Right before I was diagnosed with depression and an anxiety disorder, I was hardly ever sleeping. I had the typical early waking that many people with depression experience. This lack of sleep is a bit different. I am just not sleeping more than a couple of hours at a time when I do sleep, and I got at least three nights during the week without getting any sleep at all. I am starting to think that it is the Effexor causing it. That can be one of the side effects. When I mentioned my lack of sleep to my psychiatrist he told me to take extra of my anti-anxiety medication, vistaril, since it is nonaddictive and makes you sleepy. It is not having the desired results. I do not want to stop taking the Effexor, since it seems to be working for the depression. The next time I see my psychiatrist, I will tell him that I am still not sleeping and get him to prescribe something to help me sleep. He said he would if the extra vistaril did not work.
Part of me really enjoys being the only one awake at night, part of me does wish I could sleep a little more. Before I started getting help with my depression most of my time at night was spent crying for hours, researching how to kill myself, and trying to decide if that night was the night to go through with it. Now, I spend it enjoying the quiet alone time, watching what I want on TV, spending time with my dogs, reading, and just generally enjoying myself. Hey! I just now realized that I have not had any suicidal or self destructive thoughts in several weeks. That is wonderful! I had not even been aware that I had not had those thoughts until I started recalling how I used to spend my nights.
That is exactly how my counselor said it would happen too. She said I would just quit having those thoughts, and would not really notice until sometime later. Even when I was taking the other medications and they seemed to be working, I still had almost daily suicidal thoughts, I was just not as obsessed with them as I had been before treatment. I feel like I have reached a huge milestone in my recovery. No suicidal thoughts for about three weeks. I never really believed that there would come a time when I would go so long without wanting to kill myself.
My dogs are my constant night time companions. Well, they sort of are. They tend to fall asleep too. Buster is my boxer, and Minnie is my chihuahua/shitzu mix. Minnie is younger and smaller but she is the dog that is in charge. This is what the dogs are doing now, while I am still awake and blogging.
