Hi everyone. I'm Justin, I am 41 years old, and I have insomnia. My problem is getting to sleep. Currently, I'm in day 3 of the most recent bout. I believe I'm best described as having acute insomnia. It comes and goes sometimes with or without cause. I lead a productive, professional life...that is, when I'm not fighting this animal. When I am dealing with a bout, I'm tired, easily irritated, easily distracted, emotional, anxious (that gnawing sensation in your stomach) and feel physical symptoms such as fatigue, headache, nasauea, dizzyness, etc. When I think back on it, I was always this way to some degree. As a kid, if I had something on my mind, it took me hours to fall asleep. Clocks were my worst enemy, reminding me constantly that you should be sleeping. I have Tourette and I've dealt with sleep paralysis since I was very young. Through my 20's I didn't have problems. In my 30's is where the wheels began coming off. I had a project that required me to make a trip to Germany. I travelled often for work and quite rather enjoyed it. I was uneasy about this one though, being overseas, so far away from my wife and family. The idiot I travelled with knew what was best...we should not go to our hotel rooms, despite my nodding off mid sentence...we should go drink in Koln and then goto bed at local time. I could not reach my wife, which made me uneasy. So, for the next several days I slept very little. A self fufilling proficay each night. I was a basket case, but completed my trip and upon returning home slept like I hadn't in days. For years, I always remembered how horrible that felt but had no residual effect. Then one day, out of the blue, it came back. A sleepless night (after a late night hockey game) left me feeling fried. For whatever reason, I hit the panick button and called the doctor who saw me same day. He said I seemed unreasonably anxious having known me for many years. He prescribed me Klonopin .25mg. That worked for one night and that was all. Dosage was increased to .50mg, then 1mg, then 2mg. I leveled out for a while, then my 3 year old son had open heart surgery to correct an ASD. Stress ruled my life during which time I sought medical care for a bout that was going on for a week. They prescribed me a a stronger benzo and Ambien. Ambien knocked me out, but I was awake 4 hours later like clock work. I started taking the pill while i was in bed, and over a few weeks, I started falling asleep before I took it. I am now prescribed 1mg Klonopin twice a day, but I only take 1. I will go for months without so much as a hint of a problem, then sometimes in reaction to stress in my life and sometimes for no good reason, it will rear it's ugly head again. It's doing so right now. Wednesday night I slept 5 hours, last night 1 very lightly if I was lucky. I don't practice good sleep hygiene. TV in the bedroom, my phone on the headboard (i'm an IT oncall manager). One consistency with this otherwise senseless condition is, once I roll over and my eyes start to get heavy, if anything arouses me from that state, i'm done.

Just wanted to share my story with others who are fighting these same demons.