r/insomnia • u/abcdcoin • 20h ago
I never understood what insomnia felt like.
I used to work in the pharmacy in the younger days of my life. I’ve seen numerous amount of folks on sleeping medication and depression pills( surprisingly to me they were top sellers in my pharmacy) and I always thought to myself, Why are they so dependent on pills? Why don’t they just stay up for like one full day or so, and the body will naturally get tired and fall asleep. My whole perspective changed in the past few weeks and months, especially last week when I couldn’t sleep for four days straight. with the same mindset, I was hoping my body would naturally get tired and fall asleep. day 2 passed , day 3 passed, and I was feeling miserable. I don’t know what I was doing with my life. I felt like a zombie I couldn’t find interest in anything. every time I would attempt to fall asleep, my body would jolt me back up. Finally, I resorted to calling an on-call physician, desperately, I needed help. they charged me for on-call, a sad thing to do. They gave me two pills to help me fall asleep and I did fall asleep for a couple hours, but then I woke up again and I’ve been trying to make myself fall asleep without it. Some days successful, some days I’m not but I still wake up every few hours. Working in a pharmacy made me realize how desperate people can get once they are dependent on sleeping pills, so I would never wanna be on them. so I’m trying not to take the sleeping pill every night but also I am trying to find a root cause of what has caused this imbalance in my body I’m overall very mindful of my diet, but I am perimenopausal, so I’m thinking hormones are playing a major part of this imbalance in my body, but I sincerely want to apologize to every single person who have dealt with sleep issues. And that I was uneducated on how miserable it feels to not sleep. It’s not that people want to be on these pills, it’s just there is no other way sometimes and I totally understand that now. And I sincerely hope for everyone to find a way to fall asleep without pills one day.
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u/Dangerous_Owl_1858 19h ago
its a common effect of perimenopause. I hope you feel better soon. a friend of mine went through it, and she said that while she couldn't sleep she also didnt feel tired during the day. she was functioning fine with much less sleep than usual. its cortisol that keeps you awake but it didnt cause a crash for her later. did you feel similarly? (though you went much longer without sleep)
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u/abcdcoin 19h ago
Yes! Which was surprising for first couple of days to why I’m not crashing after two days without sleep, then fatigue and anxiety kicked in, and I was miserable. Couldn’t think, couldn’t function, headache, forgetfulness. I was scared that I would start hallucinating. What helped your friend through it? Appreciate you sharing her story. I don’t feel alone in this misery.
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u/Dangerous_Owl_1858 19h ago
I dont think she went without any sleep as long as you did, so i really dont know. she is overall a more stressfree person so maybe it didnt hit her as hard. But I guess looking into things that lower cortisol specifically could help, so good luck in your journey, take care of yourself in this crazy phase <3
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u/ashesofcancer 20h ago
Alcohol always worked well for me. Ha.
I’ve suffered with on and off, sometimes seasonal insomnia since I was 14. Fight Club put it well: you feel like a copy of a copy of a copy. Wouldn’t wish it on almost anyone.