Sleep Troubles

[mitchs_88]

Hi everyone-

A little bit of background information.

About a year ago I suffered what was probably my first panic attack. It happened in my first semester of college. After that initial attack, I developed agoraphobia, first in school, and then in any stressful situation. Finally, after seeing a psychologist for many months and having the summer off, I almost completely conquered my agoraphobia.

However, at the onset of my second year of school, I did have trouble falling asleep one night, and this led to an extremely intense panic attack. I was up all night shaking and feeling like I was going to die. For a few weeks after this episode I could hardly sleep at all. Anytime I would try, I would get another panic attack. Finally, my sleep became slightly regular again.

Fast forward to just a week ago, the night before Thanksgiving I was out partying all night. I got in around 4 am, fairly intoxicated, and I fell asleep around 430. I woke up at 830. So I had only had 4 hours of sleep. Went through all of Thanksgiving feeling fine, but come 1 am I still felt wide awake. Then I began to panic because I realized that I should be tired, not wide awake, after a night of drinking and little sleep. I ended up staying up until 4 am again, when I passed out, only to wake up at 8 for work.

Since this episode on Thanksgiving, my sleeping has been really crazy. I don't really have a problem falling asleep, but I have a new problem which I've never had before. I will fall asleep, but I then wake up 2 hours later and cannot fall back asleep. I normally get back to sleep again in about an hour or so, but this fragmented sleep has been leaving me very fatigued, and quite anxious. It has been 4 nights in a row now of waking up in the middle of the night, after only a few hours of sleep. Needless to say, I'm beginning to freak out about it. I've always had a problem falling asleep, but I've never had a problem staying asleep. Has anyone else experienced this? Will it pass? What should I do about it?

Thanks much!
Mitch