Ambien and Intimacy

[Jonse]

Well, before I get to bed, I just wanted to share story of mine and see if any of you know what I'm talking about. I have chronic insomnia and started taking ambien to sleep. It works miracles for sleeping.

Recently though, it's brought out another treatment that I don't know is positive or negative.
Since taking it, I've become a lot more emotional, childlike, wanting attention, wanting love. I just want to cuddle up with some people and basically cry. I think we put so much energy into our societal positions, gender roles and other bullshit, that people could be a lot more intimate casually if it wasn't so frowned upon, and then we'd all feel happier and loved. Why do I feel like this? Why has it happened, and do all of the things I say whilst I'm like this appear stupid when I come back down to earth, even though I know I wrote them from the heart, from love and from compassion. I'm totally torn, totally mixed. Used to never be a love guy, perpetuating an idealistic concept like "love" in these generic situations. But now I'm in love with...everything, basically, and I don't know if it's the ambien or something the ambien brought out of me. Or if someone stashed some psilocybin mushrooms in my food. Only time will tell. I just needed to mention it somewhere and Cole's most recent post re-solidifies that this is the board to go to. Thanks for being here guys, I love you all.


Oh yeah, I'm high on the ambien right now as I type this, so in the morning when I read it it might seem so incomprehensible or not read well. Let's see.

[Cryabetes]

Could be that intimacy is what you're subconsciously missing in your life.

Could be your version of the ambien walrus.

[noby]

All I can say is that avoid insomnia meds like hell, they really can fuck up a lot of stuff.

[zeitgeist]

I know Dono has quite a bit of experience with Ambien. I have to say though, with my relatively extensive use of it in the past, that I'm very surprised you're even able to type right now. Love the universe, if it makes you feel good. A lot of people would kill to feel what you're feeling. For me, I usually just ended up drooling, and having nonsense conversations with the album art on my walls, while riding an imaginary rollercoaster...

[Guido]

I don't know Ambien but I used Zopiclon for a while, probably not the same thing? Horrible chemical taste.

You could try benzodiazepines instead of insomnia medication, they're lighter and work differently and do the trick for me nonetheless.

[2020k]

When I'm so tired I'm exhausted, I sometimes think about the same things. Just want someone to snuggle up to and talk openly about things while I'm in that state of just before you start to lose consciousness. I find it's one of the times I'm most open because I'm not thinking about how I'm being perceived by anybody. I'm sometimes most emotional then as well. I feel most human and most relaxed and connected to myself..sometimes, then.

I'm not sure what chemicals are released in the brain when we're that tired. I'm sure if I googled "Ambien" it would tell me, but maybe it has something to do with the reactions going on within the brain that causes emotional reactions like that. *shrug*

I've heard nothing good about sleeping pills though. I've only taken them a small handful of times when I've been majorly stressed out that sleep is not an option without them. It's just been Tylenol PM though, as usually there's a headache associated with the problem.

[Jonse]

All I can say is that avoid insomnia meds like hell, they really can fuck up a lot of stuff.

Like what?

At the moment, I am dependent on them to sleep. Without them, my body begins to break down and become frail due to sleep deprivation and resulting falls/scratches from being a 72 hour zombie Mon - Wed.


So I've got huge risks living my life without any meds to correct my sleeping disorder. Have come close to dying a couple time.


If you have any examples of what the meds might do to harm me, I'll take them into consideration as well. I need to find the healthiest way to correct my problem.

[Jonse]

I know Dono has quite a bit of experience with Ambien. I have to say though, with my relatively extensive use of it in the past, that I'm very surprised you're even able to type right now. Love the universe, if it makes you feel good. A lot of people would kill to feel what you're feeling. For me, I usually just ended up drooling, and having nonsense conversations with the album art on my walls, while riding an imaginary rollercoaster...

Been there too man! The rollercoaster was over here a while ago.

And as for the thing I put before, it took like 10 times longer than it would without the ambien, the same with this post and my other recent one.

I do though. Glad to see someone else gets what's going on around here, with this whole conversation.

*YAWN* Goodnight guys! Gonna go to sleep. Would be better if I had a girl to cuddle up, but beggars can't be choosers, heh. xD



The past inside the present.

[Enoch]

No, you can't die from insomnia.

You want to see pain? Go see the men with testicular cancer. That's pain.

[Negamuse]

I dunno if you've seen the stories floating around the web this month about the doctor who's using Ambien (well, it's the same drug by a different name, Stilnox I think?) to treat people who have severe brain damage. Very moving footage of a guy who had suffered multiple strokes and was totally dependent, unable to communicate etc. Put on 15mg of Ambien (about 3x the normal dose, I think) he is able to speak, has his old personality back, can tell his girlfriend he loves her. For about an hour, then the fog descends again and he slowly slips back into his mental cocoon.

They don't know exactly *why* it works, except that essentially the damaged part of his brain is bringing down the rest of it, and the meds basically quieten the damaged part down long enough for the undamaged parts to take control. They're still studying it to find out why it works, it was one of those things that got discovered accidentally.

I mention it because it's worth remembering that however commonplace these meds get, they're powerful things and they're messing with the brain in a way I'd stop and think about before I took them. If it works for you, great, I guess. Personally, I'm inclined to steer clear. (This is coming from someone who's already on antidepressants and has really bad insomnia cos of vitamin B deficiency, so I *have* thought about the pros and cons).

Found link:

[Syberia]

No, you can't die from insomnia.

You want to see pain? Go see the men with testicular cancer. That's pain.

What a unnecessary and bigoted comment. I'm sooo tired of people who don't take mental disorders seriously. Just because you can't see the disease on a x-ray it doesn't mean that it isn't real and that it isn't a deadly disease. Please, don't undervalue another persons pain.

[Seeya_Later]

No, you can't die from insomnia.

You want to see pain? Go see the men with testicular cancer. That's pain.

What a unnecessary and bigoted comment. I'm sooo tired of people who don't take mental disorders seriously. Just because you can't see the disease on a x-ray it doesn't mean that it isn't real and that it isn't a deadly disease. Please, don't undervalue another persons pain.

It was a quote from Fight Club, idiot.

Also, this topic's name would make a good album title.

[turquoise70]

No, you can't die from insomnia.

You want to see pain? Go see the men with testicular cancer. That's pain.

What a unnecessary and bigoted comment. I'm sooo tired of people who don't take mental disorders seriously. Just because you can't see the disease on a x-ray it doesn't mean that it isn't real and that it isn't a deadly disease. Please, don't undervalue another persons pain.

It was a quote from Fight Club, idiot.

Also, this topic's name would make a good album title.

I didn't catch the Fight Club reference, but Fight Club was an unnecessary and bigoted film/book, so fuck Fight Club and fuck the sentiment expressed in Enoch's post.

Rodheh, I've felt something very similar to what you were feeling when you wrote your post. I used to feel that way sometimes when I'd be ragingly drunk, I'd write a huge text dump about love and emotion and closeness, and then the next morning I'd be like "ugh, that was me?" I think probably what you're experiencing is a short breakdown in some of your emotional inhibitions, which probably aren't that big to begin with.

I think the reason we wind up so shut-up towards each other emotionally is insanely complicated. Part of it makes total sense, though - in our insecurity as humans, we'd feel our love was undervalued if we didn't seem to establish any sort of standards for sharing it. True, I think most people are too strict about who they reserve love and understanding for. True, one of my goals in life is to spread as much love as I can. But even if you're generally a very loving person, you still have to pick your battles. If you tell someone they're incredibly special to you, then turn around and tell someone else they're incredibly special to you, those two people both might wind up wondering, "Okay, did he mean it, or does he just give those out like candy?" Even if you do feel that way towards them both, they may want some sort of explanation of how you feel and why.

Love is great, and people ought to be more free to cuddle than they are, socially. But in that same breath, we each have to tailor that kind of expression to our own personality and to the personalities of the other people involved, which includes their preferences and insecurities.

[machinea]

All I can say is that avoid insomnia meds like hell, they really can fuck up a lot of stuff.

Like what?

At the moment, I am dependent on them to sleep. Without them, my body begins to break down and become frail due to sleep deprivation and resulting falls/scratches from being a 72 hour zombie Mon - Wed.


So I've got huge risks living my life without any meds to correct my sleeping disorder. Have come close to dying a couple time.


If you have any examples of what the meds might do to harm me, I'll take them into consideration as well. I need to find the healthiest way to correct my problem.

I've had much the same problem in my life. I've had a prescription for lunesta.. terrible taste. While falling asleep is a problem staying asleep has actually become more of an issue. So anyway I've finally settled on over the counter Doxylamine succinate 25 mg tab as the best solution with an occasion hit of grass now and then. Not sleeping for me is most likely an aspect of my ADHD and its been an issue since I was a child. The not sleeping only makes me other symptoms worse. So finally this is the only solution a life long dependency on sleep medication or another.

The only thing that seemed to work consistently was acupuncture. But even as an acupuncturist I cannot afford to constantly get acupuncture. Working out helps at first and then I get fit and I'm back to sleeping issues. It is a very difficult and annoying problem..messes with your life and emotions.

srsly you have my sympathy. When I get stressed out the sleep problems get worse and eventually after 5 months of broken sleep depression finally sets in. I've had clinical depression 3x in my life and was not able to figure out what the primary trigger was. It was lack of sleep. So yes it is debilitating and painful.

[Jonse]

For those of you who don't know, yes, you actaully can die from sleep deprivation, all joking and quotation aside. Either it eats away at your body weight until you can't support yourself, or you collapse from tiredness and take a blow to your head.

[Cryabetes]

What a unnecessary and bigoted comment. I'm sooo tired of people who don't take mental disorders seriously. Just because you can't see the disease on a x-ray it doesn't mean that it isn't real and that it isn't a deadly disease. Please, don't undervalue another persons pain.

It was a quote from Fight Club, idiot.

Also, this topic's name would make a good album title.

I didn't catch the Fight Club reference, but Fight Club was an unnecessary and bigoted film/book, so fuck Fight Club and fuck the sentiment expressed in Enoch's post.

that's a rather poor attitude to have. I read Enoch's post as a 'I can't think of anything quite on topic to say so I'm just going to post this quasi-relevant movie quote', not that he actually felt any sort of animosity towards insomniacs.

and as a pre-emptive parry against the 'well he ought to have posted on topic' comment, I'd like to throw out there that this subforum is the Playground. Not the 'well thought out opinions' subforum. I'm not trying to police the forum or anything but it's nothing to throw someone under the bus for.

and yeah I liked fight club, but it's a shame it's been ruined by its fanbase. A terrific study on gay culture.

[nightGoat]

It was a quote from Fight Club, idiot.

Also, this topic's name would make a good album title.

I didn't catch the Fight Club reference, but Fight Club was an unnecessary and bigoted film/book, so fuck Fight Club and fuck the sentiment expressed in Enoch's post.

that's a rather poor attitude to have. I read Enoch's post as a 'I can't think of anything quite on topic to say so I'm just going to post this quasi-relevant movie quote', not that he actually felt any sort of animosity towards insomniacs.

and as a pre-emptive parry against the 'well he ought to have posted on topic' comment, I'd like to throw out there that this subforum is the Playground. Not the 'well thought out opinions' subforum. I'm not trying to police the forum or anything but it's nothing to throw someone under the bus for.

and yeah I liked fight club, but it's a shame it's been ruined by its fanbase. A terrific study on gay culture.

How was it a study on gay culture? Was that right under my nose and I missed it?

ALSO: For sleep deprivation - try the highest available Melatonin dose. Works great. Prescriptions scare me.

[Jonse]

I didn't catch the Fight Club reference, but Fight Club was an unnecessary and bigoted film/book, so fuck Fight Club and fuck the sentiment expressed in Enoch's post.

that's a rather poor attitude to have. I read Enoch's post as a 'I can't think of anything quite on topic to say so I'm just going to post this quasi-relevant movie quote', not that he actually felt any sort of animosity towards insomniacs.

and as a pre-emptive parry against the 'well he ought to have posted on topic' comment, I'd like to throw out there that this subforum is the Playground. Not the 'well thought out opinions' subforum. I'm not trying to police the forum or anything but it's nothing to throw someone under the bus for.

and yeah I liked fight club, but it's a shame it's been ruined by its fanbase. A terrific study on gay culture.

How was it a study on gay culture? Was that right under my nose and I missed it?

ALSO: For sleep deprivation - try the highest available Melatonin dose. Works great. Prescriptions scare me.

Melatonin never works for me. I'm sufficient of it.

[nightGoat]

Shitty. Yeah I have to really psyche myself into sleep mode even with that.

At least you're not violent on Ambien. I've heard horror stories in the past.

[Seeya_Later]

People always miss the meaning of Fight Club.
It's saying that chauvinism, anarchy, and brutality are wrong. That's why the main character has to get rid of Tyler Durden. He is the bad guy, not the cool guy.