Good sleep is everything to me. Without it, my thinking tends to, at first, shift to dangerous desires and I will get hypomanic and then, possibly, manic.

Over a month ago, my seroquel (which I hated anyway for the weight gain) started pooping out for me and I wasn't sleeping well. Just enough to start believing that I wanted to 'be in an altered state' and stopping all my meds (this 'experiment only lasted several days, I got very sick, not in the mood I was longing for, and the experiment ended).

In any case, fast forward to tonight and it's 5:30am and I'm still up. After the above situation, I told my pdoc what had happened and also that, although I of course needed a different med for sleep, I would not take any meds that led to weight gain. I had become the heaviest I had ever been in my life (since being off seroquel, I've lost 10 pounds already).

So she put me on Doxepin, and old antidepressant that is supposed to knock you out. I've managed to sleep well for maybe 3 days here and there, but mostly it's not working for me. I emailed my pdoc about it 2 days ago, but she hasn't gotten back to me yet. Last we communicated, she upped the dose and she said if this doesn't work out I can't take more of it and she'll have to resort to controlled substances. I'm not sure what she means by this. But I'm already taking 2 controlled substances for various reasons and really do not want another. But. I. Have. To. Sleep!