[illiniwek9]

Hi, I’ve been struggling with insomnia (and mostly onset insomnia–it takes me FOREVER to fall asleep) for eight months now (after losing my mom and a couple close friends this year). At the height of my insomnia, I was taking 10mg of melatonin, 150mg of calming magnesium, and 15mg of Mirtazapine. I finally started sleeping a good 6-6.5 hours a night and felt comfortable weaning off the sleep aids.

First, I removed melatonin after a couple months. Then I titrated down on the Mirtazapine to about 5mg. Things were going well until last Thursday night, when out of the blue, I had a completely sleepless night (and no anxiety to cause it). I was shocked after months of success. I decided to drop the Mirtazapine at that point since 5mg was such a small amount (and I never really felt like it did much for me).

I had two more bad nights of sleep (one w/ about 3 hours and another completely sleepless night). I decided to start sleep restriction on Sunday night and slept maybe 3-3.5 hours. The following night, I fell asleep quickly and slept about 5.5 hours (the time change woke me up an hour early). But … the last two nights I haven’t slept AT ALL. Zero sleep. I got out of bed a couple times the first sleepless night, and I never could get sleepy again. Last night, I was seriously struggling to stay awake until midnight. Super sleepy. But once I jumped into bed, I was aroused and clearly wasn’t going to sleep.

I’m seriously afraid I’m an extreme insomniac. It can’t be typical to have FOUR sleepless nights in a week. I really don’t want to go back to sleep aids, but I’m super worried I’m losing my grip on sleep and it scares me to death. (I’m crying as I type this. Overwhelmed.)

[Ryan]

I completely understand where you are at and want you to know that you are normal. You’re not losing your mind. I’m in the exact same boat and we’re just in a bit of a funk right now and we will get out of it.

I had to use klonipin last night after my 3rd sleepless night. I’m not recommending it, but sometimes we need medicine to help us get at least enough sleep to function and start CBTI with a clean slate. This is my current opinion but if anyone disagrees please feel free to correct me because I’m new to this site.

You will sleep, so don’t worry about that, you will most likely sleep tonight, because your sleep hunger will override your anxiety about sleep. Your brain is just hopped up on stress hormones from worrying about sleep. The fight or flight part of our brain is activated so it’s fighting through. Focusing on breathing/meditation/journaling before bed, get yourself super calm, go to bed when you’re really tired and consider increasing the mirtazapine or whatever worked to help you sleep until you can get back on your feet with sleep. Then try CBTI again after you’ve learned some more tools. Just my advice, it’s what I’m doing,

[Author]

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