6 years on Ambien — and I was taking it to work, not to sleep
I don't post much here, but I've been thinking about this community a lot lately.
I was on Ambien for 6 years. It started as a script for sleep, and somewhere along the way it stopped being something I took and became something I needed. It became a daily routine — three 10mg pills in the afternoon, then up to six 10mg a day. I'd feel a wave of motivation after taking it. I even started taking it before work. It got to the point where I knew I couldn't keep going like that.
I'm out the other side now. The taper was the hardest thing I've done, and what's stayed with me is how alone it was. No one understood why I needed sleeping pills to get work done. Everyone thought I was just being weird. No one got that it was because I needed the calm and the motivation to function.
Lately I keep coming back to one question: what would've actually helped me back then? Not generic advice — the real, in-the-trenches stuff.
So if you're in it right now, I'd genuinely like to hear from you. What's the hardest part for you? What do you wish existed that doesn't? Comment if you're comfortable, or DM me.