[Shelf]

When I was 38 years old, I went through a very difficult bought of anxiety. Of course I’d experienced anxiety at other times in my life, but never in this way and never at this level. And I stopped sleeping. Eventually, after over a week of not sleeping at all, I sought medical help and was prescribed Ambien. At the time, I thought it was a short term solution, but little did I know, my sleep would never return to a normal pattern. I’m now 61 years old and since I was 38, I’ve never had a day that I slept well, and have usually needed medication. The only medication that has helped is Ambien. I have, over these decades, tried every sleep medication on the market. Many have had the opposite effect of what was intended. Sleep hygiene, keeping sleep diaries, relaxation techniques, meditation and antidepressants have had no positive effects on my sleep. What I haven’t tried, other than in small components, is CBT. I recently tried antidepressant again and the result was horrific. I stopped sleeping for over a week and went straight back off the medication after 1 and 1/2 weeks. I expected my sleep to return to it’s previous level of dysfunction but a month and 1/2 later, it has not. Most nights I’m getting 2-4 hours of sleep, (with medication). I have no idea why the antidepressant effected me so profoundly and negatively this time, but then I have no idea why a few decades back I stopped being able to sleep in the first place. I need to try something different. Help.

[Martin Reed]

Hello Shelf and welcome to the forum. It sounds as though you’re saying that medication hasn’t proven to be helpful over the past 33 years so perhaps that might be an area that doesn’t require any more ongoing research, attention, and effort!

Understandably, you also haven’t found sleep hygiene, keeping sleep diaries, relaxation techniques, or meditation useful either — and that makes sense since none of those things can make sleep happen (since sleep cannot be controlled).

What’s your current plan for a different approach?

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