Sleep Patterns

Am I, at 64, never going to sleep through the night again? I wonder. And how do I handle these nights of interrupted sleep?

As I am now off of the 3 psych meds for nearly 6 months with the only medication I take being trazodone, as needed, to help with sleep on occasion, I am feeling that since I am off of everything else I don’t want to take the trazodone either, but after a run of bad nights, feeling teary and exhausted and trying for hours to go to sleep, it can be a relief to have a little help. The thing is that the trazodone can help me go to sleep far more quickly but it doesn’t always help me stay asleep, and if, as is usually the case, I have to get up at some point to go to the bathroom, it can be very hard to go back to sleep. And then I don’t want to get reliant on taking medication to get to sleep. But it can be excruciating trying desperately to go to sleep for hours. What to do?

And then sometimes it doesn’t seem to make much difference. The night before last, after struggling to get to sleep again for a few nights, I took the trazodone. I fell asleep fairly quickly but not much more than an hour later I had to get up to go to the bathroom. It took me quite awhile to get back to sleep. I finally did but I woke up again at 5:30. While I did finally doze again between about 6 and 8:30 I did not really go into a deep sleep and when I finally got up I was tired and anxious, and relieved to just get up and have the night behind me. Last night I didn’t take anything, it took me awhile to go to sleep but I slept until 6:00, from about 1 or 1:30. Again from 6 to 8:30 I never really went back to sleep. I perhaps dozed a little, I think I actually prayed rather desperately for some help with sleep, but when it never came I was up again about 8:30.

I was very anxious this morning. Those early morning fitful hours seem to lead to a kind of anxiety it is hard to shake once up. This is not the extreme anxiety I suffered with for so long that was nearly unmanageable but it is not comfortable. And I wonder about that too. Despite the fact that I am worlds better than I was a year ago, and that I believe that I am managing well without medication as does my therapist and the P.A. who manages my meds, I don’t wake up with a zest for the day, but more often with a bit of anxiety coloring the morning hours, and on harder days anxiety mixed with a kind of fear. It is as though no matter how hard I try, and it was even worse when I was on medication, I just seem never to be completely comfortable in my own skin. Does sleep play a part in this? I don’t know.

And I think one never feels as alone as they do awake in the middle of the night. If you are awake at 3 a.m. in the black of night the stillness can be deafening. And though we are told absolutely not to get on our phones or any other kind of technological device I can’t tell you just how many nights doing just this has saved me. When I have been awake, and afraid, almost, on a really bad night, panic stricken, to pick up my phone and peruse Facebook say — not write anything or answer anyone, just kind of scan it — I feel less cut off from the rest of the world and alone. Many has been the night that just scanning Facebook for 10 or 15 minutes has switched something in my brain, fear subsides, my mind is diverted, and I have put the phone down and gone right back to sleep. And I have been interested to see a number of other friends on Facebook in the middle of the night, mostly women in my age group. And that makes me wonder something else.

I had a talk with a dear friend this morning. We have long shared our mental health struggles, and difficulty with sleep. But as I told her I have talked to more and more women who don’t struggle with mental health issues — of course everyone has their trials but I mean real diagnosed mental health conditions — and yet quite a number of them have problems sleeping. More than a couple have even said when they wake up at 3 and can’t go back to sleep at night they just get up and are often up for the day. Lordy. So what I’m wondering, or trying to figure out, is how much of this just has to do with age? When you have spent a lifetime struggling with mental health issues you tend to blame everything that goes wrong on them, but could this be, at least in part, simply due to age?

I have also tried all manner of natural sleep aids that simply didn’t help. All kinds of herbal formulas, melatonin, my son and daughter-in-law even gave me a little bottle of “hemp oil” for my birthday! It did nothing for me, nothing. And having some kind of herbal tea before bed is out of the question because if I don’t curtail liquids as the evening goes on I will be up several times at night to go to the bathroom. Tea before bed just isn’t a solution for me.

I would really, really love to hear from those of you who deal with sleep difficulties and have found solutions. What do you do that works? And if you haven’t found a solution to help you sleep can you please tell me how you handle the wakeful hours in the middle of the night? I’m serious, I really hope you will take time to write to me in the comments below about this. Your response could help others who write in too.

There has got to be a solution. I’m not sure what it is but I am searching for one and I’d appreciate your help.