One down, two to go!

Will be thinking about you PJ

[img:d9c4860ce8]http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/6774/goodluck1sj1.gif[/img:d9c4860ce8]

Melbi x

Hi PJ

Very best of luck this morning - we will all be with you in spirit. Post when you get back so we know how you got on.

Good vibes on the way..........

Nicky Jane x

Thanks for the good wishes. :D

Well I'm up, showered. hair wrapped in towel, clothes. shoes and jewellery all laid out.

In 2 hours time I'll be on a bus near my destination.

Feel a little bit jittery but that's to be expected - I am going for a job interview after all!!!

Won't be on forum until this pm - keep well everyone.

Hugs

Good Luck try and think positive

Jan

8) Good Luck PJ......remeber.....shoulders back...n......s out! :lol: [b:1e9ab95b78](maybe dont think about that one when on adrenaline!!! :lol: )[/b:1e9ab95b78]

I'm back and I'm very happy with how I coped - no nerves or butterflies at all.

Feeling a bit down now though probably because there's no more I can do. They're hoping to let me know this pm so when I know - you'll all know!!!

Hi PJ

Glad your back & all went well - fingers crossed for you. Going to check on Melbi now - she needs us today. Post soon

Nicky Jane x

Well done PJ - glad you showed them :D

Bless you Nicky Jane, I'm still feeling like I don't know how I'm feeling. Not as bad as earlier - I have taken a couple of codiene, a couple of Kalm sleep tablets and a couple of Great Night Sleep tablets. Feeling calmer now.

I feel my GP has squashed me into a tight corner.....I just ask for a couple of nights sleep, but oh no! I am not worthy of sleep - I have to suffer.

Can't she see that through my desperation for sleep I am going to look for alternative methods? would it not be safer for her to prescribe me something?

Tonight I will sleep!

I feel overwhelmed with the love and care I have found here.

Thank you PJ, Katy, Nicky Jane, Breezman and everyone else.

You are all a Godsend to me.

Melbi x

Hi Melbi,

So the CD hasn't arrived yet! Re your GP, I ask you to consider finding a more caring, responsive GP or ask to be referred to a psychiatrist. I believe I would not be here without the confidence my psyhciatrist instilled in me, not by false praise, but by allowing me to step outside my situation to see that this condition is simply, (used guardedly), simply a chemical imbalance in the brain caused from multiple factors but reflected in the symptoms we share.

I've been through the horrors of 70 hours without sleep, eyes shut, wide awake. I feel for you because I've been there. But try and imagine your beautiful granddaughter, and smile at that cute gorgeous wonderful little baby, who needs you.

You can beat this Melbi. It takes time, and it seems it will take a different medical person, but don't give up. You are asking for help from these people, NOT friendship. Who cares what their private thoughts, feelings or assessment of the merits of your case are? You can do this! Remember the little train, \"I think I can\". The first step for me was to come to terms that I had the problem. Huge step then to speak to someone about it who could possibly deem me unfit as a parent (5 wonderful kids), but I got lucky and I was honest with the psychiatrist. After 40 years I am finally able to talk to someone about this, and it has helped because I was starting to slide over the edge.

Know that you have support, understand that you are not to blame, realise that their are caring professional who can help if you demand to see them. And look after you! xx

Good morning Breezman and thanks for your post.

What really annoys me is 16/17 years ago when I did OD I didn't think 'oh my god I want to die'. Don't get me wrong, I would many times think those thoughts but never actually set out to kill myself.

No! I OD'd because I felt so bloody crap and was just trying to make myself feel better. I remember pacing the floor, pulling at my own hair, crying, falling to the floor and crying some more, panicking because the feelings were too overwhelming.

I didn't grab the tablets and swallow them all in one go! I would take one wait 30 mins or so in the hope it would have calmed me - when it didn't, I would take another. As th hours passed and I was still feeling so crap I would try taking 2 more - then 3 more. As the tablets dwindled I started to panic because if they all went how the hell was I going to calm down then?

At the time I was on prozac and some other tablets that were just for calming me down. I only needed to take them when I felt panicky.

When they sectioned me I told them I wasn't trying to kill myself - well obviously now, they never did believe me! All my GP keeps asking is if I have any thoughts of self harm.

Well no doctor but unless you bloody well start listening to me and my plea for some sleep - I just may well self harm accidently in my plight to get some sleep!

Anyway, the CD did arrive yesterday. I put it on at 10:30pm last night, lights out and house all calm. Earlier on I had taken 3 Great Night Sleep tablets. I got my bed all comfy - took a couple of codiene (I try not to take that stuff as I am well aware it is extremely addictive).

Lay down and listened to the CD.

I was still awake when it finished but felt relaxed and didn't move or fidget. I slept on and off all night until 7:15 this morning. Even though I kept waking up I would just turn over and fall back asleep almost instantly.

Sadly, I cannot say if it was the CD or not that did it for me. It could be a combination of the citalopram, Great Night Sleep Tablets (I have to say I can feel them working about 30 minutes after taking them) and the CD.

I am going to continue with all 3 for a couple of more nights then will leave the codiene off, then the great night tablets a couple of nights after and see what happens.

I think when we tell a doctor we aren't sleeping they think we mean not sleeping all night. They don't seem to understand when we say we aren't sleeping it means having no sleep at all!

Most days, due to not sleeping, I have a pounding headache, feel sick, can't focus on anything, I can't even read text on my phone as they go all blurry! Some days I can't even remember how to spell the simplest of words. I'm clumsy and drop things - how dangerous is that in the kitchen?

Before going to see my GP about not sleeping I had tried everything they recommend to help you sleep. I didn't lose a couple of nights sleep and go running to my GP.

I havent slept since december. Yes drifted into fitful sleeps through sheer exhaustion. I spent every night looking at the clock thinking 4 hours then it's time to get up for work, then 3 hours, then 2 hours, drifted off only to be woken by my alarm.

Of course I was going to crack eventually - who can cope on such little sleep, work full time and care for a family and house?

Rant over!

Melbi x

Hi Melbi,

The problem with sleep deprivation is many sided, but for a start sleep is the time the mind and body use to self heal. No sleep, no repairing, greater and greater loss of control over daily life. And I know exactly what you mean when you say that medicos think we are simply having interrupted sleep. Even that would be better than staring at the walls wondering what the hell?

Nobody can cope on so little sleep. And it is hard to see the issues clearly. I remember a Doonesbury cartoon, which said, \"We have identified the enemy ... and they is us!\" Yet somehow I have arrived at age 56 and am finally starting to sort the depression. I must admit my partner, (who is 20,000 k's away at the mo), is wonderful and this is great for me. But the demons lurk, and I try to force myself to remember things my kids did, happy times, and block out the drought and the other bad things which try the human spirit. I am also clumsy and sometimes have trouble accounting for costs in my job which are really simple tasks but sometimes I just look at the mass of data and cannot decipher it. Thankfully I have a great arrangement in that the work does not have to be done by a certain hour, as long as it's done by Thursday and Monday afternoons. I set this up this way in a moment of clarity (Thank God) and can cope mostly. Sometimes I have been to work not having slept for 45 hours, and it is painfully obvious to the staff that I am not with it. They are very good to me, often telling me to \"get back in the kitchen\" and let the women do the real work! (I am site supervisor/manager for a service station with restaurant.) So I am very fortunate to have these caring people around me. And they give me the heads up when the owner is around, so I can disappear if I have to. So far I have not stuffed up the accounts and have a very good relationship with our suppliers because I do want to see them get paid as soon as possible. They are only small businesses too. My pay is not much, but I can survive for the next three or four months til I must take on more work. Am hoping to have worked out something by then.

I usually go for about ten or eleven months before I drop from sheer exhaustion or have a gallstone attack. I do a spell in the local hospital where they knock me out for a few days with Pethedine and a cocktail of other chemicals, and I wake up feeling stronger and more positive. (You don't want gallstones. Agony.) But I guess the point of all this rambling is that I am here at 56 after being diagnosed with depression when I was 14, when my father scoffed and put me to work harder. He was a tyrant, but hey, I'm here, I'm strong, I will fight this problem until I succeed. If not for me, then for my loving partner and my little girl who needs me to be around for a long time yet. Love is a tangible thing. Your daughters need you, so does your granddaughter. And you need them.

I'm sorry your melatonin tabs did not knock you out, but then you have a history of sleeplessness so please don't give up on yourself just yet.

My rant is also now over. Hang in there Melbi. There are those of us out in ether-world, including me, who care about you and hope you can beat this condition over time. xx

Do you know - I think we could all do with something like a chatroom?

A good old chat in 'real time'.

Melbi x

Hi Melbi,

A chat room is a great idea. How would it be possible? How can we achieve it? Your time zone is (I think) 11 hours behind Oz time. But I'm awake anyway! You are thinking much clearer than me today. xx

Creating the room isn't a problem. Time could be - if you are sleeping!

then again if you are sleeping you wont need the chatroom lol.

We could all arrange a time that doesnt involve any of us staying up chatting rather than trying to sleep.

Say first thing in morning for you would be evening for us?

Or evening for you morning for us lol.

Could do both :D

Melbi x

A chat room is in the pipeline - see http://experience.patient.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=19996 for postings on the suggestion.