The only thing I enjoy these days is the feeling of sleepiness. It's the only time my mind is not bouncing around and thus I do not feel the pain. I take sleeping pills during the day -even after just waking up - so that I can constantly feel tired. If I am not tired I am thinking. And if I am thinking I suffer.
Very painful way to live. Addiction to sleep - generally, you are being buried alive. Time is money, each day is a gift. To feel kicked or in so much pain that you need to abuse sleeping pills and sleep your life away sucks. Being forced to "go to your room and get in your bed" isn't health. It's agony. I have done the same and must relate. I was horrified the first time that I put sleeping pills in my mouth years after "coming off of them" and "sleeping all day to get thru the pain". It felt like eating poison and burning. I remembered those horrible long nights sitting in my dumpy apartment listening to my head beat on me to respect my father. Reaching for that OTC blue pill - finding that at 4AM I'd eaten over 20-30. Horrible hangovers. Bottles of Zzzquil (totally uncool) that I left on the sidewalk next to a sleeping bag running from a scary, foreign situation. Please take my suggestion.... as someone who is still trying to get off of alcohol and sedative-type products, take this: passion flower extract is very fast acting, non-addictive and knocks me out. Additionally, lemon balm tea is calming and helps me to rest. I'm trying to get off of melatonin now. I just binged again and I've binged and slept for up to 2 weeks straight incapable of dealing with anything. I thought I'd NEVER do it again. It is a very dangerous place to end up. I'm considering moving out of my apartment and finding a shelter where they FORCE me to get out of bed in the morning simply because I don't deserve this treatment. It's abusing me.
Please, insomniacs and SUICIDAL people: TRY THE FOLLOWING, they REALLY DO WORK. My sleeplesness and self-harm escalate and become an addictive, vicious cycle. I've considered leaving my own apartment to go to a shelter where someone doesn't LET ME drink my problems away and self-medicate. Naturopath doctors have helped me a lot. I am a fiend for natural remedies. These have helped me a lot:
1. Melatonin (can become somewhat addictive)
2. Lemon Balm (soothing as a tea with some honey, agave, rice milk)
3. Oil diffuser (mister) - Lavendar
4. Passion Flower extract (30 drops)
5. Calcium / magnesium supplements
6. sitting with your legs up against the wall, lying on your back in an "L" shape. In addition to treating my edema, it has put me to sleep.
I have many, many night terror issues and have dragged my own sleeping bag outside to the concrete (in downtown Seattle) lugging a bottle of wine with me afraid of being left alone in my house throwing up sleeping pills feeling shamed - living re-living, nightmares that never go away. I have felt safer there than at home vomiting fistfuls of pills. No fun. Very dangerous.
i was put temporarily on trazodone (which I took 1/2 of to ensure I'd "pass out" and be up for work the next morning).
In addition to suicidal ideation, I've become an alcoholic drinker during covid-19, I've repeatedly binge drank. I am horrified at the damage done. I have begun experiencing insomnia and feel stuck in a room being battered and tormented when clearly "there's nobody there".
Exercise (going to a gym, going hiking, staying HAPPY, well fed, in good physical condition) MATTER. Though you may not look "like that your whole life" it does pay off for me. I am a highly energetic person and become self-destructive like a dog and tear up my own belongings when i'm not well exercised. one good habit leads to another. One self-destructive habit leads to yet another. i have learned this and have to seek help when I'm spiralling like I am now.
Please try these things. For an addictive, helpless personality type like my own that can't ENABLE herself at 42, the addiction to the healthy things listed above puts me in a much better place than the one I'm in AGAIN that I thought I'd never return to.
I'd rather over-do the naturopath stuff and be accused of being "underweight" or looking like a 12 year old boy who stays "in shape" than spiral into someone who sits in bed with a carbon monoxide lamp in her window that she can't seem to get lit watching Twin Peaks re-runs. Seriously. Those methods do a LOT of good for me.
