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I just can’t do this anymore, please help me

Posted , 13 users are following.

gemma77546
gemma77546

This is now going into my eleventh week of citalopram 20mg and because it caused me insomnia since coming off mirtazipine and going on to the citalopram, I’m really struggling with the nights and it’s making my anxiety worse I’m so scared. Six weeks ago the doctors prescribed me zoplicone but for some reason the last two nights it’s not worked and I’m in such a mess. Yesterday the doctor gave me diazepam 2mg which I’ve tried to use but I’m not having much luck with it.

I spoke to a mental health nurse in the night and they said that the drugs are just tools and none will work on their own, I need to learn to deal with the anxiety, but I’m so scared I just don’t know how. There have been times in the night when I’ve felt so afraid I’ve thought I’d rather not be here anymore. It breaks my heart because I have a daughter and husband and I know it would devastate them but right now I’m terrified and can’t see a way out. I know I could up the citalopram to 30mg but I’m scared of getting worse. Please can anyone advise me I just don’t know how much longer I can go on for. I have had some good days a week ago but now I feel like I’ve gone back again and I know it’s the disrupted sleep that’s doing it.😢

1 like, 58 replies

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  • ruth08109
    ruth08109 gemma77546

    Posted

    Exactly, on top of the illness, there's the disrupted sleep which makes you feel awful. But you have had some good days, which is really good, and indicates there will be more. Recovery is never in a straight line.... more's the pity. Wishing you some good sleep.

  • Star1711
    Star1711 gemma77546

    Posted

    Hi Gemma

    Sorry to hear you’re having a tough time. I’ve been on 30mg for three weeks now and once I passed the first two weeks of being on this dose I noticed I felt different. A bit calmer. I’m not cured of anxiety and today things have happened which have annoyed me and situations can get to me more than usual as I’m still recovering, but when I get anxious, or I get scary thoughts I’m able to ‘tune in’ more with what I was doing previously/what’s going on around me and not get so consumed with the anxiety and thoughts to the extent I was at the beginning. I definitely feel this dose works better for me than the 20mg. Perhaps give it another week and then consider increasing the dose if you don’t feel any better. I didn’t feel great for the first two weeks when I increased to 30mg, physically I was okay but my mood wasn’t great and the scary thoughts were more persistent. But after I entered the third week it felt like this fog in my brain had kind of lifted a bit more. I think you just have to convince yourself somehow that you will eventually start sleeping better. I know that’s hard to do and I know how anxiety can feel twenty times worse when you’ve barely slept. Are you able to nap during the day at all? Or even lie down and read a book/watch something funny? 

    • gemma77546
      gemma77546 Star1711

      Posted

      Thank you for the advice Star. I'm finding the thoughts on a night so intense when I wake and panic sets in. It's so hard to imagine it getting better. I only work three full days a week so I'm just going to try and tell myself that no one has died from lack of sleep and hopefully I'll settle.x

    • gemma77546
      gemma77546 Star1711

      Posted

      How long did you stay on 20mg for before you decided to go up to 30mg?
    • Star1711
      Star1711 gemma77546

      Posted

      You’re welcome. That’s exactly what my doctor told me at the beginning of all of this, that no-one has died of lack of sleep and I just ended up accepting it. But definitely pace yourself and don’t overdo it the next day if you haven’t had a good sleep the previous night. Also carry on eating well. I used to get like that with the thoughts during the nights too when I was waking up frequently, I would just pick up a book and start reading it to take my mind off the thoughts and anxiety and I’d end up falling asleep eventually. Reading allowed me to escape from everything during some really horrid moments and I always kept a book by my bed. I still do Just lighthearted easy reads, nothing too complicated. You will be okay, you’ve come this far and you will feel better x
    • Star1711
      Star1711 gemma77546

      Posted

      I was on 20mg for 6 weeks before upping the dose. I’m going to give the 30mg a longer run and hopefully it’ll do the trick as ideally I don’t want to go any higher x
    • Star1711
      Star1711 gemma77546

      Posted

      Also one more thing, just keep reminding yourself that the scary thoughts you get are just a side effect from the anxiety...they’re nothing to be afraid of as they’re not ‘real’ it’s just anxiety feeding off of your fear. Try not to pay them too much attention as this is what keeps them ‘alive.’ When I get thoughts I just say something to myself like, here we go again, it’s just anxiety, it’s not really me thinking all these thoughts etc. 
    • gemma77546
      gemma77546 Star1711

      Posted

      I’ll give thrill try that tonight thank you Star. I’m worried in the back of my mind as the nights are so bad at the moment, I will wake shaking with awful thoughts and breathless. I’m trying not to focus on it as I know I’ll only make it worse so fingers crossed for a good night.x
    • gemma77546
      gemma77546

      Posted

      Thrill should have been try, sorry
    • Guest
      Guest gemma77546

      Posted

      Hi Gemma,

      I woke the other night with a panic attack, I was asleep and it came out of nowhere in the early hours of the morning. My heart beat was so fast and was pounding. At that point you start thinking something awful is going to happen but you have got to say to yourself , I've had this before and I've got through it and I will get through it again. I started taking slow breaths and then I distracted myself, I had a drink of water and picked up a magazine and did a crossword puzzle. It settled down again, just like it did before.

      You may even be frightened of going to sleep for the fear of having a panic attack. I started to feel like that but I tell myself it might not happen and it if does I will just deal with it.

      When I started Citalopram 5 years ago I was afraid of everything. I couldn't work, leave the house, I lost my appetite and my weight plummeted. I was afraid of the phone ringing or someone knocking on the door. I used to be on pins until my husband came home from work. It was horrible but I overcame it and went back to normal, it took eleven weeks but I had to push myself. Even making it to the front door was a challenge for me, I 'd sit and wait for the right moment to leave the house. It was a horrible feeling and I shall never forget. When I started back to work I had to practice my 25 mile journey. Each day I got in my car and drove part of the way there, gradually increasing each day until by the end of the week I did the full journey.

      I have only been getting anxiety recently because I stopped my meds but realized I needed to go back on them. This has been a set back and a learning curve.

      If I were you I would go back to your doctor and review your meds with him/her. You seem to be worrying about whether to increase or not and that in itself is causing you anxiety.

      I do hope you find answers soon and start to feel well again. I know you will it's just a matter of time.

      Kind regards x

    • Star1711
      Star1711 gemma77546

      Posted

      You will be okay, I used to constantly wake up with really bad heart palpitations, this was going on for about 6 weeks before starting the citalopram. I still wake up with them sometimes, not to the same extent as before, but they still pop up including during the day too. They don’t bother me as much and I just wait for them to pass. Distracting myself helps. My doctor advised me in the past for when I couldn’t sleep to not lay there in bed tossing and turning. She said to sit at the end of the bed and read and only go back to lay down when you felt tired again. Perhaps give this a try? Also, I always used to take a hot water with me to bed and would lay this on my tummy. We carry a lot of anxiety in our stomach, and I used to find the warmth very comforting, along with feeling the weight of it on my tummy, I guess it made me feel more secure.  Hope you manage to have a more peaceful sleep tonight, but if you don’t then try not to dwell on it too much, it’ll happen for you another night x
    • gemma77546
      gemma77546 Guest

      Posted

      i think I’ll give the hot water bottle a try I think that might help too, thank you Sharlie.x
  • maria41354
    maria41354 gemma77546

    Posted

    Are you on 20 mg ? I started in 10 mg for just one week this was this jan and after that week my doctor told me to up to 20mg in which I did I was not on this site at the time so just listened to my doctor however I had all the horrible side effects not eating , horrible thought s very tierd and much more eventually they calmed down slowly I then went back to work in the March and that was the best thing I did however come the middle of April I started having a foggy head was starting to worry thinking the meds r not working however I contacted my doctor and straight away he wanted to up my dose to 30 mg he said this can happen so I sat n thought about it went on here asked for advice from Lois and katecoggs and others answer they all advised me to stick with the 20 mg as it’s just a blip so I did I never upped my dose and so far things have been good had a few little slips but nothing I carnt handle and I work in pharmacy so I always seek advice from my pharmacist to so please try to hang In there talk to your doctor or pharmacist for advice and people on here take care lovely x
    • gemma77546
      gemma77546 maria41354

      Posted

      Thank you for the advice Maria it’s nice to know I’m not the only one.x
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