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Showing results for tags 'psychotics'.
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Ive been taking anti psychotics for ten years and throughout it Ive had horrible issues with sleep and struggled to wake up at any regular "human" time. So much so I have not been in college or work throughout those ten years. I'd take my meds around 10/11/12(PM) and wake up around 1/2/3(PM). 11 hour sleeps are probably the minimum. 14 wasnt that weird a thing. In winter time this becomes even more of a problem because I am not seeing sunlight. I've tried all sorts of things to combat this sleep problem: A deaf persons alarm A light alarm (which was definitely helpful but didn't fix the problem) Drinking copious amounts of water before bed Depriving myself of caffeine/chocolate/alcohol/(life itself) for a couple of weeks Not using TV/PC/phones in the evening And of course the classic: "why don't you just take the drug at 8PM and then you could wake up in the morning". (Yes and why don't I just kill myself while I am at it. All my friends are working adults and I will happily take shitty lifestyle over never having the ability to meet up with friends. I did try it for one summer and it just upset me leaving get-togethers and events before they barely got started. I would say it made me feel suicidal. I may as well be walking around with "lunatic" printed on my forehead. Add to that I do music in a band and often don't get home until 10PM so Id have to give up my passion too.) Recently I got a mood lamp (for Christmas), it shines all kinds of colours and varying degrees of brightness. For the last week as soon as I go to bed I turn the lights off and the lamp on to a dim orange/red and keep it on until I wake up in the morning. I have to say every day I am waking up early. No more 3PM starts. No more 1PM starts. I wake up when I set my alarm. Often even earlier. Its so weird. Its like its erased the problem absolutely. I also actually feel tired in the night and that I want to go to bed so I can sleep. Now it could definitely be complete fluke. Also I have considered the fact that I may have just reduced the quality of sleep I am getting, thus waking up to my light alarm more easily. I will definitely make sure to post an update in 2 weeks time, and perhaps another 2 weeks beyond that to see how things progress. If it does stay like this I will be writing to my mental health services and telling them that the need to be prescribing this to people who have sleep problems induced by anti psychotics At the moment has literally changed my life and I cant emphasise that enough. I wish I got one ten years ago when I first started taking anti psychotics.