Insomnia is DRIVING ME CRAZY!

So I have had insomnia for years. Since I got my medical cut off, I have to buy a bunch of over the counter sleep aids. I take a SLEEP MD every night and two sleeping pills such as Midol pm, Tylenol pm or so on, used to even take more then that. After one night I become immune to it pretty much, when I take sleeping pills I get very irritated, bi-polar and a lot of my anger issues come out because I am so sleep deprived. I have a mild form of schizophrenia so I have times where I hallucinate or become paranoid. A lot of my past, (physical and sexual assault) has happened to me in my sleep, I have no doubt that this is the reason I am the way I am especially when it comes to trying to sleep. I often get jumpy, I'm scared of the dark but can't sleep unless it's pitch black, my boyfriend has to stay on the phone with me and when I do sleep I often have night terrors. I have tried exercises and breathing routines to help me sleep, still no luck. I have been working out, eating healthy, quit smoking, watch TV or read a book before bed, I'm all out of ideas. Do you have any?

Hey,

I appreciate that you have already tried many things to improve the problem. When such attemptes have apparently been 'exhausted', the only thign left is to completely change the situation. In this case, it could be by moving your bed into a different room to take it out of the familiar surroundings that ecist in the room where it usually is. I do'nt know if this is a possibility to carry out or not. In the long term, I think that getting off the sleeping meds (slowly...) is an idea that you should try to achieve. I don't know the logn term effects of such meds, but I never had a good experience with sleeping tablets. I just took one pill and had muscle cramps and cold sweats all night, and then the following night too when my body had to go through the withdrawal due to not having taken one.

Kevin

I have been off sleeping meds for 3 days now, I had a friend this week attempt suicide from over dosing on sleeping pills, so It's kind of traumatizing to me still, and I'm worried my body will give out. I get cranky and irritable when I take them, and my legs cramp ALL night. I live in a crappy house with a crappy roommate, thin walls..I'm sure I would have better chances sleeping when I am able to move out of here. I can only keep my bed in one room, but I re-arrange a lot, work out all the time, I live in Las Vegas I walked the whole strip last night like 8 times until 3:30 in the morning, felt tired in the car, body was sore, got home, I was wide awake. -_-

agree with Kevin on the move to a different place, i've used that one a lot for insomnia, the root of mine was just "safer to be awake at night than during the day" and i think fighting positive motivations can be easier than negatives (and if i can't sleep at night would tend to crash out during the day, which i found pretty annoying but is not as bad as no sleep.) - but at times ive taken it to extremes, slept in the lounge on the sofa, in the car, in the kitchen, etc. not moving the bed, just cushions, but if lack of sleep is really pushing you too far (and insomnia on its own can cause hallucinations in people, you don't need schizophrenia for that, REM sleep begins to kick in when you're awake because the mind needs it.) drastic measures can sometimes be the right thing to do to preserve your health in the short term - without your mental health, its really hard to make a recovery, so this is very important.

in the long term working through the abuse issues is the real answer, but this is hard going and takes a lot out of you, and itsn't something you can safely do when you're being driven to hallucinating by lack of sleep. first thing - stable enough for therapy to help. is it possible for you to sleep on a friend's sofa or anything like that if getting out of where you're living is important?