What to do when i can't sleep without going crazy?

Marioscy, I think your instinct is correct, but you should never stop drugs like this without tapering. May I ask about the antidepressant you took? It's not clear from your post whether you're still taking it or not. Antidepressants should never be stopped abruptly, as this can make insomnia worse, as well as producing feelings of panic. If you want to get yourself off all these pills - which I think is a good idea - it would be better to go to a doctor and discuss this.

I can certainly sympathise with your problem. I've always had sleep anxiety, and was a poor sleeper even as a child. Things took a turn for the worse when I was about 25. I was working as a nu rse at that time and took a job in a London hospital that was running a pilot programme to try and improve shift systems to attract more people into the profession. Long story short, the year or so I spent working on that "improved" schedule totally wrecked what was left of my normal sleep pattern. Heaven knows how they ever thought a dreadful timetable like that was going to attract new recruits! But this is usually the problem when one relies on an external committee to make decisions, isn't it?

So... I was left with totally wrecked sleep. I never went on sleeping pills or any other prescription medications because I knew too much about them. I relied on very small doses of over-the-counter antihistamines. But please don't try adding these in to the whole pharmacopeia you already seem to be taking! Sorry to shout at you but I'm an old lady and my patience is sometimes a bit short.

I never took the antihistamines every night. If you do this, the result will be the same as with sleeping pills - you'll develop tolerance and they'll stop working. I only took them for a maximum of three consecutive nights about once every 10 days. I did this for the remaining 40-odd years of my working life without ever developing tolerance to them.

However, to be perfectly honest, I don't think the antihistamines had much to do with it. All they really did was to give me a feeling of confidence that I'd be able to sleep again each time I'd had a run of rough nights. I continued to sleep quite badly overall for the rest of my working life, but it never did me any harm. I'm 73 now and at least as fit and healthy as my contemporaries who claim always to have had eight hours' sleep a night. I think the moral of this story is that you don't need as much sleep as you think you do to stay healthy and cope with life. That's not to say I never felt tired. Some days, when I'd only had a couple of hours' sleep, I'd feel exhausted. But nothing bad ever happened to me.

The interesting thing is that as soon as I retired from paid employment 7 years ago, I started to sleep much better! I'm afraid work has a lot to answer for, but then most of us can't avoid it, can we? I now do a demanding voluntary job but usually manage to sleep well, though I still have to resort to the antihistamines on nights before making a presentation at work, going on a journey etc.

You've clearly got yourself into a huge panic about not sleeping, and you've been on a lot of medication. Both of these factors are going to make it difficult to get back into a workable sleep pattern, but it's by no means impossible. I do, however, think you're going to need some help with this. If you have a doctor you feel you can trust, perhaps you could discuss the best way of getting off medication. CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) can also be helpful in cases like yours, though you need to be careful when choosing a therapist. Since it became "fashionable" a few years ago, I'm afraid quite a lot of under-qualified people have been getting in on the act. Finally, a friend of mine who suddenly hit a serious problem with sleeping when she was in her late 50s tried acupuncture. It took about six months of fairly expensive sessions, but she ended up recovering her old sleep pattern.

Try not to worry too much about your poor sleep - though I certainly know how hard that can be! Try and get some medical help that doesn't involve medication. And just accept that your sleep may never be as good as everyone else's but that this won't harm you.