medication - lost in transit

Medication seems to be slightly unpredictable for us.
especially benzos and sleeping meds and painkillers often don't work at all.
we are not sure if
a) hypervigilance is so strong it cancles it out
b) some alters might be influenced, but not the front people
c) we have been made immune by abusers
our experience with alcohol was that some insiders were poisoned while the front person didnt show any signs of alcohol use at all and would have continued drinking if they didnt get bored with not getting an effect.

our T insists that the person fronting should be the one who experiences an effect and that it is a known problem that with a switch sometimes the effects disappear. she says sleeping meds dont work because the part with the severe sleeping problems would have to front and take them. we never figured out how to do this though.

is there anyone else here with rather unpredictable effects from meds and chemicals somehow getting lost in the system?
can someone add more understanding?
we would really really need antidepressants to work

Radically different effects of drugs and alcohol among alters are a pretty well-known side effect of DID. For me that's solid evidence of the underlying physicality of DID.

For years, prescribed or OTC sleeping medication made us wired, what doctors told me was a paradoxical effect. The worst night of this was during a stay in a hospital mental ward for depression. I'm pretty sure hypervigilance was a factor, since I now know of abuse that was involved with sleep or sleep time, and alters who came because of that. They all erratically affected our ability to sleep. When we couldn't sleep, it was more awful because we knew there were few alternatives.

Our overall triggerability regarding the nighttime is much less nowadays. We've done some internal talking, which was much more effective once we realized who was here and what they were scared of.

On the opposite end we have recently discovered several alters who front most evenings. Their too frequent habit has been to stay up late. We've ended up not getting enough sleep, but they've never had to pay for that the next morning, it was others. Now we know who's here for that, we're reasoning with them and it's working.

Before we knew of these guys, we asked a shrink for any medication which might help us fall asleep and he prescribed zolpidem. It worked pretty well but not consistently, and we learned we weren't following the directions. Once you take it, you need to lie down immediately and try to fall asleep. When we must now, we take it and it works. Even half of these tiny pills work for us.

Of all the remedies, finding out who's here with issues regarding sleep, then helping them, was the most powerful. We asked inside or guessed at what would make them feel more safe, such as locking our bedroom door.

Even with the broad variety of random abuse from the parents, I couldn't have imagined the other weird specific abuse that led to at least four of us who had anxiety regarding going to sleep or waking up. Looking back, it's surprising we ever managed a good night's sleep in adulthood.

Maybe your alter(s) wouldn't have to front unless your dissociative walls are still very high. Would it be possible to invite the alter(s) with the sleeping issues to come near the front before taking the medication? Even focusing on someone I think is the one with the anxiety or focusing on an unknown but (hopefully) existent alter who's anxious can help our system calm down.

Inviting a relatively calm little out and encouraging them to cuddle with their favorites stuffed animals helped generate sleep from a different angle. I've used this with my adopted son. When it's late and his older alters are wired or anxious, I'll cuddle with and read a bedtime story to one of the littles, who always get sleepier faster anyway.

Not much advice for antidepressants, which have had limited effect on our mood. Years ago we took Prozac briefly and far from making us wired as is common, it guaranteed we would fall asleep within 20 minutes of taking a pill, a known if less common effect. It doesn't have this effect in recent years at all.

we've basically given up on meds for sleep.
but if we could create a stable effect for antidepressants, that would be useful.
I have no idea if we can influence that at all