I suffer with very regular nightmares, and generally am terrified of the night. I don't take any drugs for it, the one drug I did try made no difference other than make me more tired. I'm afraid I don't have any magical answers, I am still looking for those myself... :( If you find it, be sure to let me know !

But I hope it at least gets a little better for you, because I know how stinking crap it is. Good luck.

Lisa.

I suffer from continual flash backs at night from the time that I served with the British Army in Bosnia, between 1992 and 93. The atrocities that I saw there were unbelievable.
Scott

At the hospital recently, my niece Evie's psychiatrist said that the only long term solution to ridding herself of nightmares was to heal from her trauma. Believe this has been covered elsewhere on the forum as well. Some medications might give relief in the short term, but they are a bandaid solution at best.

Jim.

Benadryl will work for a short sleep for me, but not to keep me under for a real sleep.

I can be physically and mentally exausted and lay there for hours, it is like my brain forgot how to hit the off switch.

I think Jim summed it up best.

Hi Portabella..

I had night terrors, insomnia, nightmares, insomnia for ages. They are normal. Accept it as part of a process and try to learn that they mean your body and mind are trying to purge themselves of what they no longer want. Diazepam is not the answer, you are and will be. You may find tricyclic medication aids your sleep without as much of an addiction factor as Diazepam. Otherwise herbal Nytol, you can google for it and its contents if you are not in the UK.

In the meantime try to learn to get up have a drink of some herbal tea or something similar with the lights on...focus on something else...then try to go back to bed. The process you are going through is normal. Accept it as that.

It's part of letting go. However hard it seems at the time.

BR Mark

This happened to me just this past Sat. nt. Far from the first time, but my latest exp.

I was on a therapuetic retreat and it was the end of an EXHAUSTING day. I had done a huge piece of emot. release work, and was very exhausted.

I climbed into bed and with a bit of a struggle fell asleep. I struggled chiefly bc of a constant disruptive cough. THEN ......abruptly I woke up and could feel and hear nothing but my heart pounding and poundinv very hard on the bed. I had been lying on my stomach. I lay there and couldn't believe how I could actually hear it and everything, and I hadn't had a bad dream.

That night after 4hrs. laying there, moving from the bed to the couch, to another couch and all while remaining in a indescribeable Terror of a prescence in that room, that I simply knew was not there, but felt and was on constant alarm with, I had to get up and drive home. I took a shower, did an all nighter' and returned to the retreat ctr. at 6AM.

While I layed on the couch, trying so hard to doze again. And, once I even succeeded but the same thing happened again. I felt completely alone and started believing I was trapped and helpless to help myself. Wasn't sure whether to go this way to a hospital and get an emerg. nebulizer (something I don't even use), or that way to that hosp. and have myself admitted. How I was feeling was excasperated too by a person, with PTSD, in an adjoining room who was clearly having all his wonderful PTSD, night-time symptoms while he slept.

The whole experience sucked! Yes Portabella, I'm with you in complete agreement that It Sucks! Despite everything, I did suffer, cope and responsibly get through it and it passed, but damn' you're right there nothing worse than having our mind and body react to a threatening prescence that's not even there, ........It left me really thinking, the only way through this is through hospitalization.

Also, yes I've had all sorts of sleeping problems throughout my life. They've taken on various forms and shapes, and for a period of time they greatly improved only to start up again. I find them most frustrating. Before, I had been prescribed a PRN medicine which really works for me, I couldn't do anything, to straighten it all out. I reserve having to take this medicine, for my most needy or severe times of need. Sleep disturbance was my middle name and once very debilitating for me, nearly trapping and ruining my hope and life.

Portabella, what you talked about may seem like a life sentence and that it will never get better, but it does. I don't think I'd be functioning, maybe even alive today, if it hadn't for me, bc I have lived it and know just how severe it gets and can stay, night after night....and I now chiefly live with great relief from it all now.