Insomnia torture

[bounceback11]

Hey guys

After 3 good years my HA fears over vcjd returned and I had a panic attack last monday. Before this I was feeling fairly good and had occasional panicky moments but nothing serious. Since then my anxiety has calmed down a little but I have developed terrible insomnia. I work at night so my sleep schedule was already a mess, however I was always able to sleep 8-10 hours in the daytime, but now I can barely sleep at all. Over the last 4 days I have been unable to sleep for more than 1-3 hours. Last night I was so worried that I went to a and e where I was give some diazepam. This made me feel a lot calmer but I still only slept for an hour!
I feel completely detached from the world and time seems to be moving at a crawl. I am sitting here praying for it to turn eight o clock so I can get a doctors appointment.
Last time I was struck with anxiety I took 20mg of escitalopram for about 6 months and it was very effective so I want to go back on this.
I also want to try and get some sleeping pills just to get some rest and a little clarity.
Has anyone else suffered from such a sudden onset of anxiety and insomnia and can offer me any advice?
Thank you

[samuelj41]

I'm sorry to hear this is happening to you. I know that when my health anxiety started to get worse, I suffered from more than a few relatively sleepless nights. I once went to work having had five hours of sleep in a 72 hour period; it might have been even less as I was waking roughly every half hour even when I had the good fortune of falling asleep.

Still, every now and then, I have serious trouble, especially when I'm nervous about work or an upcoming job interview or anything out of the ordinary coming up in my life.

Anxious minds do not rest well. The absolute worst thing you can do when you wake up is look at the clock. You'll think, "Oh no, it's 4:28 AM, I have to be up in three hours!" This only compounds whatever anxiety or stress is waking you up and keeping you up in the first place. When I started blocking off my clock at night, I started sleeping much better. I still wake up at least once or twice most every night, but only for a few minutes at a time.

Try that tonight, and see if it helps. Even if it doesn't, there are other methods that work for me when I struggle: changing sleeping positions (even if it's to lying on your stomach, which is supposedly bet the least healthy; anything to get you through the night should be acceptable at that point), making sure you aren't too warm or too cold under the covers, etc. Another thing that works for me is eating a small snack - an apple or a banana - even if I'm not particularly hungry.

[bounceback11]

Thanks for the reply. When your insomnia was at its worst did you feel like you were confused and detached? Sometimes when I'm lying in bed I feel as though I black out for a few minutes and I come around unsure if I slept?

[Eek]

I am suffering terrible insomnia at the moment, in my case it's withdrawal from a med and I've been suffering for five weeks. Several nights this week I've had the feeling you describe. I can't tell if I've been to sleep or not, time seems to have passed and I don't really remember it passing so I must have slept but I can't be sure, but it's more like a black hole in time that I can't remember with no actual feeling of going to sleep or waking up.

Insomnia sucks. I find that I end up dreading going to bed and this makes it worse. I have a warm drink of milk before bed as this is meant to help you sleep. Also looking at self hypnosis or meditation apps for your phone can be useful in helping you to relax before trying to sleep. And as mentioned above, don't keep looking at your clock, my alarm clock is turned off, though I admit to sneaking a peak at my phone from time to time which doesn't help.

[samuelj41]

Thanks for the reply. When your insomnia was at its worst did you feel like you were confused and detached? Sometimes when I'm lying in bed I feel as though I black out for a few minutes and I come around unsure if I slept?

Yup. I had that "did I just sleep?" moment every night or so.

[NeNe01]

I'm going thro this at the moment, bang eyes wide open heart pounding at around 3am, no idea why! then i'm on & off all night until i get up :wacko: got to admit tho i do tend to look at the clock and think oh god i've got to be up at something o'clock and panic, so i will try the clock one