I take an ambien every night. I have been for months. I fall asleep in a blink and then I sleep solidly until the alarm goes on in the morning. Even if I have to get up because I have to go to the bathroom or if Aitch is having a nightmare or if Doodicus is scared of a storm, I can always go right back to sleep. I love my ambien.
I recently had it refilled and while I dropped like a fly on Monday, Tuesday night I tossed and turned. I was awake more then I was asleep during the night. I ended up dropping Aitch off at school, coming home and sleeping for another three hours straight. Wednesday and Thursday (last night), I again struggled getting to sleep and woke with every snort, wheeze, and exhale from my husband, which eventually sent me to the silence of the couch. Still I tossed and turned. I also hadn’t been feeling well, waking with headaches and stomach cramps.
Last night, sometime around 3:00 a.m. I started wondering if I hadn’t got a bad batch of ambien with the recent refill. They couldn’t ALL be bad because Monday I had no problem with sleep. This morning I pulled the bottle of white pills from the cabinet and realized that for the past three nights I had been taking Paxil, an antidepressant and I had started and then stopped after a couple of months but hadn’t thrown out. It explained the headaches, cramping, even the jaw-clenching! Not to mention my inability to sleep.
Of course, it also explained how I was able to accept my mistake with little more than a “aw shucks!” kind of attitude, and why I am completely incapable of imagining a penis. Not that I’m always trying to imagine penises, but ADs really pulled the plug on my sex-drive and being unable to concoct any sexual imagery confirmed that I had been taking the wrong stuff.
Thank goodness I had this week off from work or I’d be even a bigger wreck. I marked the Paxil lid and moved the bottle (I can’t bear the thought of disposing of them yet). Tonight, I will sleep.
Punch Drunk 