Posted by ayuda on April 18, 2003, at 14:54:17
In reply to Ask F. Scott Fitzgerald or your pharmacologist, posted by BekkaH on April 17, 2003, at 22:12:00
> In THE CRACKUP, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: "In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning." And Napoleon spoke of that rare "two o'clock in the morning courage." For me, however, three o'clock requires more courage than two o'clock.
>
> On the other hand, it could be something as simple as the blood levels of your medication peaking at that time. When I was on Celexa, I used to wake up every single night, exactly four hours after I'd taken it, and I would toss and turn, prowl around the house, eat cookies and drink warm milk, and nothing, absolutely nothing, would put me back to sleep except the passage of time -- exactly two hours. Unless you have the luxury of sleeping several hours later every morning, to make up for the drug's inconvenient pharmacokinetics, this does not work in the real world. That's one of many reasons I stopped >taking that medication.
I've had the 3 a.m. problem for decades now -- no matter what meds I'm on or not, no matter what my life situation (working, going to school full time, unemployed, on vacation, etc.), and regardless of how much sleep I've had or not. I've also wondered at it -- it's always 3, sometimes 3:30, and like Dinah, it's not until about 5:30-6 that I can get back to sleep. Even now that I'm taking Ativan for sleeping, it's rare that I sleep through the night.I've often wondered something kind of along the lines of what Eddie said, only not aliens, but other spirits, and I've also entertained the idea that it's just around 3 a.m. that I've gotten enough sleep to not be exhausted anymore and all those things that I didn't get a chance to obsess about during the day because I was too busy "doing" than thinking just come rushing at me.
And like Dinah, I keep asking my mind, why in the heck can't we deal with this during a normal waking hour? Most decisions or conclusions I come to at 3 a.m. are not very good anyhow, so why not just wait until noon or something to obsess? Oh, it's nice to know it's not just me.
poster:ayuda
thread:220001
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030414/msgs/220416.html