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Hi, Stillawake,
We know how you feel. There's not much we can do for each other, but just knowing others who suffer from it provides some comfort.
Welcome to Insomnia Land.
I've been taking Wellbutrin for the past 17 years. My doctor started me on it for depression, not as a sleep aid. She has me take in the morning so it'll be worn off by bedtime because it does cause insomnia.
We have enough things in our lives that cause or can cause insomnia. We don't need to add to the problem.
Hey, all,
It's been a long time since I wrote a post for this forum, so I thought I'd respond.
I've taken Temazepam, off and on, for almost seventeen years. I've taken one each night for the past nine months because of the shift I was working.
Last night I didn't take one and was awake until 5 a.m. Fortunately I'm on vacation this week and was able to sleep until ten this morning. Five hours of sleep is better than no sleep. It's not the best, but I can function well enough to get through the day.
Before I started working evenings/nights, I didn't need the Tamazepam. But, after having insommnia since 1979, I'm so scared of not sleeping that I take sleeping pills that I know can be addicting–just to guarantee that I'll sleep.
I've worked evenings/nights for the past eight years. Starting next week (1/30/12) I'll be changing jobs, returning to day shift. My shift will start at 7 a.m. during the winter and 6 a.m. during the summer months. Those early hours are a nightmare for most insomniacs; they might send me right back to the Tamazepam. I hope not. We'll see.
Hi, Nicole, and welcome to Insomnia Land. I know all too well the experience you're going through. My insomnia is 32 years old this month (Sept. '11). When mine started in '79 I couldn't fall asleep until I'd been in bed for several hours, and then it was time to get up and go to work.
The last few years have been the opposite–I can fall asleep with meds but then I wake up after about four hours and can't go back to sleep. Either way makes life miserable. Insomnia robs us of our lives and the enjoyment of living.
In '95 my doctor started me on wellbutrin for depression, amitriptyline for insomnia and depression, and tamazepam for insomnia. Normally I take the tamazepam only after a bad night's sleep. However, I now work from 6:20 p.m. to 2:00a.m. I get home at 3 a.m. and usually am asleep around 4:30. I wake up around 10:30. That's six hours, but I'm finding that it's not enough sleep at age (almost) 56. So now I'm taking tamazepam every night to guarantee that I'll sleep, which my doctor says is okay. But I'm still concerned about addiction. Maybe I'm already addicted. Who knows?
By Friday I'm exhausted. I've never looked forward to the weekend as much as I do now. I can't wait for Saturday just so I don't have to go to work. But now I'm finding that on weekends I'm still awake until between 3 and 4 a.m. and sleep until 10:30 or so. My wife hates my schedule. She's lived her life with my insomnia problem, but she's stuck with me for what will be 36 years on Sept. 13.
For some of us insomnia has turned out to be a lifetime battle. Fortunately Martin created Insomnia Land to give us chance to share each other's sleep burden, to empathize with each other, and to offer moral support–we have a place to vent. The sleeping world has no idea of how we, as insomniacs, feel during the day after a bad night. Only an insomniac knows how another insomniac feels.
1. I can strum a few chords on my guitar, though I haven't played it in years.
2. Unlike xdunlapx, I prefer cats over dogs.
3. I have an associate's, a bachelor's, and two master's degrees and don't use any of them. Right now, I don't even know where my diplomas are (probably lining shelves somewhere in the house).
4. I love to read, and I read a lot–about 99 percent nonfiction and 1 percent fiction.
5. I love to write but don't write as much as I should–mostly personal essays and book reviews.
Because of a shift change at work, I now get home from work at 3:00 a.m. I'm usually asleep by about 4:30 with medication. I'm so scared I won't sleep that I'm now taking a sleeping pill every night. My doctor says it's okay, but I'm still afraid of addiction.
Problem is…I see no light at the end of the tunnel. Unless I leave the company, I'm stuck. I have so little seniority that, most likely, I'll be on this shift until I reach retirement age, which is now only ten years away–less if I retire at 62.
Since I've been on this shift, my wife and I see each other on weekends only. She's asleep when I get home from work, and I'm asleep when she leaves for work. I've been waking up at around 10:00 a.m. So that's only 5.5 hours, which is a lot for some people and it was for me, too, a few years back. But it's not enough sleep for me now. I drive a tractor-trailer for my company which means that I have to sleep.
I've felt terrible this weekend; I've felt as though I've never really been asleep and I've never really been awake. It's been a hazy weekend. It's been one of my shut-up-and-don't-talk-to-me times. I spent a lot of time on the couch watching tv, which is not something I like to do a lot of because I consider it a waste of precious time. But when my head is thick and foggy from insufficient sleep, that's all I feel like doing.
I've been working on a book review for my new review blog, but I didn't get much writing done because of my groggy head. It's frustrating, as any insomniac knows all too well.
It's now 12:05 a.m. Monday morning here in Texas, and I'm wide awake. Who knows if or when I'll finally fall asleep? Probably not before 3 a.m.
Hi, Uli,
The Sun is a “literary” magazine, meaning that it contains articles, essays, short stories, and poetry. It's not a “writing” magazine, per se. Although the writing is of the quality that will enhance my own writing. It's one of the magazines that I read the content for pleasure and learning.
The publisher doesn't sell advertising space, so its yearly subscriber rate is a little higher than I like to pay (about $32.00/year). But, for me, it's worth it. And I enjoy reading a magazine without ads. If you're interested, you can go here and take a look at fifty of the top literary magazines and journals on the market today.
Mike
Hi, Deb,
You and I have some things in common: I'm a little older–55. I've had insomnia (or rather, insomnia has had me) for 32 years come September. My wife and I have a grown daughter. She and her husband are expecting their first child in January.
Welcome to Insomnia Land.
Hey, Uli,
I'm glad to hear that you enjoy writing. So do I, but I don't do enough of it. I lean more toward the creative nonfiction side, though I have written a few short, short stories in recent years. And within creative nonfiction, I prefer to write personal essays.
Becoming a better essay writer is one of the reasons I started my blog, Insomnia Simply Sucks. With more than thirty years of experience as an insomniac I have a considerable number of stories to tell.
My first publications were way back in 1994 as a graduate student (I was a 40-year-old grad student.). For one academic year I worked as a staff writer in the institution's public relations office, so I was published several times. Problem was, the pub went out to current students and alumni only, and considering it was a small school I had a very narrow readership. My most recent publication was a simple letter to the editor of Toastmaster magazine.
I also had my first feature article published in Home Life magazine in Nov. of '94. It was so little money for the amount of work that I decided not to pursue magazine journalism as a career.
I subscribe to all of the writer magazines: Writer's Digest, Writer's Journal, Poets & Writers, and my favorite, The Writer. On Thursday I received my first issue of The Sun, a literary mag with lots of good essays and short stories every month.
I stick with writing the shorter stuff; I've learned over the years that I don't have the tenacity for writing the longer book-length manuscripts. I get bored too easily with longer pieces and end up tossing them aside and never getting back to them.
For reading, I like biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, and history. In recent years I've nearly stopped reading novels, though I do read well-written short stories quite often.
For a period of about twenty years, much earlier in my life, I read all of the automotive high-performance magazines. I had subscriptions to Hot Rod, Car Craft, Popular Hot Rodding, Truckin', Super Chevy, Classic Trucks, Custom Classic Trucks, 1001 Custom & Rod Ideas (defunct now for 35 years), Chevy High Performance, and more recently Hemmings Muscle Machines and Muscle Car Review, though I've let both of them expire.
I was a gearhead; I still love the American hot rod, but I haven't done any hot rod building in a long time. I do, however, record all of the car shows on the Spike and Speed networks every week.
It's now 2:20 a.m. I guess I should try to go to sleep. Wish me luck.
Mike
I am the founder and president of Exercise Haters of the World. Once in awhile I'll do thirty minutes on the treadmill at 2.5 mph, any faster and I can't focus to read. If I were as committed to working out as my wife and daughter are, I probably would need no sleep medication. But it's much easier to take a pill than it is to exercise. That's probably the reason I'm a good twenty pounds over weight. I used to be 52 pounds over, but I lost 32 of them. I can live with 20 over.
My wife is the founder and president of Exercise Lovers of the World. She's invested a gob of money in professional-grade exercise equipment to use here at home. After our daughter married and moved out, we converted her bedroom to a workout room. Donna is in there every night after work. She works out on a different piece each night with the treadmill being her favorite. She rarely has trouble sleeping; I'm so jealous.
