Fear of sleeping

[Constantfears]

For 4 days now I've been suffering symptoms, shaking, diarrhoea, sickness, feelings of dread. But they're so much more intense than I usually get when I have a panic attack. But I've noticed they are much much worse at night (I have them frequently pretty much all day), at night I am awful, like to the point I wanna call for an ambulance even though I know it's anxiety. So now I'm in a vicious cycle of panicking about going to sleep and in turn not being able to get a wink of sleep due to being unbelievably panicked throughout the entire night. I don't know what to do :(

[toothless]

Hi, how are you feeling now? I had a similar experience in May, I had anxiety symptoms all day long like you, nausea, diarrhoea, insomnia, feelings of dread and the most severe dry mouth I have ever had. I didn't know it was anxiety and I thought I was going mad. I felt worse in the morning though and got slightly better in the evening but as the days went on I got less sleep I felt awful all day, I thought I was seriously ill and I was full of fear and scared of my symtoms which fuelled my anxiety.

I went to the doctors who prescribed me beta blockers, propranolol and they helped so much to bring the physical symptoms of too much adrenaline down but they made me feel faint and after a few days I stuidly cut the dose down, (I was also prescribed zopiclone but was too scared to take them) and I felt much better but after a few weeks I had a relapse and after going to a and e saw the mental health crisis team who told me to take the zopiclone which really helped and I started on mitazapine which helped with sleep which reduced my symptoms.

Are you on medication? It's great that you can see it's anxiety as I took me many weeks to accept that anxiety could make me so physically ill. Now I'm not as scared of the symptoms, I used Claire Weekes book, hope and help for your nerves to help me understand how I had become afraid of my symtoms and scared of not sleeing, one bad night would set me back to having physical symptoms. Now I'm coping much better 8 months on.

I hope your feeling better than you were.

[ana]

I fear going to sleep, too, but for a (possibly) slightly different reason. I am afraid of losing control, being in that unconscious state, and, like you, waking up in panic. I listen to relaxing music before going to sleep, and I also like to do something that makes me feel good once I've got into bed, like reading and/or watching a film or a TV show I like.