Afraid Of Sleep

[Lionheart]

I know I have mentioned this in other nightmare threads, but I cannot recommend the medication Prazosin enough for stopping PTSD nightmares.

It is an anti-hypertensive drug that was discovered by the Veterans Administration to work for those horrible, unrelenting ptsd nightmares.

Please ask your MD about this medication and tell them it comes with a strong recommendation from a person with severe, deeply disturbing ptsd nightmares.

Regardless of how you choose to deal with your nightmares, I hope they dissapear as mine have!!!

 

[Blondie362]

I really do dread night times, even with medication my mind seems to be so active it burns the effects off, I don't go to bed unless I am feeling very tired, there is nothing worse than lying there just thinking the same stuff over and over again.. then when you do finally drift off have horrendous dreams, I recently had such a bad nightmare I must have lashed out really badly as I shattered the bedside lamp throwing my arm out to the side. I have also attacked my partner he awoke the next morning with scratches all over his face:(

 

[maddog]

Sleeplessness and nightmares are one of the greatest and most chronic stressors for me right now, and have been for many months now. The frightening and dabilitating thing about sleep issues is that they are habit-forming and once negative patterns are developed, they are extremely difficult to break.

Currently I average between 2-3 hours sleep per night, which is almost always broken and fragmented into cycles of approximately 30-45 minutes. As others have said, somehow it helps to lessen the nightmares when I only sleep in short bursts, and my body seems to have figured this out and adjusted its patterns accordingly to try to make use of this form of defence. Unfortunately, whatever restful and restorative value that this meagre amount of sleep would otherwise have, it is sometimes totally cancelled out by how broken and erratic it is.

The nightmares are horrible, terrifying, ceaseless and often more than I feel I can tolerate. When the distress and negativity take over while I'm asleep, I am often too far gone to have much luck with grounding by the time I wake, which then perpetuates my fear of sleeping at all and drives me to take sometimes extraordinary measures to prevent any further sleep. Damned if you do, damned if you don't... and I work full time, as long as I can manage to get there, and so sleeping during the day, while somehow a little easier, isn't usually an option.

Have tried several of the key sleep medications and all without the slightest effect, or with the side effect of being so zombified the next day that I can't function.

Sometimes the despair of this problem seems too much. I am very lost as to where to go and what to do, but the daily, or rather, the nightly, torture, of this problem is what I dread perhaps more than anything else each day right now.

Maddog

 

[melody]

Man, can I empathize with all of you! I have avoided going to sleep for a long time because I'm also afraid of the nightmares, but I have found a cloud with a silver lining... I recently injured both my shoulders and I'm unable to sleep more than 15-20 minutes at a time and am not able to dream or have nightmares. I feel tired all the time, but for now it's pain keeping me up instead of fear and it's a nice change.

Hope you all have a better night tonight!

 

[Roline]

Its the early hours of the morning here, and I dont want to go to bed. I am wide and afraid of night time sleep. If I sleep in the day it is usually restful, nightmare free sleep, but not good with a family that need you!

 

[Steph4]

This is a huge problem for me. I am now on sleep meds because I got myself in the habit of avoiding sleep at all cost. Now I do sleep, but I's still having trauma related nightmares. And even on meds, the sleep is fitful so I wake up still feeling exhausted.
Steph