Anti-depressants for insomnia and grr psychiatrists!!

[disconnected]

Has anyone ever been prescribed anti-depressants for insomnia? I swear today I met the worst psychiatrist I've ever met in my whole life. I was once prescribed anti-depressants in the past, Amitriptyline to be exact. Granted this was perhaps 2003/2004 and just over a year ago my GP wouldn't prescribe the same drug as apparently it's a very outdated med with more bad effects than good. Anyway, my point is this. While I was on those I slept! I am just not sleeping now, and when I do it's for 20 mins at a time. Throw in booze to HELP me sleep and a handful of suicide attempts as a result of a mixture of things but not helped by drink. Already spoken with social worker about the fact if I can sleep I would be drinking less. So today in a meeting with a pysch, he asked me what I thought would be helpful. Not just in terms of sleep, in terms of everything. All I said was, I just want to get some sleep. I mentioned I was once on anti-depressants that helped me sleep. Bottom line.... he won't prescribe anything. He thinks I'm not sleeping simply because I'm not eating enough, and if I "just eat" instead of going to bed hungry then I will sleep. He was the most ignortant f**k I've ever met. He never introduced himself, nothing, just sat with this smirk on his face throughout. This meeting took place at my home with my case worker, and after a barrage of questions, I just got up and walked out. Told her I would just prefer they left! They didn't, so I toughed up and just went through it with him. He suggested I should be eating 3200 calories a day, and he tried to make a joke with my case worker about people hating being restricted in their diets and would love to eat whatever. To her credit she looked displeased through the entire thing. The whole thing was just so unhelpful.
But anyway. Sorry. Does anyone take antidpressants for sleep? I'm not being insane here right?

[demoralizacja]

I think he's got the point (that he don't want to prescribed anything)
and you just want the most simple way to archive what you want - sleep
you want meds (well i dont really know what you think :p)

but believe me it's not working like that
i had insomnia few years ago (not i-have-internet-access-so-i-don't-sleep one)
and i took meds, yup - they helped. but it was impossible to sleep without them
i was so depended from them, without meds i was exhausted but i couldnt sleep for days.

go run before sleep, meds arent always an answer, you should try the natural ways.
so i think your psychiatrist is right

or you just want meds (when urge for taking something for sleep is bigger than urge for sleep) - i don't know if you understand what i mean but i had something like that in 8th grade.
i wasn't really insomniac then but i remembered how it is to have insomnia and i wanted meds.
kinda stupid.


+for insomnia are hypnotic drugs (you know meds for sleep - i have no idea if i wrote it properly because i dont know how to translate it)
unless depression cause insomnia then go to psychiatric to cure depression
it's pretty obvious, isn't it?

[Belleann]

I don't know anything about you except for me knowing you have an ed. Even with that your Dr. should be more sensitive and realize you have more going on than just your ed. That's why whenever I changed Dr.s I go with the one that I feel comfortable with, after all YOU are the patient not him. With that being said (and taking my 14 years of being in therapy and seeing psyche Dr.s) I am on an anti-deppressant for sleep, Trazodone to be exact but my Dr. knows that trazodone will help you fall asleep but it won't make you stay asleep so he also prescribed ambien and I also take ativan for my anxiety. Of course I only try to take one of three for the night but my insomnia is so bad that I'm lucky if I get a good solid 2-4 hours of sleep per night.

[loletaxeni]

Some psychs can be totally a-holes and unhelpful.

I was fed anti-depressants for insomnia. The more I complained about them not working and making me feel horrible instead, the higher up they put the dosages and soon gave me multiple different brands at the same time, but nothing for my insomnia. If I tried to say that it didn't help me and made me feel bad, they would inform me that I have no right to say a word/I can't know anything about my situation since I'm depressed and on meds. They continued raising the dosages while putting me down until I didn't know who I can believe and I totally broke down. Having your brain messed up with pills, you turn someone totally else than yourself and you can do horrible things.. so be very very careful.

After I ruined my life and several suicide attempts I got so scared of myself that I stopped eating the pills cold turkey. I had 3-4 months of extremely severe withdrawal effects, it was worse than anything. The psychological and physical withdrawal effects were so horrendous. When I told doctors/psych what I had done, they went totally nuts because they lost their control over me. They accused me of things and told that I should be locked up.

I wasn't ever really that way depressed as they made me. The meds that were supposed to help me with insomnia changed me, they made me depressed, they made me completely different person. They could do anything to me as I was no longer my own master (in a way put). They would always say "you can't say/know" because I was drugged.

I'm much happier without any pills.. I beat the insomnia with loads of rest (yes, exactly.. no school, no work, minimal stress on anything) and some stress control lessons. Light exercise to kill the stress hormones in body, stretching, breathing, meditating and just being quiet and put. I was on overdrive constantly. Quieting down was the key.

If I need some help with physically sleeping, Melatonin helps me. It's natural. I did eventually in my pill hell get even sedatives to make me sleep but they didn't help with insomnia. You're knocked out for few short moments and then you wake up, drugged and groggy. You only get more tired, more on overdrive. Natural sleep is the best.

I hope you find a way to conquer your insomnia, it's one of the biggest hells in life and so very painful.

[astrophysics barbie]

I was put on Trazodone for insomnia and it caused me to have very graphic and disturbing dreams. I also learned the hard way that you absolutely cannot mix it with alcohol. Period. It took forever for my p-doc to actually listen to me and stop prescribing it.

As for sedatives, I'm really bizarre. Ambien does not make me sleepy... it makes me wired and gives me hallucinations, causing me to bounce around the room like I'm insane. One dose of children's Benadryl, however, can knock me out for 14 hours.

I tried melatonin as well and it helps me a lot without the scary drugged feeling or the awful dreams. I hope you find a way to get through this... like loletaxeni said, its one of the biggest hells in life. Good luck.

[disconnected]

Thank you for the replies. I appreciate all you've said and I'm sorry to hear of so many negative experiences.
I appreciate sedatives etc are the worst thing for someone suicidal. I pointed out however that if someone were to kill themsleves they would do it with or without sedatives.
I feel that amitriptyline did f**k me up as I was on them several years. I just learnt they were meant as temp meds.

[loletaxeni]

Sure, if someone wanted to kill themselves, they would, with or without sedatives. But in my experience, those kind of meds can change a human being.

I didn't want to kill myself before I was on meds. But the meds changed me - antidepressants totally as a person, sedatives just made me act in ways that I had no idea and I wouldn't even necessarily remember the next day. Anything seemed like a grand idea on sedatives, even thoughts like jumping off the roof.

I could have black holes in my memory. I could wake up feeling like I was dying, having heart attack, choking and crawl to kitchen only to see I had popped half of my pills down without having any memory of doing that, without having any reason of doing that, and realized I really was dying of OD. I lost control fully to the meds who played my life as they wanted.

Be very careful.. it's a very scary place.

[disconnected]

Sure, if someone wanted to kill themselves, they would, with or without sedatives. But in my experience, those kind of meds can change a human being.

I didn't want to kill myself before I was on meds. But the meds changed me - antidepressants totally as a person, sedatives just made me act in ways that I had no idea and I wouldn't even necessarily remember the next day. Anything seemed like a grand idea on sedatives, even thoughts like jumping off the roof.

I could have black holes in my memory. I could wake up feeling like I was dying, having heart attack, choking and crawl to kitchen only to see I had popped half of my pills down without having any memory of doing that, without having any reason of doing that, and realized I really was dying of OD. I lost control fully to the meds who played my life as they wanted.

Be very careful.. it's a very scary place.

I dunno man, I have those kinds of experiences in general. I'm not negating what you're saying, I fully appreciate that. I'm sorry everytime I hear that Dr's have the ability to destroy lives so easily. The first time I tried to top myself I had just been prescribed Prozac. I honestly couldn't say if that caused the attempt, though I doubt it considering the time frame. I think I'm in such a dark place right now I want no memories, I want to just vanish into the bedsheets. Almost like a Dr is giving me permission to just dissapear. It's the small child and the lollipop. Dr gave me permission to be bad. Sort of...