Insomnia friends - help I feel terrible

[GetDownYouWillFall]

Have been generally sleeping well, but last night was awful and it has completely thrown me

I've had a very busy weekend, and was aware when I got into bed that my head was still kind of "whizzing". I also have a job interview next thurs and don't feel I have prepeared nearly enough and won't have much time during the week. So that was playing on my mind.

Today we are going to my parents for my dad's 70th birthday so I will be under pressure to "perform" (they all know I was hospitalised in a psychiatric unit) so they will all be watcing me for "cracks". I hate it.

So, I go to bed at 10pm. Still wide awake at 1pm. This is when I start sobbing. Violently.

DH was great he rubbed my shoulders sat up with me, passed me tissues etc. but the sense of panic at not being able to sleep for absolutely terrifying. Everything just felt so hard. How am I going to get through this family gathering? When am I going to prepare for the interview? I am going to look like a complete idiot...

In the end at 1:30am I took a zopiclone. Felt like failure. And now I am suffering because I took it far too late (should never take one after 11pm because of hang over effects) so now I feel terribly spaced out and groggy. Have to drive down to Surrey and I haven't sorted anything out (food for DD, spare clothes etc. etc.)

I don't know why I'm on here really other than just to splurge. Want to cry but mustn't or my eyes will be all puffy and blotchy.

thanks becky it was another zopiclone night for me, but thankfully I feel like my attitude has changed today. Am not as anxious and just trying to get on with things, and enjoy this gorgeous weather.

You are so right about how quickly things can change. This time last week was before all this happened and I was sleeping fine and had been for about 6 months!

I feel really positive that tonight will be a good night PST#657

sorry you woke up at 12:52 (you weren't looking at the clock by any chance, were you? ) but I presume you got back to sleep ok?

I think you're right in that the key is to not let it ruin your life, not "catastrophise" but get on with your day. That seems to be the key to beating it.
x

My bladder woke me up Since having DS3 I can't last the whole night

1:53am still awake

Feel so lonely. DH and DD asleep.

Here's me, wide awake.

I know it feel like you are the only person in the world at times like these. Try and not stress. So what if you don't sleep- you will feel crap anyway so just try and relax. Just rest. It will pass.I've been there. Take care.

thanks mrsfollowill

I don't feel quite so lonely now

Oh GetDown Did you get any sleep in the end? I feel for you. Do you feel brave enough for a second night without zopiclone tonight?

hi becky

Feeling very low.

I was awake till 5:30. I tried absolutely everything.
Listened to my ipod for hours, tried getting up having a drink, going to the loo, sleeping without the covers to try and reduce my body temp.

Saw the sun start to come up at 3:38am

Still wide awake.

The room was fully light by 5am. Still wide awake. Ended up sobbing so loudly I woke up DH and he came downstairs to sit with me in the end.

Got back into bed about 6am and slept till 7.

Feel shocking today. DH's parents, sister, and brother in law all coming later for a BBQ. Have to keep up the front of "coping" whatever that means.

I am getting really worried now. I've not had a night like that since I was hospitalised.

Don't know what to do.

Oh GetDown. I don't know what to say

What do you think has triggered this insomnia? Is there no way it could be related to the lithium? Or do you think it is anxiety about sleep still after your stressful week last week? I found with me that after a bad night I'd always sleep the next night, not brilliantly, but enough to get by and keep going. Initially I had proper postnatal insomnia but after a few weeks with using zopiclone, daizepam, herbal tablets, hypnosis, homeopathic remedy, etc my problem was anxiety about sleep and that lasted for a few weeks on and off (and might still bite me back yet). So I think anxiety alone probably isn't enough of an explanation for you now. But I don't know.

What does your DH think you should do?

maybe you're right, maybe it is the lithium?

But I don't understand it as I have been reducing it so gradually since January and have not had any ill effects until now...

I wonder if it's been triggered by the interview, but lingering on because of my tendency towards sleep anxiety.

I just don't know. DH thinks I should up my lithium again. Feels like such a defeat. Esp when I don't know for sure that is the cause.

when I get like this it makes me just want to run away from the world.

I feel like quitting my job, cutting off my friends, getting rid of any kind of responsbility I have. This just isn't me.

I don't know - your theory sounds very plausible to me. TBH I know nothing about lithium. It isn't a defeat if it makes you feel better than you do now. And you don't have to up all the way, do you? Just a bit, see how it goes, and then start reducing again if it makes you feel and sleep better, when you feel ready.

That doesn't sound like you to me knowing you from your encouraging and positive posts to me and others on here. You have soooo helped me hugely, and Arcadia wherever she is (asleep somewhere no doubt). I'm not just being nice to make you feel better when I say that you really have helped me, encouraged me when I have felt like running away and giving up everything and I am soooo grateful to you for that . I'm living proof that insomnia does get better. You are too as you say you've had six months of good sleep. You can get that again. You obviously can sleep well. Did you ever have insomnia before you had your DD? I had just little bowts whenever I was on holiday as a child and one bigger bowt during my finals at University when I had one night no sleep, next two nights 1-2 hours each and by the fourth night I felt so ill I thought I was 'broken' for ever. I got over that time by sleeping on a friend's floor (taking myself out of my room and the associations it had) and it took a couple of weeks to get back to normal. Funny but I'd totally forgotten about that until I had this bowt of insomnia.

thanks so much. You really encourage me too. I feel like you are the only one who really knows how it feels to go through this. And it helps so much to "talk" to someone who understands. Also, helps take pressure off DH who has to put up with me all the time!!

I know that positivity is the only way forward. I keep clinging to it - what choice do I have? The only thing I can change is my response. I have to keep going. But it is so very very hard.

I think I will up my lithium as you say. It feels like a defeat because of my desire to TTC. But I guess this is a wake up call to me that I'm not ready for that. Maybe I will never be ready.

The thought of going through this and not have a zopiclone "escape route" truly terrifies me. There's no way I would want to take it if pregnant, it would send my anxiety through the roof.

Interesting about previous bouts of insomnia. Like you, I struggled a bit with it as a child e.g. friend's sleepovers that kind of thing. Also before big events like my wedding. But I always just got on with it.

It feels like this insomnia is like a burden I carry with me now... wondering if it will ever be fully better?

sorry that is so self-wallowing. Please forgive me

Self-wallow away. That's what I do when I'm sleep deprived. You are allowed. And it does help get these feelings off your chest. I used to wallow away to DH all the time and I'd say to him 'just let me cry and wallow as it makes me feel better to tell someone about it'. Look at my 'insomnia friends - it's me again' threads - full of wallowing. It's a horrid feeling and you just want to get it out of your head all the negative thoughts. I think you have to do that before you can be positive.

I know how hard it is to stay positive but I am now a strong believer in the subconcious controlling the concious and if you can convince your concious brain that you can sleep, that you will sleep, that you will get better, etc, it will happen. I know though it doesn't feel like that at 3am when you're still awake. I urge you to try the Paul McKenna CD with an open mind and read the book. You say you are not 'suggestable' but that's your concious mind telling yourself and everyone else that you aren't suggestable. Hypnosis is incredibly powerful. If you say something enough times you believe it. One thing Paul M. says that I found interesting is that people with insomnia picture themselves all day tossing and turning in bed. I did the same. Don't picture that. As soon as you do stop and picture yourself peacefully asleep in your mind. Keep picturing it whenever you feel anxious.

Sleepovers I used to hate. Everyone staying up until 2am watching crappy films and then going to sleep while I lay awake waiting for morning to come. Sigh. But like you I never got worried about it because I 'knew' I'd sleep the next night in my own bed.

Getdown this came on so suddenly that even though I know nothing about lithium I'm not sure it is the lithium. I'm wondering if this is purely psychoological, as I've mentioned before you've been on such a mission to prove to everyone just how well you are that this has come as a huge shock and it has terrified you and thrown you a complete curveball!

Im sorry you had another bad night.

You are saying/doing all the right things though (inc. knowing that your response is the one thing you can control/change) so I know you will get over this hitch.

Try not to put too much pressure on yourself at the moment. (so things like 'maybe i'll never be ready for TTC). Try and think of it as a blip rather than anything longer term. (I know its much easier said that done xx

willsurvive I agree - I think this is psychological. Trouble is if I tell my CPN, it'll get back to the psychiatrist and they'll whack me back on max dose lithium and throw in olanzapine to boot (which took me a year to get off). It's so frustrating. It's like my mind is playing tricks on me deliberately to trip me up and not let me achieve the things I want to achieve.

I have already decided that if they offer me the job (which is unlikely) I will have to turn it down because I have no confidence anymore and this insomnia is starting to rule my life.

Thanks kizzie I am trying to see it as a blip.

We've got DH's family all here at the moment. Today has been such a marathon to get through. We have done a BBQ and the amount of chaos / mess etc. is starting to make me dizzy. I felt I was about to faint just now

Getdown stop there - that's one step too far. if you are offered the job take it. The routine of a new job could majorly help your sleeping and break this rubbish circle. Don't let negative thinking run away with you.

GetDown starting back at work for me has helped my sleep hugely so perhaps a new job will help you. Work has taken my mind off sleep.

I'm feeling a little anxious right now as it is Sunday and I always get Sundaynightitus.

Becky I feel compelled to remind you that recent Sunday evenings have been quite good

That's true! Last Sunday I was fine. I need to keep telling myself that. Sunday night is no different from any other night really.

My turn to wallow bad night here. I fell asleep watching Avatar again, but then couldn't sleep when I got to bed, slept from about midnight to 2am. Woke up wide awake bloody annoying what on earth? Dozed for tiny bits since then - hardly any sleep I don't think. Crippling anxiety in my belly all night. It's horrible, horrible, horrible. Having awful thoughts telling DH I want to die and I can't go on like this. I can be totally fine for 8 nights and then this again? It's like selective depression. I really do feel great when I sleep well but when I can't sleep I am in the well of depression. Is this normal? Feels like my period is coming too, if that makes any difference, but only three weeks since last one. Not sure, got stomach ache. I thougth I was better, I really did. Then the anxiety started yesterday tea-time and I knew it wasn't going to be a good night. Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

GetDown how are you today?

Hi becky I sympathise. You poor love, I am going through the same. I feel really zonked today. Took a diazepam last night at about 8:30. Still anxious. Took a sleeping pill at 9:30. Still wide awake at 10:30 at which point I had a major panic attack and couldn't breathe. Took about 15 minutes for DH to calm me down. Took another diazepam and finally slept. Feeling very heavy and not normal today but managed to make it into work.

I am in a dilemma whether to ring my CPN. She will want me to see the psychiatrist who is worse than useless and will want to up my drugs which I don't think will get to the heart of the problem. DH is talking about ringing some posh sleep clinic on Harley Street but all I can think of is the cost. Which is feeding my anxiety.

becky do you think the fact you had ?told? yourself at tea-time that tonight wasn?t going to be a good night was part of the problem? I wonder if you had told yourself ?I feel so good, I?ve had a lovely weekend, and I can?t wait for a new week to start? you would have slept better?

I am asking myself the same question. I think subconsciously I had ?decided? that I couldn?t sleep last night, and hence my poor old weary body threw absolutely everything it had at the drugs to stop them working. I have almost constant tummy pain from the excess acid and my pulse is definitely up on normal.

What a pair we are?! What can we do to help each other get through this

I got my paul mckenna book through the post this morning!

I have brought it to work and am going to have a look at lunchtime.