The roads I've walked to find an answer

The Doctors I've Seen , medications I've taken and Tests I've Endured In The Hope of Finding Help:

- a natural energy healer

- a clinical psychologist

- an international sleep specialist

- a 24 hour poly sonogram done by the sleep specialist

- thyroid function testing done by my GP

- melatonin

- 4 different anti-depressants

- anti psychotics

- benzodiazepines

- reiki

- an EEG

- an MRI

- full blood count

- hypnotherapist

- homeopath

- sleeping pills eg stilnox

- dietician

- sleep specialist in Durban

- weekly councelling with a social worker for 8 months

- 3 weeks in one of the countries best psychiatric clinics

- dream interpreter

- TRE practitioner who I saw for 6 private sessions

- TRE practitioner also did an energy clearing

- psychiatrist

- neurologist

- 24 hour EEG with video monitoring done by the neurologist

- ER specialist after I ended up in casualty with a twitch in my arm that wouldn't stop 

The Voice Recordings

As mentioned in my previous post I have needed to start taking sleeping pills some nights.  One of the main 'symptoms' of taking a sleeping pill is that you don't remember much the next morning of what you did after you took the pill.  This morning I was eating breakfast and playing around on my phone when I came across some voice recordings which I had made for the past few nights.  They were all done more than an hour after taking my sleeping pill and were extremely distressing to listen to.  I was crying in most of them, wondering why I still couldn't fall asleep, or some of them saying I was totally exhausted, but still trying to fight the sleep off.  I've started reading a book on Lucid Dreaming and one of the mean things I need to do to try and achieve lucidity in my dreams is keep a dream journal.  I decided to do voice recorded ones as it is easier and I found these recordings amoungst the dream ones. 

My friend Benzo

I haven't written in almost a month because I wasn't sure if I wanted to put the last month's events out there on the internet.  But in the name of keeping this blog real, up to date and using it to try and get awareness of this problem out there and hopefully find somebody out there who can help me, I will update.

After I saw the neurologist, he prescribed me 3 Urbanol a day.  Urbanol is a benzodiazepine, a rather addictive psychiatric medication.  I realized quite quickly that they weren't working but continued to fill my prescription 'just in case.'  I didn't see the harm as I was prescribed this medication anyway.  About two months ago, I reached a complete and total breaking point.  Spending every night - the two to three hours before bed - going bezerk in my house, crying, screaming with frustration, fighting sleep to the death - this was no longer an option.  I can't go through that every night of my life, then wake up and go to work as if nothing is going on, then from lunch time already be filled with dread about the impending freak out followed by night of demons coming to visit.  Waking up and throwing up, sometimes for up to two hours, was no longer an option.  So, I started taking benzodiazapines - or benzos.  Since I have quite a collection of medication built up from about a year of psychiatric treatment, I just took whatever I felt like every night.  I have never taken a dangerous amount, just enough to zone me out so that I don't have the energy to have a freak out and therefore just go to bed because I'm exhausted.  It doesn't stop the nightmares, but it stops the pre-bed freak out, which in itself is often way worse than the actual nightmares.  I have also taken sleeping pills some nights, but since I sometimes get 2am calls from work and the Stilnox makes me completely switched off, this isn't really something I want to take as I need to be able to get up in the night if the need arises, so it just stresses me out more to take them.

I know that this is not a sustainable or healthy option but right now it really is the only way I can operate.  I know that it isn't in my best interests long term but I'm sick of trying to deal with this long term.  My parents think I may have a thing called Gut - Psychology syndrome where poor gut health causes psychological problems.  I am trying my best to change my eating habits, get to the gym more frequently and have started taking daily pro-biotics.  However that's not going to help me TONIGHT.  Tonight, I want to sleep and not freak out.  It does worry me that I will develop a dependency problem on these pills, in fact I probably already have one, but I see it this way - of all the problems this nightmare disorder could have caused, this is pretty mild. 

I am taking steps to try find more solutions to this problem (although there are very few steps left to take).  I am going to see an endocrinologist in September as I want to check if I have any hormone imbalances.  I have started trying to meditate every evening, even though I find it very difficult and often get emotional.  The meditation has also led me to develop an interest in Buddhism so I am spending time reading up on it.  This disorder has caused me to majorly stray from Christianity, the religion which I was brought up in, as I don't see a God of love doing this to his creation.  Whilst I don't think I'll ever become a full blown Buddhist as I can't see myself committing to some of their core beliefs for example re-incarnation (once is more than enough for me!) a lot of their teachings are useful, calming and could have a positive impact on my life.  I am also going to where I call home - London - for a month at the end of July.  This is where I am just purely, blissfully happy and I am hoping that this trip helps a lot with this problem.  I'm hoping that I won't need any sleeping medication whilst I am there and that will help the problem a lot when I get back.

So that's where I am right now.  I'm still not even feeling sure about writing this post but this is my life and if someone out there has the same problem as me - I want to keep this blog as much of a realistic reflection of my life as possible. 

The end of life

In the midst of all this disaster with my sleeping, I have lost my way religiously completely. One thing that scares me is death though, because what if I "pick" the wrong religion and then I burn in the fires of hell? Well, last night I was with some friends, 2 kids I used to au pair and one of my housemates. We were all chosen to be shoved into a room because it was time to end all of our lives. I became petrified because I didn't know what was going to happen when I died, because I hadn't "chosen" a religion. I began praying frantically, then doubting that that was what I needed to do. At this point in the dream I  remembered that I have nightmare disorder and started wishing that this was a nightmare and that I wasn't really dying. Little did I know I was but people around my that I knew and loved started laughing because they all knew where they were "going" because they had their religious beliefs. 

Woken up at 07h05 after taking a sleeping pill and too scared to go back to sleep. Feel sick to my stomach as usual.

The stadium

I had a friend who worked in the Cape Town stadium and I was good friends with her partner so we decided to to eat dinner up on a hill and then wait for her partner to finish work and come and join us. As it approached the last 5 minutes of her partners shift and we knew she would still be in the stadium, suddenly the whole stadium lit up, incredibly loud music started playing and the whole stadium started bouncing around the city of Cape Town, it was just bouncing and twirling like a ball and me knew she was in there and there was no way she could be surviving this.  An eerie quiet came over the city and we knew that everyone in that stadium was dead.

Not coping.

I can honestly say that I am just not coping at the moment with all this and I just don't know what to do about it.  I mean, I'm not coping, I'm exhausted, I'm constantly crying, but there isn't anything that I can do about it.  I can't just decide that I'm not coping.   I have to just get on with it.  I don't have any other options to go to except when I reach the nights where I really can't do it anymore and I just swallow a couple of benzodiazepines and pass out so I don't deal with the nightly 3 hours of crying and thrashing around my room.  I know this isn't healthy and it just compounds the problem in the end but some nights I just can't face the craziness and need a night off of it.

It didn't last very long

It didn't last very long and I knew it wouldn't. After a welcome break of a few nights I was thrown back into a dream where I was running away from a fire as I could feel my skin melting away. It was extremely hot and I felt this heat clearly in the dream. 

A good week

So I've had my first good week in ages. It's so strange though when I have a good night I'm too scared to get excited about it because it never lasts. So to have four good nights in a row I don't really know what to do with myself.  One thing I have noticed is that I'm so happy during the day, I'm excited to get to work in the morning and put my ideas into practice, I'm excited to see my staff. I'm productive, I'm happy, I want to do things in the evenings. But at the same time it makes me sad because I know it won't last and I just see how much I can do and how happy I can be when I actually sleep that that then in turn makes me really really sad that it can't be my normal reality. My staff and friends noticed the change in me and I want to be like that everyday but most other days it's just a mask and it's so so hard to keep that mask on all day, I'm often not successful. Even my suicidal thoughts have completely disappeared. I don't want to jinx anything but it's 2am and I'm about to head to bed and just really hoping the universe gives me just a few more good nights. It's so wierd going to bed and not being petrified, just literally a case of okay I'm tired now therefore I'm going to bed. Is this how everyone else lives? Oh if only!!

Death again

Last night I dreamed that a friend of mine who has a baby had to die by death penalty for something she didn't do. That in itself was bad enough. But then her little 3 year old child had to hold the lethal gas mask over her face. We both watched her die there. Then, I was left with the child and all of a sudden arrested myself with the child. I'll stop there. Too horrific. Woke up this morning throwing up and have now been awake for almost 2 hours but still wanting to run to the bathroom everytime I think of it. I'm seriously done. 

Hello Mozart

Well I never ever thought id find a use for classical music, but here I am giving yet another thing a try....I downloaded a wack of his music and have spent the last 2 hours in bed trying to relax and fall asleep to it. No not working. 1am. The mind gets a bit cray cray....meh. How long can I avoid sleep for tonight I wonder