Sleeping in Peace

I know that I have written about this before but I have been struggling for over a year now with a sleep disorder. I guess it's a disorder, I do know that it's a problem that nearly drove me insane. I accept that it's stress related and therein lies the long term solution but, it's easier said than done when one is already stressed. Being stressed about being stressed isn't a good thing.

Anyway, I've been popping prescription pills like clockwork every night for a year. In the back of my mind I have been stressing (there's a change) that the doctor is suddenly going to stopping writing them for me. Or that I might have to travel somewhere over night and forget to take the pills with me. I have tried a few times to wean myself off, but it's a pretty scarey experience. I am pretty sure that I had become totally addicted to them. This year, before we broke for summer vacation time, I decided to give natural medicine alternatives a try. When I say natural, it's still from the pharmacy. Just prescription free. Kind of a Plan B, but really the only Plan B that I have right now. I've been taking these new tablets in combination with a reduced amount of my prescription meds. Yeah, I know, the perils of self-medication and all that. But I have been able to cut back to half of the previous dose prescription tablets without noticing any big negative effects. I have felt a little more washed out in the mornings, slightly doped, but it clears up rather quickly. I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't be selling medication over the counter in Sweden if they had any significant addictive properties.

 

I have been waiting for the right time to try a night purely with the natural medication. I would rather do that alone in case it all goes wrong and I have another one of the horrendeous "cold turkey" non-sleep nights. Not fun for anyone in the neighbourhood of me. Anyway, last night I thought I would give it a try and, while it wasn't a 100% roaring success, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I slept ok until about 1am, I think. It's actually a bit difficult at times to be sure if I am asleep or not, as often my dreams mirror a kind of semi-awake state. You become your own worst enemy when you start dreaming about not being able to sleep. I do know that I woke at about 3am, again at 4am, and again at 6am. That sounds really messy, and it is. But it was better than previous attempts when I would get maybe 2 hours sleep tops, and have some pretty bad images rolling around in my head together with chronic sweat attacks. I would typically have to take a couple of days from work just to recover from the stress of that one night. Didn't happen this time and I think that I have enough energy to try it a second time. That's a major improvement. This will be the first time that I have tried two nights in a row since I started on my prescription meds. I'm expecting more of the same but I think that I can ride it out for a few days at least. We'll see.