I hope someone here can help or offer some supportive words.

I have had a terrible past 3 weeks, full of ups and downs, the worst of which is insomnia and increased anxiety.

It all started three weeks ago, had a panic attack that kept me from sleeping, resorted to taking old lorazepam prescription several nights to sleep. Did NOT want to keep doing that, went to my PCP. I got put back on beta blockers (metoprolol) and sertraline (zoloft). This was 2 weeks ago. Since then, I have inconsistent sleep... when I sleep, I wake up every 90 minutes to 2 hours, then go back to sleep and repeat. I am actually okay with this as long as I can fall asleep early enough, but sometimes I can't fall asleep for HOURS. And it makes anxiety worse! My doctor started me right on 50mg on zoloft, rather than starting on 25mg and increasing.

This past week was slightly better than last week with sleep, although I had one very rough night (tuesday night) and the next night i took trazdone which the dr prescribed and slept more. I was able to go two nights with no sleep aid and got some sleep, and then last night my body was super wired when I went to lay down and I knew it was going to be tough. I went to see a naturopath too, who thinks this is about cortisol overproduction, so i am going to do testing for that and am going to do the saliva and urine tests tomorrow.

My "symptoms" that I have are not being able to sleep at night, when I do sleep, waking up every few hours, getting hot flash like feelings, and almost like adrenaline rush feelings sometimes when I'm laying down or awake. I also am feeling more anxious about these things, but not so much about other things. Today I feel VERY depressed all of a sudden. I thought my sleep was improving but I felt like last night was a setback. I feel like I want to go do things and enjoy myself again and enjoy the long weekend, but I feel so sad, frustrated, and hopeless about how the past few weeks have gone. Could this be side effects from the zoloft?? And when will it get better??

I have read it takes awhile to work, and people can have increased symptoms until it works. I thought maybe I was withdrawing from my temporary use of lorazepam, and maybe that was part of the problem, but I don't think it's the whole story. The naturopath wants me to take supplements, but I feel like I'm putting SO much crap into my body and I don't know what's working and what isn't, and not sleeping well is making everything worse.

I hope somebody out there has been through this and can tell me when it will get better! I hit two weeks on the zoloft just this past Friday. My sleep was semi improving up until last night. Most nights I get between 5-6 broken hours, at the very least I got 3, at the most I got 7. I used to get 7-8 consistently before hell broke out three weeks ago. Please help, I am so desperate and feel so alone. :'(