[OhioDumbledore]

A bit over a month ago I underwent a crisis during which I got very minimal sleep and my amxiety was through the roof. I eventually recovered, slowly but surely, with the help of clonidine. Now I am in the same position, just with some different circumstances. My psychiatrist started me on 1mg guanfacine which I was on for a few weeks. It wasn’t doing much so she brought it up to 2mg. On 2mg I felt weird and would often wake up at night, unable to fall back asleep. Then one night I was so restless it too me until 4 to fall asleep and I only napped until 6. I contacted my psychistrist about this and she told me to lower the dose from 2mg to 1mg. I slept well the next night, but what seemed to have happened was that the lowering of the dose put me into withdrawal and the next nights were poor. After a few days I thought I jad stabilized because I was getting 5-6 hours per night which was workable, but then one night I just couldn’t sleep; I only got 1 hour of sleep. The next night I slept decently, but the night after that I got zero sleep, That day my psychiatrist advised me to go off of guanfacine entirely and restart clonidine the next day. So I did and I slept 8 hours that night, but tonight, did not sleep at all die to hyperarousal, despite being able to become sleepy. I believe tjis has to do with the guanfacine withdrawal, but also fear of sleeping poorly, and likely conditioned arousal surrounding my bed (though I did change some things up a couple days ago which seemed to help). I think about this too often and it’s non sistainable long-term to only sleep every other night. What do I do? I’m hoping that once my luteal phase finishes up (PMDD) and my withdrawal symptoms clear up things will get better, but it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

[Martin Reed]

Your experience suggests that your sleep system is working just as it should be — after nights of less (or no) sleep you are more likely to experience more (or some) sleep on subsequent nights.

Your experience also seems to be telling you that sleep is out of your direct control and the more you (completely understandably) try to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen, the more difficult it can become.

Thoughts and feelings (such as fear) can be uncomfortable and they come from your brain doing its job of looking out for you. Your experience might also suggest they are out of your direct control and cannot be permanently deleted or switched off upon command!

Medication changes (including withdrawal) can certainly make things more challenging and it can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when things are difficult. And, as your experience tells you, that light exists — you have experience in getting through difficult challenges and adversity. You are resilient!

As you reflect on your experience, what opportunities are there to deal with all this difficult stuff in a different way (if you feel your current approach isn’t really working for you)?

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