off a bit with baby on my chest.

 

Then put him in bed, and tried to go to sleep since I couldn't keep my eyes open at that point.

 

Got into bed, and cortisol came rushing. Ended up getting vibrating ear drums and tingling arms. Guessing that is anxiety about not being able to fall asleep. Did deep breathing, and eventually fell asleep.

 

Woke right back up 4.5-5 hours later.

 

I don't know... Feeling like this has been going on much longer than usual. You guys can be the judge since you hear from me about it all the time. But I'm worried that the good stretched are done.

 

Good stretch will come back. It's happened many times before. So it'll happen again. I have to deal with the same thing. It's hard to accept, but that's what we must do.

[[8d...]]

The bad stretches were getting shorter... 2-5 days. Now I'm at a week, and the last month has been really up and down.

 

 

[[8d...]]

And... Another!

 

Dozed off on the couch with my son for about half hour before bed.

 

Then when I went to bed, I could not sleep. Got anxious and the fluttering in my ears and tingling in my arms and legs started up.

 

I'm guessing about an hour or so later, I fell asleep. Then up less than 5 hours later. Then in and out of very light naps that were about 10-15 mins.

 

I feel like something snapped. Like this 4.5-5 hour sleep is now permanent.

 

How could this be going on for over a week after 15 months!

 

And has anyone had insomnia that started at tolerance and has been relentless through WD. I mean, even on the very rare night that I've slept 7-8 hours, I still wake up and have to relax myself to get back to sleep.

 

I haven't had a single "normal" sleep since January 2014.

 

Anyone like this?

[[Si...]]

Mine has been more up and down / extreme. Barely sleeping at all, sleeping a few hours, or having a 8 - 10 hours some nights. Usually only after I didn't sleep the night before though.

[[8d...]]

The day after day after day of 4-5 hours is just defeating.

 

It's not been 8 or 9 days of this... I don't recall being in this long of a bad stretch in a long time... Not sure how it even happened. Feel like my brain is set to anxious mode now that it's been so many days, and heading to bed, I won't be able to snap out of it.

 

Even when I do fall asleep quick, I'm then hit with the early wake ups.

 

Does anyone else have the delayed sleep and the early wakeup combo?

[[bd...]]

I've had that Damien.

 

Whenever I go into a wave I always feel like it's permanent.

 

But it always comes good again.

 

It will for you too.

 

 

Take care

 

 

[[8d...]]

I spent all day with my son.

 

Tried to only focus on good things. Feeling tired and depressed from this insomnia battle though.

 

Hoping tonight brings better rest.

 

[[Be...]]

My mother used to tell me to think about good things when I couldn't sleep as a kid.  I try to focus on comforting thoughts and images when I go to bed. 

[[ci...]]

I retreat to my comfy recliner chair if i do not fall asleep w/i an hour, I read or watch TV until I fall asleep.

[[8d...]]

I was doing well up until early August. Then it was a lot of up and down through August.

 

Now, it's been 9 days of early wake ups with no chance of falling asleep again.

 

Last night I turned in and did some breathing exercises. Fell asleep within about half hour. Up 5-5.5 hours later, but I also woke up once at about the 4.5 hour mark and fell asleep again.

 

I wrote recently that my sleep was getting to 6+ hours plus light naps.

 

Now I'm back to this bullshit. Fuck I'm so frustrated!!!!!

[[si...]]

I have responded on your other post as well.

Really feel for you. It can be so hard.

I had some totally strange symptoms coming of the Seroquel, including high anxiety when in bed.

You have only just CT from Seroquel 6 weeks ago, it will get better but it's early days for you.

 

[[al...]]

Damien,

I know what you mean when you say that you are frustrated. My sleep has being showing some pretty good improvement lately in that my good nights have been much better than they have ever been since this whole thing started. Unfortunately for me, every other night is a bad one (at least bad nights are much better than they were a few months back). Last night I went to bed so tired that it actually hurt. Thought for sure that I would sleep well, but it took forever to fall asleep and now I feel even more tired this morning.

 

It has only been 4 months since I got off of Ambien so I guess that I am doing fairly good. I just keep remembering that I was told to measure progress in terms on months. I guess that if just takes a long time.

[[Si...]]

aloha, I know the one bad one good night scenario very well. All I can say is I'm glad I wasn't one of those people that would consistently only sleep every 3 night instead. Some of the other people here maybe get 2 hours a night if they're lucky too. All I can do is hope that it keeps improving.

 

I did talk to a friend today that I haven't seen in a while. She fell off a wall and hit her head about the same time I was coming off of Lorazepam. So roughly 16 months ago. She had brain damage and has had a long recovery. She has a terrible time sleeping still too. So it basically makes sense that we've basically been given functional brain damage. The other good thing about that is that we can hopefully make a full recovery one day, while she may not ever fully recover.

[[al...]]

What were we thinking in allowing this to happen to us? Also, how come doctors did not warn us? My own wife has a masters degree in community mental health and works full time with substance abusers. Even she did not see what was happening to me because of my Ambien usage. I don't blame her one bit. It just seems that the medical community does not know enough about this problem. I think that Benzo addiction is a more familiar topic, but I understand that many doctors are only now just beginning to understand about Z-drug addiction.

[[8d...]]

Aloha,

 

I think that with benzos/z-drugs, a lot of people are able to use them for extended periods, before any issues show up. I also think that many of the people that get on, stay on.

 

Big pharma also has a lot to protect here, and they have the money and power to do so. I'm certain they send their sales reps out to discuss all the good points of benzos, and make a small mention of there being "potential" and "unlikely" side effects.

 

I know when I went to see my GP about getting some help sleeping, she mentioned that z-drugs were very tolerable, and presented no issues like benzos did. But she also felt confident that benzos were fine to take, as long as you did not stay on them for years.

 

And of course the pharmacies are misguided as well, and led to believe that these drugs do a lot more good than harm. Plus, seeing that their are absolutely no resources set up to handle benzo withdrawal, people are left to either handle it at home on their own, or spiral into complete devastation.

 

Doctors generally don't see patients at this point, and if they do, they usually just diagnose the patient as having other mental issues, and thus starts the cocktail of drugs. I know when I went to see a Pdoc, I was told I was bipolar due to the ups and downs, and that I should be on Abilify, plus 2mg of Clonazepam to help me with sleep.

 

How did this doctor think that coming off 7.5mg of Zopiclone (probably equivalent to about 1mg of Lorazepam) that it would be a smart idea to put me on 2mg of K?

 

Anyhow, I hit tolerance, couldn't sleep even on meds, and was going through what I believe was interdose. I spiralled so bad that I ended up spending a night in the mental ward.

 

They just doped me up, and sent me home with an increased prescription for Zopiclone.

 

They never blame the drug. They blame the patient. And their only solution is more drugs. And that's it.

 

Anyhow, I hate the system, and just talking about this makes me mad. Doctors that give out these drugs are vile.