The NOT So Dreamy Side Effects of My Antidepressants
This is a follow up to my 2015 Femsplain piece The Dreamy Side Effects of My Antidepressants .
CONTENT WARNING: REFERENCE TO R*PE/S*XUAL ASSAULT
When I was a kid, I never remembered my dreams, aside from the rare bizarre fever dreams that come with childhood sickness. But everything changed when I started taking antidepressants in my late teens after my initial diagnosis with anxiety, depression, and OCD — I received a prescription for a new SNRI (Selective Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor) Duloxetine — better known as Cymbalta. Almost immediately, I began dreaming lengthy vivid dreams every night that I could almost always recollect in the morning. My psychiatrist explained that an increase in dream activity is a common side effect of many antidepressants and though some patients dislike it, it’s not dangerous. Not only did the antidepressants begin to work for me almost immediately but my dreams increased in occurrence and became more colorful, lucid and realistic. My dreams were vibrant, rich and detailed, occurring in a world with as much depth as the one I live in during the day.
I enjoyed this side effect and the effectiveness of the antidepressant for nearly three years before my brain turned on me. By no fault of anyone other than my perpetrator, I was sexually assaulted and raped twice between the time I started Cymbalta and when I turned 20 years old. When the brain experiences trauma, the event is too overwhelming to process into normal memory and the traumatic event gets cognitively stuck as flashbacks or night terrors, forcing the trauma survivor to re-experience them over and over again. Starting after my 21st birthday, I began experiencing symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, turning my once dreamy side effect into a living nightmare. The vivid, detailed, realism of my usual dreams applied to my night terrors too, so despite the abstractness of nightmares, my night terrors of being stalked, gang raped or even killed felt completely real. In what became a cycle for me (and many survivors) I soon developed insomnia. I didn’t want to sleep even though I felt exhausted for fear of experiencing these night terrors, but I felt exhausted, stressed and desperate for sleep so I would attempt to sleep anyway. The internal knowledge that I would re-experience my trauma while asleep, stressed me to the point that my body couldn’t relax enough to sleep. Surviving on little sleep made me irritable, irrational, dissociated, confused and of course very tired but the fear of the night terrors kept me awake at night.
Almost no amount of physical soothing can force an insomniac into sleep when the insomnia is a psychosomatic symptom, so I had to treat the trauma in order to regain control over my sleep. However, confronting the trauma often triggered me and made it even more difficult to settle my body down for the night, especially considering both my traumas happened in the middle of the night in bed while I had my guard down, sleeping. I tried everything to beat my insomnia but very little worked. I couldn’t lower or go off my medication — in fact I needed to raise it to help treat my PTSD — but I tried Zzzquil, melatonin, meditation, yoga, masturbation, white noise, and a number of changes to my sleeping arrangements to make me as comfortable as possible. In the end only three things could treat my night terrors and insomnia: 1. Daytime treatment for the underlying trauma (duh) 2. Mind numbingly soothing procedural television (for me this was Law & Order: SVU) 3. Medical Marijuana.
With the formerly gorgeous hyper-realistic detail of my dreams turned into a curse, even my own ability to lucid dream couldn’t save me. By the time I realized I was dreaming and woke myself up, I would start the insomnia cycle all over again, and I was still retraumatized by my night terrors. That’s when my support system of survivors in CA told me about what’s called “Twilight Sleep” — or, the sleep after using marijuana. Those in states with recreationally or medically legalized marijuana have probably heard about its potential to treat insomnia and PTSD, but how? Marijuana, particularly Indica strains, physically relaxes the body and mind, turning down the thoughts and physical effects of anxiety/PTSD such as hyper-vigilism. But the truly incredible influence marijuana has in PTSD survivors is the “Twilight Sleep” that causes you to not stop having night terrors but to forget them entirely, lulling an insomniac with night terrors into a dreamless sleep free of night terrors, nightmares, and dreams alike. Without the fear of experiencing a night terror every night, medical marijuana finally induced sleep for my sleep deprived brain, helping my overall functioning and recovery without getting in the way of the effectiveness of my antidepressant.
Amongst my fellow survivors and survivor support groups, I was shocked to hear how many PTSD sufferers used marijuana to treat the symptoms of their PTSD. My trauma treatment team didn’t discourage me either. Many doctors are quick to treat PTSD with habit forming benzodiazepines like Ativan and Xanax, or with sleeping pills for insomniacs, but this can pose a threat to the many PTSD patients who struggle with substance abuse. medical marijuana, on the other hand, has no withdrawal symptoms and is not physically addicting, unlike sleeping pills and benzos when used regularly. Medical marijuana did not cure my PTSD — trauma therapy and hard work did. However, medical marijuana did successfully treat and cure my insomnia and night terrors, allowing me to function and focus on the processing work needed to fully treat my PTSD.
This remains my anecdotal experience within my community of survivors with PTSD and a state in which recreational marijuana is legal and easily accessible. Because marijuana is still federally illegal unfortunately, scientists and mental health researchers haven’t had a fair chance to study and adapt the healing powers of cannabis, thus research remains highly split, biased, and shallow. The media already tends to stigmatize mental illness and highlight any possible dangers of psychiatric treatment. Those deprived of a rest long term and suffer from night terrors and or insomnia deserve better than highly controlled substances like Xanax and or severe side effects that come with sleeping pills. The standard practices of psychotherapy and psychiatry work for me and make a huge difference in my mental health. However, less conventional methods of treatment such as medical marijuana and yoga specifically for abuse survivors have saved me from myself as well. I sincerely believe I may not have survived my PTSD and insomnia at its worst without cannabis, let alone have the cognitive functioning to continue at university and with my trauma treatment while completely sleep deprived. Controversial as it is, I’d recommend cannabis for night terrors, insomnia, and PTSD as highly as I’ve recommended my antidepressant for my anxiety, depression, and PTSD.
