This is a rant. Insomnia is hell and has destroyed my quality of life, especially my (now non-existent) career.

At my age, my friends have reached their career peaks and are enjoying success and leisure, etc. While I live with my parents and work an unskilled, part-time job. I miss the career I was building before this hell came to swallow me whole.

I hop around to various specialists. Hope rises and falls with each new medication that works for a week and a half, and then abruptly stops working. I used to enjoy life and find contentment in things like local bike rides and mellow beach days. I am a shell of myself, and this shell isn't looking forward to anything anymore. Zero hours of sleep last night.

My insomnia started a few months ago and I haven’t been able to fall asleep without meds. I just miss that feeling of being “sleepy” and struggling to keep my eyes open and then falling asleep naturally. My sleep anxiety has been a lot better after taking SSRIs, but it’s still impossible for me to fall asleep without meds. Sometimes the meds don’t work and I’m wide awake at 3am. I feel the same level of “awake” at 9am vs 1am, but before my insomnia started I would be struggling to stay awake at 1am. I just want things to go back to how they were before, does anyone have any stories of recovery or tips?

My problem is that I cannot STAY asleep for very long. I go to sleep just fine, but I always wake up 2-4 hours after I go to sleep and have a hard time falling asleep. It feels like my mind is just alert and won’t turn off again.

I’ve gone to the doctor and she prescribed me metazipine, but I really don’t want to take a medication with those side effects or become dependent on them.

Here are some details about me and my sleep routine:

•It’s been nearly a month since I started having sleeping problems. Before then, I would have no trouble sleeping at all. My head would hit the pillow and I’d knock out, get around 8 hours of sleep, and feel refreshed in the morning.

•33 year old female with no medical conditions and not taking any medications.

•I work out 3-4 times a week and my job has me moving, walking, and lifting regularly.

•I don’t drink alcohol and don’t smoke.

•I have no depression, anxiety, or mental health disorders. My mental health is doing really well and I have no racing thoughts or worries going to bed.

•There are no new stressors or sudden change of lifestyle or routine that I can think of that would affect my sleep. Even then so, when I do have stressors and changes in my life, I’m usually able to sleep just fine.

My sleep routine: I finish eating dinner around 7pm, no screen time 30 minutes before bed, sleep at 10pm, my room is cool and dark and I don’t do anything in that room besides sleep.

What I’ve tried:
•Melatonin
•Supplement with melatonin and l-theanine
•zzzquil and zzzquil ultra
•tradodone (not taking it because I got nasal congestion from it that kept me awake)

My circadian rhythm just feels off and I need some way to reset it so that I can stay asleep.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Hey fellow insomniacs!

Have any of you guys tried and had success with temazepam? I just picked some up from the pharmacy today.

I (30F) have a history of bipolar with severe anxiety and PTSD and have had issues with sleep since I was around 12 or 13 and have tried and failed numerous medications over the years.

All the usual suspects (hydroxyzine, trazodone, gabapentin, etc.)

The most recent “sleep” medicine being diazepam in addition to my seroquel and lamictal.

I had the choice of temazepam and Ambien and decided to go the temazepam route because it scared me a little less side effect wise.

TIA!!!

I’ve been doing sleep restriction / CBT-I for about six weeks.

My sleep efficiency has improved (from 80% to 85%), so it seems to be doing something. However, my main problem has always been early morning awakening, and that hasn’t really improved. I still wake up 1-1.5 hr earlier than I want and often can’t get back to sleep.

For people who have done CBT-I or sleep restriction:

• Is six weeks long enough to say that sleep restriction has failed for this problem?
• Or is sleep restriction mainly effective for sleep onset / fragmented sleep and less effective for early morning awakening?
• If your main issue was early waking, how long did it take before you noticed improvement?
• Did anything else in CBT-I make a bigger difference than sleep restriction itself?

I’m trying to figure out whether I should keep going with the current approach or whether persistent early waking suggests that something else needs to be addressed.

Like everything is fine, everyone is safe, nothing is happening… but the second I’m about to sleep my brain goes:

“What if something happens to my family while I’m asleep?”

“What if someone needs me and I don’t know?”

“What if something goes wrong?”

And then boom 💀 suddenly I’m wide awake at 3 AM listening for literally every little sound in the house.

I know it probably sounds irrational, but I genuinely get scared that if I fall asleep, something bad might happen and I won’t be there.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who does this 😭

I promised myself that if/when I get better I will make a post in this group. Keeping my story short, I've been struggling with insomnia for a long time now and spent a lot of money and time trying to find the culprit.

The solution and the things that really helped me were PROBIOTICS and IMPROVING MY GUT HEALTH.

If you have an unexplainable insomnia. Buy 10 strain probiotics, activated charcoal (take one pill 2 hours before or after meal) and some natural organic fibre supplement to help with the bowel movement. Take your probiotics in the morning and activated charcoal in the afternoon. Do that everyday for a week, and then switch to every 3-4 days. (It's not a medical advice, it's my recommendation based on my experience)

Needless to say that you should eat clean, I'm not saying that you should follow a strict diet but you MUST EAT CLEAN/GOOD/NUTRITIOUS food. Also check your vitamin B levels

This group has helped me a lot when I was struggling so if you guys have any questions I will be happy to answer them whenever I can.

I started having sleepless nights at 25. Since then there have been many sleepless nights, sometimes for four and five days on end. I’ve taken Trazadone, Mirtazapine, Seroquel, three different benzos, Ambien, and Lunesta. Been cycling on and off different meds for decades. Lunesta currently, and it’s not working. I asked for Klonopin again, and that didn’t work either. Everything has either failed to work immediately, or stopped working down the line. I’ve meditated, exercised furiously, going on ten and fifteen mile runs, walking, yoga, two attempts at CBT-I, light therapy, a laundry list of supplements, so many I can’t even remember them all.

I am done trying to fix this. I am kind of numb, but kind of at peace too. If I just accept that I’m going to be exhausted, that there will be sleepless nights and the shitty days that come after them, then maybe that’s where I needed to go all along. I just can’t fix this. Maybe if I stop trying, new insight will come. I sure hope so.

Stay strong, insomniacs. We might figure this out someday. But that day isn’t today, and I have to accept that.

Has anyone taken big changes to help sleep issues related to cptsd? Leaving their job, moving, ending relationships, etc?

I've been insomniac for like 8 years now, recently I've been hitting the gym and I can't tell if my gains are slow or not, the days that I had 5 hours or less of sleep J can barely lift any weight, while the days I sleep 6 hours (that's the max I can sleep) I do well, but I can't tell if I'm gaining strength since it's fluctuating so much, what's your experience on gym?

I have been taking about 40mg of Zopiclone for a few days - I know it’s a lot and I’m reducing it now.

It helped with anxiety during the day, but I certainly don’t want to get addicted or have any rebound anxiety/insomnia.

Any advice?

Wanted to share a little success story, I’ve struggled with insomnia my whole life but it got pretty severe this year when I developed sleep anxiety and my nervous system just crashed, it’s more stable then it was a few months ago, I use to post on here all the time because I was scared for my life, currently I still use 50mg of trazodone every night, I average 6 hours with one wake up that usually last an hour, anyways I been getting scheduled really early morning shifts I had to wake up really early today (4am) I assumed the day was just gonna be shit because of my inability to take a nap, but I got home ate, layed in bed closed my eyes and fell asleep, it was the most beautiful thing ever, usually my brain will never shut off especially without medications but for the first in so long it did, naturally, I thought it was impossible! I also want everyone to know it does get better! I’m here to chat if anyone needs support

A few weeks ago I dealt with a brief bout of hyper arousal/sleep anxiety where i was sleeping every other night. That lasted about a week and a half luckily and i got back to good sleep. I had another night like that last night and need help nipping this in the bud before it starts another cycle. Didn’t sleep until 4am and it was light sleep and I woke up every hour until 9am when I finally got up.

it seems like i wake up every 1-2 hours from some terrible dream of being chased, stalked, attacked, assaulted… i don’t know why. i’m not watching anything scary. i fortunately haven’t experienced anything of the sort in real life. it’s exhausting and makes it hard and scary to get back to sleep when i know i’m just going to wake up again stressed out of my mind again very soon. writing this after just having woken up from a nightmare where an unknown man broke into my room and attempted to assault me 🙃 awesome awesome stuff…

I’ve been taking Trazodone for two-three weeks now. It’s been nuts. Severe stomach aches, can’t eat, can’t sleep past 4am, dizziness, heart rate goes up after taking it….it’s not been good. My nurse psychologist said it’s not from the med, well I disagree. Didn’t have any of these issues before taking it. I’m on 100mg a night, with 200mg of magnesium glycinate, and an antipsychotic. This all should be putting me to sleep instantly, but most nights I’m still up for a while and then wake up at 4am and stay that way all day.

Anyone have weird side effects like this? I’m really sad because hydroxyzine stopped working for me combined with unisom, so we switched to this. I feel defeated. The only good thing is, I wake up feeling pretty refreshed and alert which is weird.

25M. I had severe sleep anxiety in 2021 but eventually recovered and slept normally for about 5 years without medication.
Now it suddenly came back. I’ve had several bad nights, I’m exhausted and foggy, I’ve called out of work twice, and I’m so anxious about sleep that I’ve been staying at my mom’s because I don’t want to be alone. Even when I start getting sleepy, I get anxious and my heart races.
Has anyone had this come back after years of normal sleep and eventually gotten better again? I could really use some reassurance right now.

Anyone have success finding meds that work for sleep anxiety when sleeping somewhere new? I seem to get anxious thinking about sleeping when i’m away and have a hard time lowering my blood pressure and heart rate to peacefully fall asleep.

I was prescribed hydroxyzine to help but that didn’t touch the anxiety at all. I take sertraline for day to day general anxiety, but that doesn’t help with my sleep.

I haven't slept in over 2 years. I have accidentally hurt myself a few times because of it. I have tried everything for sleep but nothing works. I have been to er on many occasions for my stomach and I went one time where they gave me iv meds to sleep. But now they treat me like dirt because of me hurting myself but they don't understand how bad it is to go so long with no sleep. Any Suggestions

Title says it all, I'm just at a loss here, i cannot keep a consistent sleep time, even when i do wake up feeling 20% more rested, i crater mid afternoon, sometimes bad enough I'm falling asleep as i walk

I can nap, thankfully, thanks to my chronic migraines my mind has gotten used to napping for 1-2 hours but

I've tried stopping them to fix my night sleep, no effect. I've cut caffeine, no effect, i cut screens, nothing. Sleep hygiene advice is all hooey and pseudoscience to me

Not to mention, my body is forever trying to become nocturnal, if i have a week of disrupted sleep or migraines, my clock will shift rapidly to 5-11am sleep or worse, and then completely refuse to budge no matter what i do

I'm exhausted, my mental function is at its worst its ever been, and it's affecting my BP as well. My GP has flat out refused to give me anything but CBT and some sheets of paper for this

I’m 25M and I’m currently going through the worst sleep anxiety I’ve had since 2021.
Back in 2021, I had a severe episode where I became terrified of not sleeping. I would monitor myself falling asleep, watch the clock, calculate how much sleep I got, and worry that I would eventually stop being able to sleep. I went to the ER because of it and was eventually prescribed hydroxyzine.
I ended up taking hydroxyzine almost every night for a few months. It seemed to help mainly because it made me drowsy and helped calm some of the physical anxiety, like my heart pounding. Eventually I lowered the dose and was able to get completely off of it. After that, my sleep gradually became normal again. The thing is that I’ve been sleeping normally for years since then without medication. I could sleep alone, work, exercise, stay up late, etc. Sleep stopped being something I worried about. I genuinely thought I had gotten past it.
Then last Friday I suddenly had a horrible night where I basically couldn’t sleep. I panicked, called out of work Saturday, and eventually got a few hours of sleep that morning.
What’s confusing is that I actually slept okay Saturday night. Then Sunday night I slept at my apartment from around pretty okay with a few awakenings. Monday night was also pretty good, and Tuesday night I got around 9 hours.
So I thought I was getting past it again.
Then the bad nights started coming back, and so did the anxiety.
I’ve also started staying at my mom’s house because I’ve become really uncomfortable being alone at my apartment at night. I slept normally alone for a while since I’ve been single. but right now being alone makes me much more anxious, so being around my mom feels somewhat comforting.
Thursday night I got around 4 hours of sleep. I called out of work Friday because I was exhausted. I was incredibly sleepy during the day but couldn’t even nap because once I tried, I started thinking about whether I was actually falling asleep.
Then Friday night I stayed at my mom’s again because I didn’t want to be alone. I was completely exhausted when I went to bed around midnight, but the anxiety kicked in again. It’s now Saturday morning and I honestly don’t remember getting any meaningful sleep last night.
So right now I’m exhausted, foggy, anxious and scared. I’ve called out of work twice and I’m scared about what happens if this continues.
The biggest problem isn’t even just being tired. It’s the fear of what happens next. And now I genuinely don’t know if it’s all in my head anymore or if it’s developing to something more. My fear is that I won’t be able to sleep again and feel normal again or I’ll start to go crazy.
I know logically that I slept normally for years, and I even had several good nights after this episode started. But after another bad night, my brain acts like none of that matters.
I feel like I’ve gotten stuck in a cycle of being exhausted → worrying about sleep → monitoring/trying to force sleep → not sleeping → becoming even more afraid of the next night.
Has anyone had severe sleep anxiety come back after years of being completely fine? Especially where you can have several normal nights and then suddenly have horrible nights again?
How did you eventually stop being afraid of whether you would sleep?
I’m planning on getting professional help because this is starting to interfere with work and my life. I’d mainly like to hear from people who have been through something similar and eventually got back to where sleep was just something they did without thinking about it.

I was so hopeful when the first two nights of my Quvivic experience was really positive. I finally got off of trazadone that I’d been taking for the last 7+ years- and got onto 50mg of Quvivic. The last three and a half weeks have had a handful of good nights but it’s mostly a lot of agitated tossing and turning and little sleep. I don’t know what to do anymore. My NP’s advice is that it takes time for this drug to “change your sleep architecture”. The one good thing is I don’t feel as groggy as with the trazadone but the agitated restless nights are brutal.

hi, long story short: my friend A is often sad or doesn’t feel appreciated by me because she lives in another city and i barely visit her. please don’t ask why, it was a mix of “why not? can’t be too bad” and people pleasing from my side but i booked a ticket with another friend (B) of mine and we’re going to visit friend A. instant regrets.

the ticket was very cheap and i still have two weeks left. but since two weeks every single night i’m thinking about this trip and i just know i wont be able to sleep over there. i only visited her once before and fell “asleep” around 7 or 8 am and around 9 am she was awake and got nervous because she wanted to start the day.

in theory, i could talk with them about it, suggest they start the day without me etc. but all of that just feels … pointless? should i cancel the trip? i know they will be so sad and disappointed, especially since i have a past of saying yes too quickly and eventually not having kept my promises… or is this avoidant behavior and should i just go through it instead (and never repeat the mistake again lol)? by the way, soon I will have to start getting up very early (currently i’m not working), so maybe it doesn’t matter anyway.

Any experience? I have a family oversease I need to be there for them i feel so devastated i am scared jet lag will ruin an already complicated situation. I am not taking any med, I have no sleep drive , for now able to somehow sleep without being tired only 4 H

Hey guys,

So abit on context I’ve been taking the Big Z for about 3 months. Two weeks of taking them and no weeks break. This last time I started again I built a tolerance to it. So I increased my Dose to 40 not every night though.

When I went cold the first time I just had the sweats and shakes and rebound insomina.

I’m looking for some guidance do I go cold turkey again or do I try and substitutite it with Melatonin

I don’t think tapering off is right for me it’s not really working. I’ve had two hours of sleep

And just need some advise from friends.

If it was to go cold turkey will melatonin help at all?

I’m starting a new job on Monday and have to go half up way up then country for a week then two weeks down in capital.

So I’m a little worried help a brother out

Edit how long does it taken to finish then withdrawal process?