Insomnia - looking for hope

[[al...]]

I am having the same issue of no sleep for many nights and sometimes dipping into ambien to survive.  If I don't sleep my symptoms the next day are really horrific of severe pounding heart ( really severe) and gasping for breath , very weak and dizzy. I have tried mirt but stopped having any affect, and antihistamines work with only some mild effect.  Its just awful.  If my day time symptoms were not so bad I think I could cope better. There have been days were I have not slept for 3 days at a time.  I do take a few herbs like avena sativa, some niacin and melatonin and still no sleep.

Running out of hope here.

 

Ceejay,

I do feel for you very much. Your are in a really tough situation, but I think that it is a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. You hate your day time symptoms following a night of no sleep, but taking Ambien is most likely just prolonging what you are going through. It has been my experience that withdrawal insomnia is very sensitive to anything we take, and can very well worsen if we take something that affects certain brain receptors, such as a Z-drug. It may seem like forever since you jumped from your benzo, but it is very common for some people to still be having severe problems at this point in time. It really sucks and it is really hard, but we get through it and so will you.

[[MT...]]

Ceejay,

 

I agree with aloha. It's terribly difficult to go through but it's the path to recovery. Ultimately we have to give up the benzos and z-drugs completely. It can feel like we're drowning and we absolutely have to have sleep and we'll do anything to get it. But it's the choices we make when we're in that desperate place that can sabotage our recovery.

 

A while back I watched this video about how to survive if you fall through the ice in the winter. Apparently, there's this immediate reaction of violent shaking all over that causes many people to give up and slide back underwater. But if you know it's coming, you can do your best to relax into it and wait for it to pass then you can crawl up and out of the water. That's really our task here as well. Benzo wd causes a violent reaction that seems very much like it will kill us. It feels unendurable. But if you know that's the reaction, it's normal, and that you can ride it out like others have, you can survive long enough to crawl, then walk, then run, into your new life.

 

MT