My sudden onset insomnia is morphing into sleep anxiety

Good morning, especially to anyone reading this that's been awake all night.

Here's a little of my back story and some questions...

First, I have very bad anxiety brought on my experiencing several of the big "life stressors" in the last couple of months. Like a moron, I decided to completely ignore my anxiety, thinking it would go away on its own. And to be fair, I've been described as a "worrier" my entire life. But NEVER has it interfered with my sleep. In fact, I was probably sleeping way too much, until a week ago.

Last Monday night, right as I was laying down, the worst cold sweats, nausea and subsequent hot flashes, leg trembling, and very bad nausea kept me up for 4 hours. I figured I had a virus. (I'm a teacher, so...) After the nausea died down, I had no problem sleeping from 2am until 5am.

Tuesday I was still having these cycles of cold sweats/nausea and hot flashes. I tried napping during the day, and couldn't, which I found odd because I'm a pro at napping. That night I had trouble falling asleep (took hours) and then only slept 4 hours, broken into chunks of an hour here and there.

Wednesday. Same thing with the sleeping, only now I have nothing to blame it on because the cold sweats and nausea are gone.

This is when I made a mistake. I started Googling. If you're reading this, and have started having sleeping issues, please take my advice and NOT Google anything.

Now Thursday night rolls around and I cannot sleep AT ALL and had been up since 1:30 that morning (Because that Wednesday night I slept from 10:00-1:30)

Friday morning I'm in a full on panic because I've never had problems sleeping and I also had not regained my appetite since the incident Monday night. I mean, I had worked myself up to the point that I went to the ER. I was given 15mg of Serax, to be taken at bedtime.

Friday night, I took the Serax, found I couldn't sleep in my bed, and slept on the couch for 7 1/2 hours.

I woke up still feeling extremely anxious, asking myself the usual questions...Will I sleep tonight? What if I don't? What if I never sleep again? Sound familiar to anyone?

So, I decided I needed a change of scenery and to not be alone in my apartment all day. I went to my parents house for the night. Took the Serax, went to bed and did not sleep at all. I got up at 4 am Sunday morning and took another Serax. Fell asleep from 5-7.

All this did was reinforce my negative thoughts. Besides, (to me) I was prescribed a powerful sleep aid and it still didn't work.

Sunday was spent walking around worrying that I would never sleep again. Another worry is my appetite, which has all but disappeared. Sunday night, I was worked up. I took the Serax, went to bed and slept for 6 hours. Oddly enough, this also added to my anxiety, asking myself, Why aren't I sleeping longer than 6 hours if I'm sleep deprived AND taking a benzo? Why did it work one day and not the other? (Rhetorical)

Which brings me to yesterday. Despite the sleep, I'm still Googling and worrying and anxious. I had an incredibly stressful day (my job is a huge stress in and of itself) Last night, I knew before I went to bed that I wasnt going to sleep. I couldn't seem to unwind. We tried all of the usual suggestions, no caffeine, turn off electronics before sleep, etc.

I go to bed and toss and turn. I know I fell into some sleep state at some point because I would jerk awake. Plus, my husband came to bed later than I did, trying to be quiet, and I told him that I hadn't slept at all. Interestingly enough, he said that when he had checked on my 30 minutes earlier, I was sound asleep. So, I obviously slept some, and didnt realize it.

That brings me to this morning. I came across this forum. And now here are some questions.

I appreciate that most of us are in good company. In an odd way it helps to know that I'm not alone. But I also noticed that a lot of the posts are about the problems with sleep and taking meds for sleep. No one is posting any updates, good, bad, or otherwise.

So, what do you do to cope? What strategies are working? What are you guys doing when it's the wee hours of the morning and you can't sleep? I tried staying in bed, but that makes me more anxious.

I also had a lifelong habit of falling asleep with the tv on. Now going to bed with it off is like breaking a bad habit but that also makes me anxious, like breaking any habit will do, even in normal circumstances.

Right now I have an appointment with my doctor at 2 this afternoon. I really want to begin correcting this as soon as possible before it spirals even more out of control. My anxiety about sleeping is so bad that I dread going into my bedroom. How do you guys cope with that? Does anyone else have that?

Is anyone in the process of trying to correct sleep anxiety?

And, I've read a lot of people saying they lived with chronic insomnia for years. What suggestions do you have for those of us new to this vicious cycle?

Thank you!

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