In searching for a topic to address an issue I am dealing with right now, I came across the head-line.

Right this minute my 18 year old son is on his way to the emergency room, because he has now been up more than 60 hours, straight, and still could not fall asleep even after working a 9 hour day today.

He says he is going crazy, and as he stood here just minutes ago yelling at his brother, his best friend and me- begging us to please do something to help him, I felt helpless, frustrated, afraid and sickened.

What I have seen happening to him over the last several days must be one of a mothers worst nightmares. Anxiety and sleeplessness are driving him to the edge.
As he told his brother to knock him out "right now, or I will punch you in the face" and then a few minutes later began punching himself in the head, in an attempt to "knock myself out", I realized that this is not getting better, but worse; and it is definitely not something I can handle with warm milk, or soft soothing music.

3 days ago I would not have wanted him to get a prescription for sleeping pills.
I also believed, when he first started having symptoms of insomnia, that we could rely on simple cures, such as simply to "stop trying so hard to sleep" and "to just remember it will pass, when your body gets tired enough."
After the first night, he went into work, and I assumed he would be exhausted when he got home, and would fall right to sleep. But that isn't what happened. Instead, while his body was literally exhausted, he tried explaining to us that his brain "will not shut off." By dawn he was irritable, to put it mildly, and started saying he felt like he was losing his mind.
He went off to work in the morning, looking and feeling horrible.
After staying up those first 2 night, I thought for sure that today, after a full days work again, he would collapse onto his bed. But he didn't. The same thing happened again, he fell asleep for ten minutes, and was immediately wide awake.
By this time he was EXTREMELY irritable, and also becoming highly emotional.

By 1:00 am he was so stressed out, and we were so worried, we saw no alternative to helping him sleep, but taking him to get some kind of medication.

I have never seen my son act the way he did tonight.
Recently his girlfriend broke up with him, after 2 years, and he is struggling to deal with the loss of that relationship. On Saturday, all the seniors had prom here, and although they had been planning to go together for over a year, she went without him, and he stayed home alone.

I never thought I would hear myself say this, but there are times when medication is needed. Lack of sleep is often present when trauma occurs or when depression, and anxiety are also present. The lack sleep only adds to the other problems, making it even more difficult to deal with the traumatic event, or the depression and anxiety.

Yes I am hoping the Doctors at the ER will give my son something to help him finally fall asleep.
Every alternative has already been tried, and hasn't worked at all.
My hope is that medication for sleep will help him get a good nights rest, so that he can figure out how to cope with all of the other things he is trying to cope with right now.

Learn more about this author, Randa Morris.
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