A Very Serious Question: Should I Take Sleeping Pills? Are They Harmful or Helpful to My Mental Health?

In today's blog I try to help my readers understand sleeping pills, their important place in recovery and how I depended on them but have gained back control of regular sleeping patterns

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I really don’t know where to start with today’s blog topic. I guess I should talk a little about my life with sleep and experiences with sleeping pills. From a very young age, i had a lot of difficulty sleeping. This is a very common thing among people who live with bipolar disorder, as well as people who have illnesses like schizoaffective disorder that has an aspect of bipolar in combination with schizophrenia.

I honestly don’t know why I believed nothing was wrong and that I didn’t need to reach out for help when I was a teenager and finding proper rest to be nearly impossible. I have a vivid memory of going to a winter Camp put on by the Alberta Government, and staying in a cabin by myself. I was flying high with mania every night and would stare up at the ceiling, feeling like I was on some drug. I would sleep a few hours if I was lucky, then I had to function on a very limited amount of rest in demanding circumstances. Once I got to sleep, I desperately needed to stay asleep and get the full number of hours a teenager requires, but there were many activities I needed to be present for. This was a leadership course, not a vacation. Other people at the camp wanted to acknowledge my problem and do something to show they cared, and one day they got together and nearly broke the cabin door down to get me to come out and experience the morning. I ended up chasing them out with a fire extinguisher at the ready. The depths of exhaustion I was in made me miss out on so many things.

In grade nine, I had Air Cadets on Thursday nights and would always go out for a cup of tea and a cheeseburger after our parade and sports nights. I would then go home and stay up most of the night watching classic old TV shows like Twilight Zone and Phil Silvers, or the Honeymooners. Then of course I would sleep in and miss Friday morning classes. The funny thing about this situation was that we had sex ed on Friday mornings, and I really should have attended. I ended up being very uninformed and naive about sex far into my adulthood.

This was a setback, but not as serious as when I got older. My first experience with sleeping pills came when I was in the hospital at 14. I would sleep during the day, and wonder why I couldn’t sleep at night. It was so easy to ask the nurse for a sleep aid. After going home I convinced my mom that I should take over the counter sleeping pills because I could never get to sleep soon enough to get my full 8/10 hours I needed for school, and my grades were definitely slipping. In the end, I got the pills, but they didn’t help much. Looking back, I am astounded that I could function in school at all.

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Something I should have been aware of back then was that it was more important to get to school than to stay up watching TV. As school progressed, I also got part-time jobs and I often look back and wonder if I didn’t put so much effort into making some small amounts of pocket change, and had instead spent my time studying and getting proper sleep, I could have gotten scholarships that would have far outweighed what I earned in my jobs.

I think if a person is considering taking sleeping pills, they should do some research and look into what pills are available, what they do, how addictive they are, and if you really need them. It is also important to have an understanding if you are a person prone to addiction. When I was early in my treatment, I used to take a pill that came in the form of a little blue football. It would often get me to sleep but only for a few hours, and it seemed to be very addictive. It worked great at first, but after a short period I developed a tolerance for it. The drug was very difficult to quit, and before I was able to quit taking it, I ended up going up on my dosage which could have led to years of a zombie-like existence if I didn’t summon up the courage to stop taking them (while keeping my doctor in the loop).

Something I learned later about sleeping pills from a friend who had a master’s degree in social work was that sleeping pills can affect your memory. I don’t know if this is the case with me, but I have noticed a lot of decline in my memory over the past 20 years or so, which could be ageing, it could be medications, it could be a combination of these and other factors.

I currently take a pill that is categorized as a benzodiazapine, though I take a very low dose of it and don’t take it every time I sleep. Its common name is rivotril and it is also called clonazepam. I have to say that when I don’t take it I find my sleep to be much more refreshing/replenishing. The pill is a tranquilizer, supposedly from the same drug family as valium which worried me at first but with the low dose and management of other factors, my doctor and I are okay with me using it occasionally. I sometimes wonder if I could go off of it completely. I find it helps a lot with things like calming me, reducing my irritability and anger, and that if I take it once every 2-3 days it is ideal. For a while I was on a pill called ativan which seemed to work really well when I felt stressed and wanted to just have a refreshing nap. Eventually I decided not to take ativan anymore as I have made a decision not to hide in bed and sleep my days away, but to keep as active as possible during sunlight hours, reduce napping and engage myself in efforts like this blog more.

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When I look back at my high school days and my sleep habits, there is a lot to consider. One of the things was, I stayed very busy, made a fair bit of money working, I got reasonable grades, I always had cars or motorcycles but I was headed for burnout. Many people who have read my book “Through the Withering Storm” will have heard this story, but I think it will be good to repeat a part of it. I didn’t exercise back then, I was a heavy smoker, and I had a very poor self-image. I also didn’t sleep much at all. After I was supposed to graduate, I went back for some last courses and things only intensified.

Eventually, a perfect storm built up. I was barely sleeping or eating, I was being very active in sports, I had a job on the night shift and I was getting into serious and sometimes violent arguments with my dad all the time. Something just snapped.

I want to flash forward past my hospitalizations and talk about living on my own after leaving the hospital as an adult in my 20s. I had an apartment and I was almost completely shut off from the world, certainly the world I had grown up in. It was common for me to stay up a long time reading and then collapse and sleep for as much as 16-24 hours. This was extremely bad for my condition.

One of the worst things that I did was I took my evening meds when I went to sleep and my morning meds when I woke up. Having a schedule that didn’t align with any logical circadian rhythm made my medications much less effective and my mental health much more difficult to deal with and maintain. It was a sad situation, I had little contact with people outside my apartment and sometimes the depression and loneliness would get so bad I would wish I could go back in the hospital.

One of the big problems with having this sleep schedule was that it also made me have a very hard time engaging in anything meaningful to me. I had big dreams of going to law school and having a great job and income, but when I went back to school all I could think about was going home to isolate myself and read the books I wanted to read. Going back to school as an adult though, helped me to meet and have a wonderful friendship with a woman who has stayed my friend for over 33 years. And in the end, often things like this have a way of working out for the best. My poor sleep schedule and failure at pursuing the education needed for a law degree led to me becoming a writer, something I truly enjoy.

I think one of the most important things to consider with sleeping pills is, are there ways to avoid having to take them? One of the best psychiatrists I ever had was willing to give me sleeping pills, even willing to allay my fears of addictions and such. But he also gave me some great advice. One was to simply not nap. Then he explained that both tea and coffee should only be consumed until noon or one or so. And I have learned ways to deal with poor sleep which often includes going for long walks, or in the winter when it is very cold, using my stationary bike and weights. There really is nothing like a good, refreshing sleep after a workout that tires you out, be it aquafit classes, yoga, T’ai Chi, walking, or anything that helps you get moving.

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Another issue that is very important is to try and go to sleep at the same time each day. For me, being a former teenage alcoholic who saw every Saturday night as an excuse to drink, this was difficult. At a certain point though, I decided alcohol wasn’t helping my social life at all and wasn’t helping my sleep. For that and a few reasons I quit, and though it took years, I have now grown accustomed to sacrificing the fun of staying up late and having fun with getting up early and getting things done. I have even found that now that I don’t rely on alcohol as a crutch, I meet a lot more new friends and the odd possible romantic partner.

So, if you want to consider taking sleeping pills, take a hard look at yourself and decide if you could become addicted to them. Also consider that the sleep you get from a sleeping pill is almost a ‘fake’ sleep and it doesn’t refresh you as much as a sleep without assistance. Please consider starting walking, swimming, cycling, or anything that will help tire you out and watch that tea and coffee! And please, don’t forget to like, share, and leave a comment below!