Very Scared....need support

[[Bl...]]

Hi Guys:

 

I'm really terrified as I'm hitting one of those stretches of no sleep at all for weeks on end.  All the supps, herbs, MJ have stopped working completely. The problem is I'm still tapering and all the sxs are so ramped up with no sleep and I spend the day with extreme GI distress, migraines, anxiety, heart palpitations etc etc.  This has been going on for 4 years now, the reinstatement did absolutely nothing with regards to sleep so I've just wasted over 2 years tapering for nothing...I'm right back at square one and scared for the future.

 

I know lots of people suffer horrible insomnia ut they manage at least a few hours.......I get literally zero, nothing.. :'(

 

I don't want to die like this but now I'm convinced that I have fatal insomnia as I never even get an hour of sleep without aids and when they don't work I go weeks with zero sleep.

 

Blue... :'(

[[Kt...]]

Hi there

I know no one has yet answered our posts yet.. Mine is the one regarding waking up on the hour, every hour.  The sleep I do get isn't deep or restful, I only know I have got any by the fact that time has actually passed.  Maybe you get a little sleep like this as surely you would not be able to survive weeks on end without any.. How do you pass your time?  Do you read/watch tv or anything else?  Also how do you cope in the day, do you manage to go out or work.  I couldn't carry on with my old job and don't really know what to do or how to fill my time.. I see friends here and there but it can be very lonely which isn't helping. I try to walk every day, eat healthy food, do the best I can but think I need counselling to help me accept this as I am not coping as well as I should.  Believe me I feel your pain, I'm nearing 6 months of this.  I don't know how you have coped so long.. I live in hope that it will get better, it causes a strain on everything.  I really know how awful it is.. How old are you, I'm female too, don't think getting older is helping either.

[[Bl...]]

Hi Ktb:

 

 

I'm so sorry that you are dealing with insomnia too, I hope that you turn a corner soon and good quality organic sleep returns soon.  I usually know when I get micro sleeps ( few minutes at a time ) but I have literally gone weeks with no sleep it the odd micro sleep...it's soul destroying to say the least.  I'm not sure how I'm still standing but I think we are more resilient than we think.  However I feel I'm at the end of my rope now and it's not a nice feeling.  I do think age plays a factor as well, it's not as easy to bounce back as we age.  I developed gastroparesis with the reinstatement so it's made this journey even more difficult .

 

Hang in, you will get better and given you do get some sleep it will definitely return.

 

Hugs,

Blue

[[al...]]

BlueSwan,

Any thoughts about speeding up your taper? Things seem pretty bad for you right now so one has to wonder if speeding things up will be any worse. I think that perhaps some of us react very poorly to the continued presence of benzos and z-drugs in our system once tolerance withdrawal sets in and we start to taper. You have to go slow enough to be safe, but too slow maybe causes protracted problems. Just my thought on the matter.

 

I am sorry that it is so hard on you. It really bothers me to hear about others falling into this trap because I know how painful it can be. Fear is one of the worst symptoms and it gets worse without sleep. I wish that the term fatal insomnia was never mentioned on this forum because too many people latch onto it, causing their fear to really ramp up. The odds are very much in your favor that you will not die from lack of sleep. Chances are that you are getting some sleep every night even though you may not believe this. That grey zone between being awake and being in light stage one sleep is sometimes very hard to detect. My wife often tells me that I had been snoring and I have a hard time believing her because not only did I think that I was awake, but I did not even hear myself snore.

 

Your life is not approaching its end. The time will come when you exit out on the other side of all this and feel more or less normal again. Trust me on this.

[[Bl...]]

Aloha..you always make such good sense and I'm grateful for your thoughts and support. I have pondered jumping from the 1 mg but I'm being told to taper to at least .5...but I do agree, it's pretty rotten right now so maybe jumping is something I need to seriously consider . I think it's been tough bcos I'm kindled from the reinstatement and the entire taper has been brutal and it sure didn't hel developing gastroparesis on top of it all.

 

I usually know if I have micro sleeps but maybe they happen even if I'm not aware of it.  I'm pretty much on my own with no real life support so I think it's easy for me to fall into the worst case scenarios.  It's tough at me age doing this alone but I e started it so I must finish it. Thank you for reassuring me that it will eventually end....I needed those words of encouragement today.

 

Blue

[[MT...]]

Blue,

 

This is so very, very hard. I know. Night after night of zero sleep or microsleep only leaves you feeling desperate, addled, paranoid, emotionally raw, and I usually feel a bit (or a lot) crazy on top. Making good decisions feels impossible as your thinking and perception gets quite distorted.

 

I think Aloha makes good points. Perhaps you don't want to jump where you are but you could accelerate the taper to get to 0.5 then jump. It just seems that the stories I read where people are a mess at the end do better when they go ahead and get off. I'm hopeful you'll follow that pattern and begin to see some changes when you're off.

 

You don't have fatal insomnia. There are a bunch of other symptoms that come along with it but the worry that you have it is the demon that loves to visit the severely sleep deprived. Shut that demon down. That's wd talking.

 

This will end. You will sleep again and get your life back.

 

Courage to all my fellow insomniacs. We're going to make it through this nightmare one bit at a time.

 

:smitten:

 

MT

[[Bl...]]

MT:

 

Thank you for all your thoughts and support...you know this brutal flavor of insomnia all too well, so I do value your opinion.  I feel like an alien of sorts as the sleep deprivation leaves me so disconnected to my world that it becomes difficult to maintain any sort of rational mind.

 

I do think that both you and Aloha have made a valid point about jumping and getting onto healing.  I've got to get my head around letting go of the fear and just doing it. I honestly think I have some trauma or PTSD still lingering in the background from the C/T off klonopin, I'm going to have to find a constructive way to work with that so it's not so debilitating.  I'm scared of just about everything right now and that's no way to live.  Something is on *stuck* mode in my poor brain so I have to find a way to let go so that my brain can now go into healing mode.

 

I'm so glad that you too have reassured me re the fatal insomnia...I guess when we aren't sleeping at all, it's the first thing we pounce on.

 

I hope that you are doing better , MT....you have trudged a long road but you keep optimistic against all the odds 

 

Blue

 

[[MT...]]

Blue,

 

It's easy to get traumatized during all of this. I think the most important piece of learning for me in the psych field in the past 10 plus years has been that when we avoid something (something we fear, for example) it makes it stronger. It's like feeding the monster fresh meat with steroids (see metaphor by Stephen Hayes at the end of this post). The most powerful thing we can do to treat fear/anxiety/depression is to approach and face what we fear. If you're afraid of going in the grocery store, go in the grocery store. If you're afraid of jumping, jump. I fear fear or anxiety every day but it's not as bad as it was. Every area I've approached has seen some movement. I'm probably not going to be a super calm person until I'm sleeping again but not living in terror and gaining some confidence is a nice start. Here it is:

 

"Feeding the Hungry Tiger Metaphor

Imagine you wake up one morning and just outside your front door you

find an adorable tiger kitten meowing. Of course you bring the cuddly little

thing inside to keep it as a pet. After playing with him for a while, you

notice he is still meowing, nonstop, and you realise that he must be hungry.

You feed him a bit of bloody, red mince meat knowing that's what tigers

like to eat. You do this every day, and every day your pet tiger grows a bit

bigger. Over the course of two years, your tiger’s daily meals change from

hamburger scraps to prime ribs, to entire sides of beef. Soon your little pet

no longer meows when hungry. Instead, he growls ferociously at you

whenever he thinks it is meal time. Your cute little pet has turned into an

uncontrollable, savage beast that will tear you apart if he doesn’t get what

he wants.

Your struggle with your painful thoughts & feelings can be compared to this

imaginary pet tiger. Every time you empower your pain by feeding it red

meat of experiential avoidance (i.e. anything you do that helps you avoid

upsetting thoughts and feelings), you help your pain-tiger grow a little bit

larger and a little bit stronger. Feeding it in this manner seems like the

prudent thing to do. The pain-tiger growls ferociously telling you to feed it

whatever it wants or it will eat you. Yet, every time you feed it, you help the

pain to become stronger, more intimidating, and more controlling of your life."

 

I've done a lot of tiger feeding. This will be the job of a lifetime to catch myself and change it bit by bit. Hang in there, gal. You can do this.

 

MT

[[Bl...]]

MT:

 

Wow , that's a very powerful metaphorical description of what this sleep deprivation anxiety does to me!  Thank you for sharing, and I do agree that I won't be that calm until my sleep returns to a somewhat ( hopefully more than somewhat but I'll settle with that for now ) regular schedule.

 

I think in the midst of this storm, it's very hard to even recognize that we are feeding our fears more and more. I'm going to print this out and read several times a day.

 

I hope you did get some much needed zzzz's last night 

 

Blue

[Guest [Le...]]

Hi BlueSwan,

 

Sorry you are going through this familiar horror of benzo withdrawal.

 

As other members have also experienced, I did not sleep more than 0-3 hours a night for over a year and a half. Finally sleep began to return SLOWLY, but only after I jumped (from 0.5mg Ativan).

 

I'm off 9 months now, and although it happened gradually over many months, I'm now getting 7 hours of sleep most nights - occasionally fewer, but on some blissful nights, 8 or 9 hours.

 

Hope you'll see some improvement soon, too!

  Leslie 

[[Bl...]]

LeslieAsh:

 

I'm so happy to hear that you are sleeping so well now, it is a long slow process. I'm still terrified, yes I know I'm feeding the fear , because this has gone on for almost 4 years since the C/T off klonopin and the reinstatement.  My mind thinks something is permanently damaged but I know so many feel like this but do recover.  However, you do give me hope given you had such severe sleep deprivation too.

 

I'm curious, did you jump at .5 of ativan?  I ask because most people seem to taper to .5 equivalent of Valium but I'm wondering given it's so bad for me would I be better served jumping from 1 mg? 

 

Your story will give others sleep deprived souls much needed hope too...thank you 

 

Blue

[Guest [Le...]]

Hi Blue,

 

I rapid-tapered down to 0.5mg of Ativan and then CTd from there, because I reached a point where the doses themselves were making me sicker each time I took them.

 

If you can stick out that last bit of tapering you should be better off - I think CTs are only for desperate situations, but I wouldn't recommend jumping prematurely.

 

The good part is that the sleeping began to improve despite the CT, so once you come off it may happen sooner for you. 

  Leslie