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  • TDS Moderators: AlphaMethylPhenyl | paranoid android

Waking up every morning with high anxiety?

Stay.Blazed.420

Stay.Blazed.420

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 26, 2009
Messages
474
Location
Somewhere up north
Is this just sub withdrawals from xanax? It seems everytime i wake up (even if i have a brief nap) the xanax loses it's effect. I know for an overnight sleep this makes more sense but even if i take a nap and wake up it feels like i'm no longer on the drug.

Also, everytime i wake up from an overnight sleep early/before my alarm goes off i'm always too anxious to fall back asleep.. I'll be shaking. I have been having lots of nightmares lately, but last night i didn't even have one and i woke up and could not fall back asleep and ended up getting up early to go chain-smoke two cigarettes and pop a xanax. (and once i've taken the xanax the last thing i want is to go to sleep if i'm wanting anxiety relief and not just sleep-aid)

I can never fall back asleep after REM sleep. If i can actually remember my dream (whether it was happy or sad) the anxiety is always too much. Why is this?

My history of benzo prescriptions:

-March 27th prescribed 1mg clonazepam (x2 0.5mg tablets) a day
-April 17th was arrested; took a bunch of my script before going to jail. Spent next three days without any medication.
-April 20th released from jail, took 3 tablets instead of prescribed dose of two. Later that night arrested for breach. (long story, but it was a mistake)
-Spent next 3 days without any clonazepam. Anxiety was horrible. Jail doctor puts me on .5mg a day.
-Over next 5 days I am occasionally given my prescription. Sometimes they don't call me. Guards don't give a fuck about me.
-Released April 28th, got my refill. (to last until may 27th)
-May 3rd, psychiatrist adds on 0.5mg Lorazepam/day.
-May 23rd, Ran out of clonazepam and lorazepam (loraz didn't do very much for me).
-Spent next 3 days with incredible paranoia, insomnia, and debilitating anxiety. Trying to find benzo's off the street but did not succeed.
-May 26th, saw psychiatrist. Told him i ran out, and needed a refill asap. Got clonazepam refill that day. Doc takes me OFF lorazepam.
-June 1st, already used 2x more worth of my clonazepams (2mg a day) and saw family doctor. Mentioned I posted on a mental health forum and someone suggested xanax. He says it's possible, and gives me enough clonazepams to last until the end of this refill.
-June 8th, see family doctor again. Tell him clonazepams don't have a strong enough effect. Doctor suggests xanax and writes me a prescription. Lets me also take my remaining clonazepams to take only if needed.
*Get home that day and mother takes away clonazepam because i at the time had no money for the xanax. (still to this day have not seen them)
-June 22nd, saw family doctor again. Requested an increase in my dosage admitting i've been taking 3 a day regularly and sometimes 4 (.5mg tabs). He increases my dosage to 3x 0.5mg alprazolam a day.

And now here I am. dependent as fuck, anxious as hell, and still popping 4 xanax a day to get by.. I wish i didn't have to take one in the morning, i never used to... That's how it balanced to three a day, but now i have to take that extra one in the morning because if i start out the day very anxious and irritable i notice my overall mood throughout the entire day is much much lower.
I know i'm not half as addicted as some people on this board are, but why am I so anxious? Is it just all the stress of being in trouble with the law, girlfriend issues, social issues, paranoia, or is it also the fact that i've become increasingly dependent on my medication for therapeutic anxiolytic effects?

Xanax just doesn't last long enough, but it works much better than clonazepam, and lorazepam had NO noticeable effect on me at all.. Even when i took 2mg one day, i still had to take a clonazepam to calm down.

My mental health does not cope with stress very well. I am very stressed every waking moment i am worrying about something. I notice my OCD gets ridiculously bad when i'm not on my benzo's and sometimes i get so pissed off with the OCD thoughts i end up sitting there having a smoke, telling myself to shut the hell up. The stress from OCD (even though OCD is a weak minds way of coping with stress) is paradoxically making my anxiety worse. Everything makes my anxiety worse. I don't know if it's just the way my parents raised me but i feel i am very weak when dealing with anxiety and stress. I literally feel that i NEED to have xanax in my life in order to get by, but i know one day i will have to quit and it will be worse than before if i have not improved my mental health significantly. I've asked about cognitive therapy but it's not covered by our drug plan and my parents nor me have any money. Ever since i was arrested i've been jobless, broke, and forced to move back in with my parents.. This is a very stressful time of my life.
 
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I know how you feel, unfortunately, with regard to the mental health issues, money, and xanax. The anxiety you feel from waking up no matter how soon you took the xanax is very familiar to me. Mine starts in my stomach, like someone is holding a lighter to my abdomen as soon as I am conscious.

Sigh. I wish I had this one solved. Some people will tell you to quit the xanax and immediately check yourself into rehab, but this is bad ime because rehab doctors have a tendency to not really respect benzo withdrawal and write off your underlying symptoms as symptoms of withdrawal, and give you just enough Clonidine (heart medicine) and k-pins to keep your blood pressure and heart rate acceptable for the hospital's safety rules, forget about your own standard for mental health.

Do not give up your doctor. Do not stop seeing him/her. That person is your best bet at dealing with this. It's all about knowing your history, and when you bring in outsiders they will treat you like a plain vanilla, garden variety, selfish drug addict even if they are addiction specialists.
 
My mind is weak.. I don't know what happened to me.. Jail gave me a (i can only assume) very VERY minor case of PTSD because my experience in jail was not pleasant. I'm a stoner and there i was in an overflow cell with 27 other hardcore criminals. Over ten of them were in gangs, i met a ton of meth addicts and just generally greasy criminals in there for armed robbery, assault, trafficking cocaine, house invasion, and other things i was told by people. The guy i shared a bunk with was in Terror Squad and was showing me all his stab wounds and sharing all his gang stories, when finally at the end he asks 'what you in here for?' and i say 'for smoking pot'.

Now i can't say i actually have PTSD because that happens when something REALLY traumatic happens, but i have nighmares of going to jail all the time, i am constantly paranoid that i'm doing something illegal, everytime i see a cop drive past me i have panic attacks (even while on my full prescribed dose) and my heart starts racing, i'm always worried that they're gps tracking my phone and listening to all my calls via cell and home phone.. I've never been a paranoid person before.. I've met alot of people who get paranoid especially when they're high and i was always that guy that was just tellin people to relax and to chill out. Now i'm constantly panicky and paranoid.
I just wish the night mares would stop.
I just wish my brain coped with stress better.
 
I'm with you on this one hundred percent.

Recently I've been taking lyrica and it seems to help quite a bit with anxiety, and seems the safer route than benzos. I'll use a klonopin when things get rough, when shit REALLY hits the fan, but I don't like to make a habit of it.

Look into the this thread and read it all the way through. Might have the answers you need.

I can personally vouch for memantine and delsym reducing and reversing tolerance to several drugs. This might be your problem, tolerance.

I've had nightmares 60 percent of the time for the past ten years. Last night I stabbed my father in the face with a broken bottle. It was really grim, so I know how it can be. PTSD isn't fun, even minor cases.

Psychoanalysis might be work looking into as well, it's what I've always wanted to do.
 
Have you ever talked to your doctor about seroquel at night?

Might be the ticket to solving a lot of your problems, imo, if a heavy dose of seroquel knocks you down every night. It's what I resort to when I have a doctor. Life seems to work on seroquel. I spent an entire year and a half in a country with no fucking xanax midway through my nearly decade long addiction. All I had was seroquel at night. It's typically prescribed to schizophrenic patients but off label it is prescribed to people exactly like you and me. There is no recreational value. As far as I can tell, it works its magic by shutting your brain OFF, thereby putting you to sleep or placing you in a non-functional, not there state.
 
Mirtazapine, Melatonin, Benadryl, Excercise, Theanine, Sleepy Time Tea, those are just of the few things off the top of my head that help me to sleep well at night if I need to.

I was jailed recently as well and I understand where your coming from that viewpoint. How long were you in for?

Mine wasn't nearly as traumatic as I thought it would be, more just depressing and depraved.




I have a trial in 3 months and I somehow let it slip completely from my mind. Fuck them. They don't deserve to occupy the precious real estate in my head.

I still worry constantly, but it goes back and forth and is completely random.
 
i can usually fall asleep at night because i take my last xanax and hour or three before sleep it's just waking up and not being able to fall back asleep.. And the fact that i have such high anxiety in the mornings and i'm not sure whether it's because the xanax has completely worn off or not

seroquel makes me so groggy in the morning
 
Well, I'm afraid that these pills will only make it worse in the long run. I perfectly understand that you got some issues going on and they seem to be helping but it's just big pharma fooling you. I have yet to meet someone whose problems got solved by taking benzos. Don't prolong your agony, taper while your dose is still quite low and start making some changes. Doing sports is on a regular basis combined with eating healthy food alone will do away with your anxiety.
 
Do you think i have money for sports? did you miss the part about social problems? I can't afford healthy food i can afford shit off the dollar menu at mcdonalds.

I also stated that i know in the longr un it will only be harder to get off of these meds but i need them until i significantly improve my mental health.
 
ilikeyou said:
Well, I'm afraid that these pills will only make it worse in the long run. I perfectly understand that you got some issues going on and they seem to be helping but it's just big pharma fooling you. I have yet to meet someone whose problems got solved by taking benzos. Don't prolong your agony, taper while your dose is still quite low and start making some changes. Doing sports is on a regular basis combined with eating healthy food alone will do away with your anxiety.
Click to expand...

This statement smacks me in the face with quite a few broad generalizations and not too much cohesive evidence on the part of the poster.


Some people need medicine. You're not in his place, you can make suggestions like "taper off when you find they're no longer necessary" or "excersice/do sports more if you can," <no dicksizing plz>.

<snip-be nice here! People are trying to help and allowed to give their own advice on here. It is possible to criticise more constructively, esp to someone new to the Forum>
 
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Sigh. He needs the benzos, period. It's a necessary evil at this point, and getting involved with the rehabilitation racket before trying a SLOW taper with your doctor (or an increased dosage, if I may be so bold) is just going to be filtered through eyes and ears that can't forget about the other problems that are going on with money, mom, and dad. At least you're addicted to something legal and you have some sort of health plan.

50 mg of seroquel is not enough. I'm sure it does make you groggy, but it sounds like you're not doing shit right now so you may as well give your body some rest for a few weeks before you start racing again trying to solve the world's problems. You will use less energy and cost less money if you are sleeping for longer, if you want to justify yourself that way. You need a break. If I was your doctor, I would hook you up with some samples as soon as I found out that you were dirt fucking poor. That's what my doctor does, and it's perfectly legal.

Jail has the habit of putting people like us into a psychosis state because we think of all the negatives at once and are probably going through withdrawals as long as we're inside. I still remember the anger I had while staring at the ceiling during my first stay at age 16. i'll never forget the frustration, vomiting, or freezing cold nights of my second stay 7 years later. When will I get out? Who will save me? I have a life to tend to!

Fuck. Take yourself out of the game for a minute. The front office at the apartment can fucking wait for the rent a while. You need straight sleep, and you're so manic that your body is burning through the xanax half way through the middle of the night sending you into precipitous withdrawals. Ask kindly for some seroquel samples - maybe 20, and sit ringside while everyone else fights for a minute.
 
I have so much in common with the two prevalent responders in this thread it's scary.

I think we're being unlawfully profiled by the police at this point. Ugh. Easy money for them.




Stay tough Stay Blazed. Don't worry, there's damn little justice in this world but you'll get your share. I'm sure of it.

Beat them to death with their own rules.

:)
 
i'm also on lamotrigine for bi-polar disorder and i frequently have episodes of extreme depression or anger. A fight with my girlfriend over the phone (a stupid pointless one) left me with a bruised fist and 2 more holes in my door as well as a sore throat from screaming at the top of my lungs. My side (in a spot nobody will see unless i'm naked) has scars from cutting. I idealize suicide so often it's VERY unhealthy.. I have a suicide plan and everything, all backed with research and making sure it's 100% fail safe.. If i ever 'ATTEMPT' suicide i'm gonna make sure i COMMIT suicide so i'm not left as a helpless vegetable. <snip>

In fact, even when i was a kid i'd think about suicide. I remember my parents saying 'oh if you don't get your grades up you'll have to repeat the fourth grade' and i said 'if i have to repeat grade 4 i will kill myself'.. I still remember this moment to this day. When i was a kid i was also a hypochondriac always fearing of grave illness or disease. 'praying' to 'god' every night to please let me keep living and that i didn't want to die yet.. Imagining myself as an adult while i was a kid didn't seem real. Even though i used to be a hypochondriac i still thought of suicide every now and then.. And i didn't even have depression (or did i?) I was just bad at handling stress because i had a very abusive, drunken father who would beat on me, my brother and mother all the time. One of my earliest memories i have was when i just turned 4 and had just started pre-school and i got off at 12 every day and one day my father demanded i take a nap and i wasn't tired so i was crying saying i wasn't tired and he chased me around the house and he pushed me and i fell and slammed my head into the corner of the wall and he just kept cussing at me to stop crying and picked me up and forced me to go to bed.. I remember laying in there crying for hours, not falling asleep for a minute..

I used to hide in my closet when my dad would drink and beat on us.. One time he found me and ripped me out of there by my hair and when my mom tried to stop him he let go of me, pushed her onto the bed, and laid on top of her, subduing her. I ran away after this - what happened in that room is beyond me.. Maybe he just beat her up some more or maybe he raped her, i dunno i just know that after he threw her on the bed he came back down stairs calm.
 
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You're in the shadow of the valley, man. I know very well what method and plan you speak of and the research that led you to that idea. I don't know what to say except life is very short for some people. If you can come out of your mountain of shit one day, even if you only live a little bit longer you will have tasted the only thing worth living for: freedom. I've thought a lot about death, and I'm pretty sure that we have a very rare thing here on Earth. It has taken a billion stars exploding into supernova and turning into black holes to even produce the evolutionary processes by which you and I can have this conversation about how miserable we are to be so self aware. You have to fight for the good parts of that self-awareness, as we are nothing but a statistically unlikely anomaly amongst a sea of unthinking matter in the universe.
 
^^

Your post is intelligent, and something i have even thought about myself.. And while what you say is true, it at the same time makes life seem pointless. True - we're only given one chance to exist in this universe, and it's a miracle that i'm even here, but in the end - it's the same as it was before i was born. in the end - it's all for nothing. in the end - it's pointless.
 
Your purpose is to be the eyes and ears of the universe, not to change its processes but to promote your own ability to be conscious.
 
Yeah, we live with way too much information for our own primal instincts. You're feeling the result of being caged in an imaginary world created by society to instill a deep fear within you. The whole purpose of society's structure is to bend you to its will, even if the means by which it does this seem benign. You're relatively fortunate to live in a country where your actions can cause ripples in the structure, unlike the people of North Korea, for instance. It's all a game, actually: once you see that there are no bears chasing after you, no dictator ordering your execution, etc., you gain power over yourself. Power is what it's all about - get as much as you can before your time is up to have the greatest permanent impact on the structure. By checking out early, you would be leaving some sort of mark - but imagine what kind of mark you would leave if you forced your way into the structure and exerted your power on it. You might be part of the group that makes the structure look entirely different - and that is what lasts forever. The information about what you did lasts forever, and whose to say that pieces of your consciousness aren't forever embedded in the marks you've made?
 
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