Laheed
08-04-13, 12:48
Alright guys,
First of all glad to have found this forum. Compared to others, it is far less err panicky. I think most people on hear are level-headed enough to understand that there is a negativity bias on such forums. People tend to come to forums when they are in trouble and therefore people on here seem to take great effort to balance stuff with a lot of positivity. Which is obviously fantastic!
I thought I would start a thread in this section about Zopiclone. I am on 50mg of Sertraline (day 25) for anxiety. Depression is there also, but tends to only be very mild low mood, apart from when I am having an anxious episode. Anyway, this is my story in err full:
Basically, I have never suffered from anxiety before this year despite living a lifestyle that, in retrospect, was destined to cause me some problems. I worked very hard and played pretty hard too. For ten years I have used recreational drugs occasionally, although usually only about once a month on average, sometimes more, sometimes less. I have been a heavyish drinker, although ironically my drinking was probably lower than ever when my first episode arrived.
I also periodically engage in intense, borderline obsessive bouts of workaholism. As an example, for my Masters dissertation, I reversed my body clock for six weeks so that I was getting up at 8pm and going to bed at 8am, working all hours in between. I have carried this attitude into the professional world (though obviously not the clock). Such intensity has brought me a lot of success - I have a relatively high powered and stressful job and am, academically at least, a very high achiever. Now that I have started CBT I can see that I am unbelievably hard on myself, yet such was my self-confidence and determination, I have always managed to get through.
In terms of day to day neurosis I am extremely dismissive of health scares, fad diets, body dismorphia, fear of failure or any of the more typical generalised anxiety worries. That persists even now.
Sleepwise, I have always had near 100% sleep efficiency despite having atrocious sleep hygiene. In part this might be because of sheer exhaustion - a typical week would see me get 3-4 hours on a Sunday night; 5-6 hours on a weeknight (but less if I stayed up to work); around 10 hours on a Friday night; and literally anything from 2-12 hours on a Saturday, depending on what I did. Certainly I think I suffer from delayed time sleep phase disorder. I would love to live in a world where 4am was the social norm for going to bed and 11am was the wake-up time. This has been the case since puberty but has persisted long into my professional life too. I am relatively relaxed about it, it has never caused any problems until now.
From about October/November 2013, my workload at work started to increase. I reacted to this typically by working harder, longer, sleeping less and caring less about my personal health. I was probably, in hindsight, drinking and going out more too. I became really bad, even worse than normal, at allowing smaller tasks to roll onto the next day and was obsessed with 'clearing my desk' - a forlorn effort in my line of work. I started setting artificial deadlines to complete this - Christmas became a massive one.
During this period - it may have been before or after - my Grandfather got diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. I have always had existential anxiety, although I've normally been able to dismiss it quite effectively. This has been the case since my early childhood. I also have a deep-seated phobia of lightning that I think is connected to this.
I had already become acutely aware that I was about to enter a period of my life where experience of bereavement was possible - in September my best friend lost his father - so I was relatively ok with this, or so I thought. Though I am close in terms of proximity and frequency of interaction to my Grandfather, I actually don't think he is a particularly pleasant man - he has done some callous, cruel thinks to my own father that in my adolescence affected my relationship with my father negatively.
Christmas was extremely stressful and my Granddad was beyond awful to see. Despite what I just typed, nobody can not ache with compassion for somebody trapped in a cancerous body, in the final stages of their life.
I returned to London (my family live in the West Midlands) on December 28th, then experienced a minor (and I do mean minor) romantic set-back and then it happened on December 30th: an ENORMOUS anxiety attack. I was meant to be driving some friends to Manchester for New Years Eve. But I just couldn't sleep. I did everything I could to allieviate pressure - cancelled the lifts, cancelled a morning engagement. Nothing worked. I had noticed myself feeling completely wired whilst watching football earlier in the day, an activity that normally relaxes me (unless my hopeless, fascist managed team are playing that is!). I tried to drink myself to sleep - got perhaps 1/2 hour, but woke up totally pumped. Adrenaline coursing through my veins. Stupidly I went to Manchester by train and continued to try and drink through it. Maybe I got 3-4 hours on 1 January. From then on though, apart from a few 5-10 snoozes when my manic mind was distracted, I did not sleep until the evening of 4 January. I had completely lost it.
Thank god for Zopiclone. 7.5g knocked me out. I took another 7.5g the next day and must have slept 12 hours each time. I then managed to sleep well on a conventional antihistamine and went back to London. In my mania, I'd secured a week off from work who were very understanding and have been so throughout.
I then began an intense process of dealing with my anxiety. Initially I felt like I was made of glass on returning to work and had two panic attacks there. Eventually, with the help of breathing exercises, I got out of this phase and have not returned. Work no longer a trigger.
Sleep was haphazard - a few nights it would be 1-2 hours, some nights 3-4 hours, others a normal 8 hours. I developed a routine, involving Nytol, Valerian, Camomile Tea, lots of exercise, caffeine elimination, and drastically reduced alcohol consumption. If I did drink a lot, I wouldn't need to do the routine, but would make sure I went for an enormous
Slowly, but surely, I started to get a guaranteed 8 hours a night. Nytol became a placebo. I know this because when I tried to come off it I couldn't sleep, but as soon I popped a pill I would instantly fall asleep. By this stage all other anxiety had long since dissipated, but I think I still felt fragile. Then, I had just over two weeks when I slept at will. The routine receded into the background, but then so did the obsessiveness. I felt my intensity returning, but tried to guard against it. Throughout this period I was also having some, quite frankly, sub-standard NHS CBT. I have now been upgraded to a far better therapist.
Well then of course my Grandad died. I slept for one day after this perfectly. Then I had a horrendous night - I had two reports to write for the next day that had overrun, so was anxious about that. I was also ill, had had my phone stolen from a five-a-side and had taken a lot of paracetamol with caffeine throughout the day as I was physically ill. I was stressed. I got about 1 1/2 hours sleep that night, finished the reports, but the anxiety was returning: Would I sleep again? What was happening to me? I'm sure you all know what it feels like when your head is besieged by incessant thoughts that you can't control. This time, with it, came an unbelievable tide of depression. This actually made me appear far less anxious - I lieing in bed apathetic. My determination was deserting me.
It took about a week for me to slide and the only reason it was not as bad as before was because a) I didn't drink and b) I did take zopiclone after two days. I tried to come off straight away and spend another 2 days awake before having to take 7.5mg again.
I then spent about two weeks on 3.75mg of Zopiclone, got through the funeral and was prescribed 50mg of Setraline. I felt better after the funeral anyway, but more positive that I was trying to take control again.
For me, I found the side-effects quite easy to deal with. They felt like mild doses of the recreational drug ecstacy, so I was fine with that.
The third week of Sertraline felt brilliant and I started sleeping well (on Nytol).
I then had one night where I couldn't sleep again, and once more started to slide. This bottomed out after a few days when I realised that the real problem was me constantly setting targets and that I needed, DESPERATELY, to accept each day as it comes. The final straw was when, on reaching for the Zopiclone after fighting for a few hours, my failure not to get off it caused me to have a panic attack.
So I have accepted that If I need Zopiclone, I need it. 3.75mg still works.
This mini-wobble also came after I drunk on Sertraline and all I can say is: DON'T DO IT.
So that's where I am. I have decided to through my routines out the window, try and sleep when I'm tired, and take Zopiclone if I need it. I feel better, but am still a bit anxious.
I would like to not be on Zopiclone because it's addictive, but at the moment curing my chronic perfectionism and goal-setting and gaining acceptance is more important. I need to be able to deal with setbacks when they come or I will never get out of this. Am now focusing my therapy on this.
Still some questions
I would like to get off Zopiclone, in an ideal world. I'm not so worried about the addiction, but it is a massive pain having to go to the GP's every week.
Do people think I am better off going cold turkey (this seems to reduce bed-time anxiety and daily obsessing)?
Or should I try Nytol - it does make me more tired?
Has anyone every halved the 3.75mg dose?
Is it worth considering asking my GP if I could switch to something else for a bit such as tamazepam?
First of all glad to have found this forum. Compared to others, it is far less err panicky. I think most people on hear are level-headed enough to understand that there is a negativity bias on such forums. People tend to come to forums when they are in trouble and therefore people on here seem to take great effort to balance stuff with a lot of positivity. Which is obviously fantastic!
I thought I would start a thread in this section about Zopiclone. I am on 50mg of Sertraline (day 25) for anxiety. Depression is there also, but tends to only be very mild low mood, apart from when I am having an anxious episode. Anyway, this is my story in err full:
Basically, I have never suffered from anxiety before this year despite living a lifestyle that, in retrospect, was destined to cause me some problems. I worked very hard and played pretty hard too. For ten years I have used recreational drugs occasionally, although usually only about once a month on average, sometimes more, sometimes less. I have been a heavyish drinker, although ironically my drinking was probably lower than ever when my first episode arrived.
I also periodically engage in intense, borderline obsessive bouts of workaholism. As an example, for my Masters dissertation, I reversed my body clock for six weeks so that I was getting up at 8pm and going to bed at 8am, working all hours in between. I have carried this attitude into the professional world (though obviously not the clock). Such intensity has brought me a lot of success - I have a relatively high powered and stressful job and am, academically at least, a very high achiever. Now that I have started CBT I can see that I am unbelievably hard on myself, yet such was my self-confidence and determination, I have always managed to get through.
In terms of day to day neurosis I am extremely dismissive of health scares, fad diets, body dismorphia, fear of failure or any of the more typical generalised anxiety worries. That persists even now.
Sleepwise, I have always had near 100% sleep efficiency despite having atrocious sleep hygiene. In part this might be because of sheer exhaustion - a typical week would see me get 3-4 hours on a Sunday night; 5-6 hours on a weeknight (but less if I stayed up to work); around 10 hours on a Friday night; and literally anything from 2-12 hours on a Saturday, depending on what I did. Certainly I think I suffer from delayed time sleep phase disorder. I would love to live in a world where 4am was the social norm for going to bed and 11am was the wake-up time. This has been the case since puberty but has persisted long into my professional life too. I am relatively relaxed about it, it has never caused any problems until now.
From about October/November 2013, my workload at work started to increase. I reacted to this typically by working harder, longer, sleeping less and caring less about my personal health. I was probably, in hindsight, drinking and going out more too. I became really bad, even worse than normal, at allowing smaller tasks to roll onto the next day and was obsessed with 'clearing my desk' - a forlorn effort in my line of work. I started setting artificial deadlines to complete this - Christmas became a massive one.
During this period - it may have been before or after - my Grandfather got diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. I have always had existential anxiety, although I've normally been able to dismiss it quite effectively. This has been the case since my early childhood. I also have a deep-seated phobia of lightning that I think is connected to this.
I had already become acutely aware that I was about to enter a period of my life where experience of bereavement was possible - in September my best friend lost his father - so I was relatively ok with this, or so I thought. Though I am close in terms of proximity and frequency of interaction to my Grandfather, I actually don't think he is a particularly pleasant man - he has done some callous, cruel thinks to my own father that in my adolescence affected my relationship with my father negatively.
Christmas was extremely stressful and my Granddad was beyond awful to see. Despite what I just typed, nobody can not ache with compassion for somebody trapped in a cancerous body, in the final stages of their life.
I returned to London (my family live in the West Midlands) on December 28th, then experienced a minor (and I do mean minor) romantic set-back and then it happened on December 30th: an ENORMOUS anxiety attack. I was meant to be driving some friends to Manchester for New Years Eve. But I just couldn't sleep. I did everything I could to allieviate pressure - cancelled the lifts, cancelled a morning engagement. Nothing worked. I had noticed myself feeling completely wired whilst watching football earlier in the day, an activity that normally relaxes me (unless my hopeless, fascist managed team are playing that is!). I tried to drink myself to sleep - got perhaps 1/2 hour, but woke up totally pumped. Adrenaline coursing through my veins. Stupidly I went to Manchester by train and continued to try and drink through it. Maybe I got 3-4 hours on 1 January. From then on though, apart from a few 5-10 snoozes when my manic mind was distracted, I did not sleep until the evening of 4 January. I had completely lost it.
Thank god for Zopiclone. 7.5g knocked me out. I took another 7.5g the next day and must have slept 12 hours each time. I then managed to sleep well on a conventional antihistamine and went back to London. In my mania, I'd secured a week off from work who were very understanding and have been so throughout.
I then began an intense process of dealing with my anxiety. Initially I felt like I was made of glass on returning to work and had two panic attacks there. Eventually, with the help of breathing exercises, I got out of this phase and have not returned. Work no longer a trigger.
Sleep was haphazard - a few nights it would be 1-2 hours, some nights 3-4 hours, others a normal 8 hours. I developed a routine, involving Nytol, Valerian, Camomile Tea, lots of exercise, caffeine elimination, and drastically reduced alcohol consumption. If I did drink a lot, I wouldn't need to do the routine, but would make sure I went for an enormous
Slowly, but surely, I started to get a guaranteed 8 hours a night. Nytol became a placebo. I know this because when I tried to come off it I couldn't sleep, but as soon I popped a pill I would instantly fall asleep. By this stage all other anxiety had long since dissipated, but I think I still felt fragile. Then, I had just over two weeks when I slept at will. The routine receded into the background, but then so did the obsessiveness. I felt my intensity returning, but tried to guard against it. Throughout this period I was also having some, quite frankly, sub-standard NHS CBT. I have now been upgraded to a far better therapist.
Well then of course my Grandad died. I slept for one day after this perfectly. Then I had a horrendous night - I had two reports to write for the next day that had overrun, so was anxious about that. I was also ill, had had my phone stolen from a five-a-side and had taken a lot of paracetamol with caffeine throughout the day as I was physically ill. I was stressed. I got about 1 1/2 hours sleep that night, finished the reports, but the anxiety was returning: Would I sleep again? What was happening to me? I'm sure you all know what it feels like when your head is besieged by incessant thoughts that you can't control. This time, with it, came an unbelievable tide of depression. This actually made me appear far less anxious - I lieing in bed apathetic. My determination was deserting me.
It took about a week for me to slide and the only reason it was not as bad as before was because a) I didn't drink and b) I did take zopiclone after two days. I tried to come off straight away and spend another 2 days awake before having to take 7.5mg again.
I then spent about two weeks on 3.75mg of Zopiclone, got through the funeral and was prescribed 50mg of Setraline. I felt better after the funeral anyway, but more positive that I was trying to take control again.
For me, I found the side-effects quite easy to deal with. They felt like mild doses of the recreational drug ecstacy, so I was fine with that.
The third week of Sertraline felt brilliant and I started sleeping well (on Nytol).
I then had one night where I couldn't sleep again, and once more started to slide. This bottomed out after a few days when I realised that the real problem was me constantly setting targets and that I needed, DESPERATELY, to accept each day as it comes. The final straw was when, on reaching for the Zopiclone after fighting for a few hours, my failure not to get off it caused me to have a panic attack.
So I have accepted that If I need Zopiclone, I need it. 3.75mg still works.
This mini-wobble also came after I drunk on Sertraline and all I can say is: DON'T DO IT.
So that's where I am. I have decided to through my routines out the window, try and sleep when I'm tired, and take Zopiclone if I need it. I feel better, but am still a bit anxious.
I would like to not be on Zopiclone because it's addictive, but at the moment curing my chronic perfectionism and goal-setting and gaining acceptance is more important. I need to be able to deal with setbacks when they come or I will never get out of this. Am now focusing my therapy on this.
Still some questions
I would like to get off Zopiclone, in an ideal world. I'm not so worried about the addiction, but it is a massive pain having to go to the GP's every week.
Do people think I am better off going cold turkey (this seems to reduce bed-time anxiety and daily obsessing)?
Or should I try Nytol - it does make me more tired?
Has anyone every halved the 3.75mg dose?
Is it worth considering asking my GP if I could switch to something else for a bit such as tamazepam?