#BUT I'm on remeron now and it's WORKING

[nexus-nebulae]

damn i actually had a pretty good streak there of not having bad insomnia days. that's pretty impressive for me like i haven't really had one since early January

[glittertimes]

It won't let me comment on your post, but Prozac made the colors too bright and I had to wear sunglasses all the time. Don't be afraid to try several different kinds of antidepressants or mood stabilizers to find what works for you. I didn't respond "normally" to antidepressants, but Lamictal and remeron saved my life. Now that I'm in less distress, I take Venlafaxine for maintaining my mental health.

Yeah I’ve heard it takes a while to find the right prescription! I’m already kind of light sensitive so hopefully I don’t experience the same thing but we’ll see!

Definitely going to do my research and know the side effects / pros and cons before I start them!

[hellbabyfromhell]

I don't want to be rude... I'm just a bit worried about you, you look very skinny. Hope you're doing ok! I love your style

doing a read more just in case! nothing bad i am completely fine

i understand and i appreciate it actually.... i like did a mac from always sunny because i took depo (no!) and remeron (QUADRUPLE NO NEVER TAKE THIS MEDICATION) and i gained 50 pounds..... it wasnt normal for me, and then i got VERY depressed at my old house because i was scared to go to the kitchen lol. so i lost the fifty pounds. gained and lost. i might have a thyroid issue but im not going to a doc right now..... but basically dont worry, if you go back in my me tag you will find i was very embarrassing but also small.....this is like my natural state and those meds just disrupted that i think because i eat only like whole pizzas and sonic burgers but i remain at this size because im off of REMERON. appreciate that u care.... i actuallly gained some back and im working on it, i think i jsut have a strange body....... thank you!

[shiredded]

OH THIS IS ME. Chronic insomnia from early childhood. Unable to nap, fall asleep, stay asleep, either falling asleep at 4 AM or waking up at 4 AM or both. Was just made to run laps instead of taken to the doctor so I only started getting meds as an adult.

Meds I tried:

Melatonin did nothing. Trazadone, benedryl/antihistamines/anti-allergy meds, hydroxyzine, dramamine, ambian and all the others just made me feel "drugged" all night. Still just as awake and unrested as every other night, but now I'm laying in a vat of syrup and my body is less responsive. Ambien apparently just makes you dissociate so hard you fall asleep, but for a championship level insomniac it was just another soup to drug my body while my brain stayed awake and miserable.

What FINALLY worked for me was mirtazapine. I felt sleepy and tired and when I lay down my sleep felt natural.

Mirtazapine (remeron)

It's been around 4 years since then and I've had bouts of both insomnia and daytime sleepiness, but mirtazapine has been pretty trustworthy.

I've been taking 30 mg for a year, but 6 mg has also worked in the past. 45 mg was too much and I got a side effect that was so uncommon the pharmacist said it wasn't possible (daytime sleepiness, around 20 hrs per day) but my psychiatrist was like "UHHH" and knocked me back down to 30. Something to do with too much serotonin.

It also causes weight gain so I'm fat now, but I can sleep so who cares.

adding quetiapine:

Right now I'm having issues staying asleep and take quetiapine as needed. It makes me feel drugged but the mirtazapine lets me fall asleep in a natural-feeling way and quetiapine keeps me there. We tried catapres before the quetiapine but it stopped helping quickly and the side effects were awful. I'm not thrilled with quetiapine because of the dizziness, so hopefully ill be able to sleep with Just mirtazapine again one day.

airflow:

I also need to have my window, door, and window in the hall open for airflow. I wake up in the middle of the night feeling unable to sleep but not knowing the cause. It's not obvious, but apparently my lungs need hella airflow so I had to give up my pitch black and silent room curtains for light and air. It's annoying because I don't feel out of breath I just feel unable to sleep, but airflow is usually the answer. I have a heated blanket and a heated mattress pad so that I can have the windows open even if its january.

sleep debt:

after prolonged sleep deprivation, when your body finally gets a med that works, it's going to respond by knocking you flat and sending you to bed for several days to catch up on the sleep debt. Talk with your doctor about this possibility so you know what to expect and what to worry about. This applies to any sleep technique, medication, supplementary medication, sleep hygiene, meditation or whatever, etc

nutrition:

Another thing to talk about with your doctor is nutrition. It's ok if you can't suddenly start eating perfectly balanced and timed meals, you might just need supplements/multivitamins. If it doesn't conflict with meds, no reason not to try it. getting your vitemins balanced helps a lot in random areas of life, like period pain/heaviness. it's wild.

Bedtime screens:

When my insomnia makes falling asleep the problem again, I watch a very specific niche stim video channel that is unstructured enough that I dont mind missing parts of it while passing out.

I know you're not supposed to use screens at night, but I've found if I lay in bed waiting to sleep, I actually end up so stressed and frustrated that I never actually feel tired despite my meds. So I use flux or windows 10's built-in "nightlight" (filters blue light by turning your screen orange) and crank it to the highest setting. I will let my meds take me to near passing out and then shut it down and collapse into bed and go right to sleep. If I don't have the orange screen on, it's hard to feel sleepy even with meds. I don't do color work late at night for this reason. Line and value drawing only. I could probably have the same good result with paper books/drawing but I'm too stuck in my habits.

good luck I hope you sleep soon. Insomnia destroys your life and its really hard to get people to understand.

hopefully something in this ramble is helpful!

hey if any of yall who have insomnia feel comfy sharing, what do you do/take for it?

i'm so tired i'm so goddamn tired, i can't hack this anymore

reference level: these days i don't get any sleep at all like 3 days of the week, and the sleep i do get on the other days are terrible at best. you name it i got it - trouble getting to sleep, trouble staying asleep, trouble going in and out of sleep, trouble feeling rested/energized at all ... i'm fully unable to take naps at all like

i'm desperate here

[theforgottenfreefaller]

Rants and Thoughts

I dislike that I can't be all the things I want to be. That I'm not the me that I want to be. That there is not true definition of me. What am I? Because I'm reality I change so much so quickly, but never to what I want to be. I've always found it hard to connect to people. I like to think I have gotten better over time. You know how some people know how to make others feel better and know how to listen and hug? Well that has never been me. I guess Eden was right, I'm a busybody. I want to fix everything and yes I realize now there are things I can't fix and sometimes people don't want the thing to get fixed. I don't want to be big or famous or even change the world. I would much rather be the most important person to someone or someone that another trusts so completely that they tell me everything. That I can be there for others as they are for me. Yet somehow I can't be or I'm not. I think I make everything about me. Flipping pancakes, this whole message is about me. Mostly, this is because if I don't write it down and send it the thoughts will spin in my head for hours and never leave and they will build and build. The same holds true for my anger. Sometimes I self harm to let the anger out, I would rather hurt me than others, but at the same time the act hurts others more than me, so I try not to for others, but then I become selfish and I can't handle it anymore and I slip up. For ages I was numb and it was better to feel pain than to feel nothing.

Another rant that you don't have to read.

Medication. Drugs. A drug is anything besides food that when it enters the body changes the way the body works. At least that was the definition we learned in high school. It is a pretty holey definition. Anyway, I understand that mental illness like physical illness sometimes need outside help, but my problem is that these drugs are supposed to make me me, but they make me me by changing me. Who is the real me? But also it seems wrong to use drugs to get to the real me. Drugs mess with my head, besides the physical side affects they have other ones obliviously. Antidepressants are neigh impossible to overdose on. I've been on Zoloft, Lexapro, Duloxetine, Remeron/Mirtzapine, Propranalol, Ability, and the two that I forget. I started because my GP asked basically was it worth trying medication to no longer feel this way. This was in February, I think. At the time anything was better than feeling this was, but in a lot of ways I have gotten worse. It is hard to know how much of that is drugs and how much is me. I'm not really me anymore with the drugs that are trying to make me me because they are not me. I don't want to be on drugs. I'm not ashamed but I don't like the idea of something messing with my brain. If someone asked me if I wanted Electroshock therapy I would say yes. So I don't know. I'm lost. I think I could done Uni if my drugs hadn't changed but they made it so I couldn't focus at all. Now I'm it sure I want to go back. I've decided to try to become flight attendant. It seems like it would be cool and more fulfilling than Thrive, but it is low pressure. So I need to get my First Aid certificate and all that. That way I'm still learning and such but hopefully less pressure.

[living-like-anime]

I'm pulling on life strings.

I woke up this morning and remembered everything again. I spent time to myself listening to him snore so peacefully, and talking to him (read: myself) about how I wanted to fight for him... How I know it's all over and there's no more fight in him. I started crying once my alarm went off and hour later. I had woken up early again. I was desperate, grieving,I took two melatonin 5mg along with my remeron just to sleep through the night and I woke up early again... Even though I told my doctor I'll be safe, I don't need to go to the hospital... All the thinking in the world couldn't come up with a plan for what I'd do after work today. And with a heavy heart and crave for affection... I unblocked my mom.

Some of you don't know. My mom and I had extreme ups and downs, which I'm not going to explain cuz I don't want to think about it right now. All that matters is that I told her the truth. I told her how sad I was, how scared I am, how hopeless I feel. And she texted back "where are you?" She's coming to get me. She's coming to hold me and remind why I have to live. I'm crying but this time I'm happy. I'm happy I have someone to rely on. I hope we can repair what I've broken and watch Crazy Ex-Girlfriend together.

I hate being reliant on others but holy crap am I useless! I still don't know how to deal with my emotions and through all this pain all these urges to end it all, I'm quite amazed I'm still here fighting. I want my mommy...I want my mommy so much...

My boyfriend of 3 years and ten months broke up with me.

After all this time, he finally ended it. I know I’ve been a handful and everything but helpful, but I really truly loved him. And it’s gonna take a lot out of me to get over this. I just hope I don’t do anything drastic before that time comes. He’s helped me so much, from caring for me all the way to pulling me away from my death. He made me feel real and I made him feel like shit. I’m such a horrible person, breaking the kindest man I know, then begging him to keep me. I wish I could tell him I’m so fucking sorry for everything I’ve done and I’m really trying to make up for it, but it’s too late… It’s too late to apologise… He still cares about me, but not in the same way anymore… And it hurts…