RE: Sleep problems

[Guest guest]

I have never been able to describe the whole " racing thoughts " thing to

anyone. BOY you have hit the nail on the head. Only I would blow the whole

thing into a full blown panic attack...complete with cold sweats and heart

racing....and thinking I am going to die. Sleeping meds never did me any

good. Never stopped the thinking, never helped me sleep. Or if they did get

me to sleep, they couldn't keep me there. Thank goodness for Klonazopan (or

however you spell it). It knocks me right out, stops the racing, stops the

panic. I am willingly compliant with these meds. I worried about being

addicted to them. The Psyc guy I have laughed and said...addicted is having

8 different docs to write enough prescriptions to get enough of the drug to

do what I wanted it to do. Dependency is needing insulin for diabetes,

needing blood pressure pills to control high blood pressure, needing

anti-anxiety meds for an anxiety disorder. So, I said...OK I GIVE!!!! LOL I

will be a good girl and take my meds. I feel so much better, now that I get

sleep. And I only take them at night, so I don't feel like a zombie. I also

don't wake up feeling groggy.

Debbie

Re: Sleep problems

Hi Debbie,

It was my psychologist that first told me about the whole " racing

thoughts " idea. I told him that it was driving me nuts to try and go

to sleep because my mind just lept from one thought to another for

hours at a time when I tried to sleep. It was exhausting and I would

turn some small problem into a huge, overblown mess after laying

there for an hour or two tearing it apart in my head. I have always

just waited until I was beyond exhausted to go to sleep at night

because if I didn't, then my mind went into overdrive like this. I

tried counting sheep, counting backwards from 10,000, saying my ABC's

backwards, visualizing myself writing the #s on a chalk board as I

counted, etc. Nothing worked. He finally convinced me that it did

not mean I was a weak person if I tried the Ambien to stop all of

this and it has really helped.

I really made him understand it when I was describing that commercial

on TV where the lady is walking down the streets and she has this

continuous stream of consciousness conversation in her head about

doughnuts, missing the bus, a man walking by, the treadmill, etc. I

don't even remember what the commercial is advertising but she is

standing on a street and her mind is going ninety to nothing about

random stuff and I said THAT is EXACTLY what goes on in my head

24/7. He immediately understood and said it was very important to

get enough sleep at night and that could be contributing to my

problems and making everything worse. Boy was he right... ha. I

begrudgingly admit that taking Ambien has not made me a drug addict

and I am feeling 10000% better since I am getting some sleep!!! :-)

R in Nashville