Blocking grief?

I've mentioned the sleep deprivation.  The doctor suggested an antidepressant, but one which is particularly suited to depressed people who also have insomnia.  For me, it worked (sort of), almost instantly (which is weird, for antidepressants, because you usually have to take them on an ongoing basis, and they usually take a while to take effect).

The "sort of" part is that while I while I seemed to have fallen into a pattern of alternating one night at four or five hours, and then the next night at six or seven hours, when I started the antidepressant I immediately started getting seven hours sleep every night.  This wasn't, obviously, a complete fix, but it was an improvement.

I even increased the dose (which the doctor had suggested), although the increased dose didn't seem to improve things any.  Over a week or so, I even got to the point of having a couple of nights at eight hours, and one where I might have gotten nine.  Then, as with all the sleep aids I have tried over my life, it stopped working.  I was back to four or five hours, waking up at one or two AM, and not being able to get back to sleep, even if I tried getting some work and then hitting the sack again.  (The middle ages "first sleep/second sleep" theory.)

So I stopped taking the antidepressant.

It didn't seem to make things any worse.  Although yesterday, I had had a shortish night, and was really dragging around all day, very tired.  Which happened to be a north shore day with appointments in my previous stomping grounds, including seeing the doctor.

But one thing I realized yesterday: I had had a very teary couple of days, since I had stopped taking the antidepressant.  Now, this may simply be a normal part of the grief cycle.  (Whatever that may be.)  As previously noted, grief doesn't work on your schedule, and comes when you least expect it.  But it might also be that the antidepressant had been blocking the grief, and that, when I stopped taking it, the grieving process just started up again.

In other sleep news, though, last night, when I was finally able to get to bed after dragging through the day, I got more than nine hours sleep, for the first time in at least three months, and probably longer.  This was without any drugs or sleep aids at all.

The sleep deprivation probably isn't completely over, but dare I hope?