Hi Confused. Thank you so very much. I needed a bit of common sense and a reminder that I am not alone in all this non-sense in my head. Miakoda, THANK YOU for reminding me I and not taking a glorified sleeping pill. Seroquel does more than help me sleep; even with 25mg. I is there to help the anxiety and without it I have to expect my normal speed to come back. Some times at 2 am it is hard to be logical and "just go back to bed". Last night - this morning is just me coming back to what I am with more tools to deal with the thoughts and feelings. So time to get to work! ;p -I am at work now... having lunch and feeling okay. A few normal acks and sniffles (flu like symptomes from reduction of effexor). Oh yes, I did manage to get a bit of sleep... my husband woke me when I started screeming. I was having that crazy elevator nightmare again. i was stuck in the dream and couldn't wake up. So I thought twice before coming up in the elevator this am. :p

I'm taking 30mg of remeron and 25mg of seroquel. At first I was just on the remeron, and it made me sleep and eat. A year later the remeron isnt' heping me sleep at all. It even made some things worse, like racing thoughts that I couldn't get out of my head and anger/sadness that came on way too strong and out of nowhere. Now the doc has put me on seroquel. It's been one month now, and I find that the first two weeks in knocked me out to sleep, but now it just makes me relax. It also helps take the racing thoughts out of my head and controls the anger/sadness feeling.

Good question, wildcat, and one I ask myself too, when I'm lying wide awake in the middle of the night before a big day of some sort :) I haven't slept well for several years -- at one point, back when the top ten events on the life-stressors list were going on at once, I didn't know why I even bothered going to bed -- I'd lie there, mind racing, until I finally fell asleep about 3 or 4:00 in time for the alarm to go at 6:00. All my doctor would do was offer me sleeping pills, which I didn't want to take because I'm the only adult in the house -- what if one of the girls got sick or there was an emergency and they couldn't wake me?! After various permutations and combinations, I've finally ended up with Remeron at night to help me sleep, and Effexor and Wellbutrin in the morning to make me happy and give me energy, respectively. Not that they all do what they are supposed to do, exactly, but it's the best we've come up with so far. I've tried reducing or going off meds completely several times when I was feeling better -- like you, by the sounds of it, I felt that being on medication was a sign that I still needed them, and I wanted to show (who? myself? my doctor?) that I could actually be that well even without the support of medication. Not a good idea -- there were a few times when I would carry on for a month or so, but then the doubt, the second-guessing, the negative thoughts, the irritability, would start to come back until I was back where I started. Either a slow learner or an eternal optimist, I did this not once or twice but 4 or 5 times. Now I'm regarding these meds more like the anti-biotics you mentioned -- the infection is gone within a day or 2 of starting the drug, but you have to continue to take it for several days afterward to be safe. Would that the timeframe and specificity was similar to anti-biotics! Or like training wheels on a bike -- they stabilize me while I learn to ride and balance. Other people and my inner critic may point and laugh with scorn that I need training wheels, but that's just something that I must learn to ignore. For me, right now, training wheels = sensible, no training wheels = scraped knees and broken bones. Vent and complain any time you like, wildcat, without feeling guilty. We all need outlets -- this is the only place that I feel I can pour my heart, my musings, my troubles out where at least a couple of people are bound to understand exactly what I'm saying. I feel guilty for my long posts, but am not at all irritated by and am most often interested in and grateful for other people's long posts... :)

good morning. I have been taking 25 mg of seroquil for some three months now to help me sleep. Between that and my effexor I have terribly tired all the time, even with 8 to 9 hours of sleep almost every night (expect mondays). So when I went to the doctor's this week I mentioned that the psy told me ... a reduction in effexor might be a good thing for the sleepiness and to be sure I do not provoke any manic episodes. I told the doctor that if the seroquil was to help me sleep, then I saw no difference ... since I still wake up at night and always feel exhausted. Okay so tonight I took 112.5mg effexor. And I took no Seroquil. And I am having a really tough time getting to sleep. I have all sort on non-sense worries coming up that I have to calm. I have made two very nice necklaces of 21 inches in my head with different bead weavings and colours. And two refrains are stuck echoing around my brain. My feet keep twitching. I am hot, cold, uncomfortable in my three usual sleep positions, and my thoughts keep racing a-head of me. I have to get some sleep. I read two chapters of "the tribe of tiger" - a GREAT book about the social makeup of felines. And I found this favorite book B-O-R-I-N-G. I want to get alot of work done this Sunday and it is all concentration stuff, so I need sleep. My body wants sleep; I keep yawning and my eyes are watering. But my head will not shut down. My daughter cried herself to sleep because of a sore ear, so she will need more attention tomorrow and without sleep I will have a V-E-R-Y short fuse (Saturday she lit it a few times already without only one outburst). Why is it always so difficult? These medications always do so many things to us and it seems difficult to go back to "normal". Why can't we have a miracle pill? Like and antibiotic - take this for X time and everything will clear-up, you should be better in 0.X time but finish the precription and I will see you at your yearly physical. BUT NOOO, I want to be less exhausted most of the time and I miss one pill and can't get to sleep. I am sorry to vent and complain like this. Somehow, I thought I was doing better. I was less depressed. I am making plans and doing good things. And one of my hopes was that I had progressed enough to take the first step to reduce my medications. The meds slow down my head so I can concentrat on one thought at a time but slow down every thing else and I am still gaining weight (I am a hefty 265 lbs now for my 5'4"). I was hoping That I would now have and withdrawl symptomes to justify my choice ... silly really ... there is some silly logic in there I know. I know. This is what is really bothering me! :blush: I want my body to conform to my logic. I am better so when I stop a bit of my meds I want no effects. This way I can confince myself that no effects means I did not need that much any more. I can function on my own. All my efforts have a measurable outcome (less 37.5mg effexor and -25mg seroquil). Why does life not conform to my wants! :p