[Deb]

Steve – I’m talking about writing it down the next day after you’re already up. It sounds like you also need a reboot of hope.

[taylor45]

Hey everyone. I am new to this forum and have been following this specific thread for a while from a distance. I wanted to share my story with you guys and maybe get some advice also.

I am 24 and have been dealing with insomnia for around 5 months now. Insomnia shattered my entire world/ I let insomnia shatter it. I was attending a UC and doing great and on my way to graduating in June. Then a perfect storm kind of hit me and insomnia came blasting through the door. I was stressed with school, my dad was dying (now passed away), my best friend and I were often fighting over petty stuff, my cousin who was my main support system away from home was dealing with her own health issues and retreated from my life, and the biggest of all, I had a roommate who lived above me who would stomp around and have dance parties into the early hours of the morning. At first I was losing an hour or two of sleep every night and didnt think much of it (was used to getting 8-9 hours every night). so I started exercising and thought maybe I should try taking some melatonin to help me out. neither of these things helped my sleep (shocker). in fact, it was getting worse and worse. I then ended up having a completely sleepless night. I still didn’t panic, I had faith id be fine the following night and things would go back to normal. Well they didn’t, another sleepless night followed and intense anxiety came with it. Shaking, adrenaline rushes, heart pounding, the whole night. This continued again the next night and again the night after. I couldn’t think straight, my anxiety was through the roof. I even considered suicide because I was so convinced I had lost the ability to sleep. I went to urgent care and they gave me antidepressants and Xanax. I didn’t take the antidepressants because I knew I wasnt depressed, I was just terrified of this insomnia. I took the Xanax a few times, and while helpful, I quickly realized this wasn’t something I could keep doing. I stopped the Xanax and tried listening to audiobooks, falling asleep with the tv on, falling asleep with the lights on, trying to read myself to sleep, taking hot baths before bed, drinking tea, OTC meds (actually made me more awake?!), I tried everything but Ambien because I was scared of the side effects. everything would work for like 2 days and then would stop working.

Long story short, my anxiety over sleep got so bad that I stopped eating, stopped going to classes, stopped talking to my friends, constantly called my mom sobbing. I ended up leaving school and moving home because I just couldn’t even care for myself anymore and spent every day wishing that I would die.
once I moved home the insomnia improved, probably because I was back in my comfort zone. But then it hit me again pretty quickly. It was so bad I resorted to crawling into bed with my mom some nights (not so cool when you’re 24 years old). Insomnia was ruining my whole life and I had no confidence in my ability to literally do anything anymore.

I then came across guy meadows book (before I saw this forum). I guess I just got lucky in all my research. I read through it quickly and started implementing the techniques. Ive now had 2-3 weeks with sleep ranging from 7-10 hours a night. I know 10 is a little much haha. some nights are harder than others, last night being one of them, but I have more confidence that I wont spiral out of control. I think what has helped me also, is looking up how to accept and let go from buddhist teachings and other books. While they may not be talking directly about insomnia, just understanding what accepting and letting go truly means is really helpful and after reading Guy’s book I still felt I didn’t really understand, and there is no harm in looking to other recourses to further your understanding.

Accepting and letting go is hard and some nights I don’t always grasp it and find myself trying to accept the insomnia in an attempt to fall asleep which is in fact not accepting at all. It takes time to break the habit of trying things in order to fall asleep rather than just actually being in the moment and truly accepting.

One thing I still struggle with on bad nights is these rushes of anxiety right as I drift off. its like my mind catches me falling asleep and is like oh nope thats no good and I become aware of falling asleep and this wakes me up. this doesn’t happen every night but does every so often, so im assuming I haven’t fully accepted sleeplessness on these nights. I also sometimes have this half awake half asleep anxiety that keeps me in this weird state all night and is hard to overcome with Guy’s techniques, but that might get better with practice. Anyone have any suggestions for this in the mean time?

Sorry for the long post!!

[Mac0908]

Wow, Taylor, what a story. Bravo for you having the courage to come on here and get it out. I can relate to a lot you’ve had going on, right down to an upstairs neighbor who has been quite noisy for me at times! Either way, I am so glad you are beginning to come out of your Insomnia. Let your story alone be enough to show people it’s absolutely possible.

To Deb and Steve- Let me be honest after doing some more thinking this morning and reading Deb’s great posts. The truth is, I really have continue to slack off with ACT. I think what happened to me, or what happens to me, is I will have a good phase, see that ACT (or whatever it might be) worked, and think that alone and thoughts of that will be enough to get me through. For example I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that many nights over the last few weeks I’d hop into bed thinking “Ok well ACT worked for me a few weeks ago so as long as I just ‘don’t care’ i’ll be fine”. The reality is no, that’s not how it works as i’m sure Deb and Steve you both know.

For chronic insomnia sufferers at least, the practices have to continue to be implemented to hold the potential good sleeping in place. I’ve gone to bed too many nights lately simply assuming the night would go ok, instead of practicing ACT in my head, whether it be during the day, or even right before bed. And Deb while yes ACT should be huge for me during my awakenings, I think the goal should be to try and not even HAVE those awakenings. But of course if I do, that is not the end of the world either. I really need to start going back to the basics of ACT instead of relying on what was a few good weeks trying to hold me over mentally.

[Deb]

Hi Taylor – welcome to the forum. That’s wonderful that you found Dr. Guy’s book and you are making so much progress! It might help you to practice mindfulness when you see that you’re catching yourself falling asleep and getting anxious, which then wakes you up. Mindfulness will bring you back into the moment and help you relax and then accept. Also try the “Welcoming” technique from Dr. Guy’s book and use humor if possible. When I got anxious I had the sensation of squeezing in the left side of my stomach. I named that sensation Mr. Worry Wort when this would happen. Mr. Worry Wort was a red, round, furry guy with his face all scrunched up from worry. When I thought of my anxiety in this way, then I felt sorry for Mr. Worry Wort and he would fade away. About the light sleep, don’t worry about it. It’s a natural part of healing and it will go away the more you can accept your sleep and just keep going. At least this is what my experience has been. When I would worry about the light sleep or in and out type of sleep, then it hung around more. But if I didn’t worry then my sleep got better over time.

Mac – thanks for your honesty. We all do seem to have our habits and attitudes that get in the way and this seems to be yours – to slack off too soon. I actually hope that this realization gives you hope, because now you can see that you can do something about it. And yes, the goal absolutely is to no longer have the awakenings. But as long as you are, keep doing ACT. Not too long ago you mentioned that you were going through a period where you were no longer waking but having light sleep. I thought this was a very good sign of progress. I went from little sleep, to a lot of light sleep (and waking up tired even after 8 or 9 hours of sleep) to eventually good sleep. So I think you will see progress if you stick to it and also look for the progress.

[Steve]

Hi Taylor. Excellent point about Accepting just to fall asleep. I think I do that sometimes as well. We should be Accepting just to get us in the state where we can sleep. That’s a big difference.

[Steve]

Taylor – Oh, and good for you for ditching the Xanax. All benzos are highly addictive and getting off of them can be worse than getting off the hard street drugs. Even anti-depressants can cause withdrawal symptoms. You don’t want to add any of that to your insomnia problems.

[taylor45]

Thanks! yeah I did research on them as soon as I got them. In my mind I was like this is ok because its only temporary and my “sleep will get back on track.” but I quickly realized I was heavily using them as a crutch. even on nights I didnt take them id keep them close by and just having them there provided comfort. I only took maybe 5 total ever, but I hated how I already felt so dependent on something for sleep which should come naturally. Ended up flushing them down the toilet.

Sometimes at night I battle with myself when it comes to doing guy’s exercises or practicing mindfulness. My mind starts to struggle with the balance of doing nothing like a good sleeper should do, and practicing the techniques if that makes sense. It feels like im supposed to be doing nothing so when I start to do mindfulness in bed I worry im defeating the purpose.

[Deb]

Taylor – only practice the mindfulness for a few minutes until your mind calms down. Then do nothing. If it’s taking you a long time to calm down, then you probably need to practice mindfulness more in the day time to get the hang of it so then it’s easier to get into that calm state at night.

[taylor45]

another quick question for Deb,

Was your light sleep often so light you weren’t even sure you were asleep? ive been experiencing this where I could swear ive been awake, aware of noises and aware of things going on around me. but then when I go to look at the clock its been like 2 or 3 hours since I last checked but it felt like maybe 20 minutes. and ill have stayed in the same position so its not like ive been tossing and turning or laying there with my eyes open. Its such a weird thing. Only happens some nights, and others I know that ive been sleeping and can tell.

[Mac0908]

It’s all part of the process, Taylor. All part of your traumatized nervous system continuing to be, well, traumatized. Weird sleep is a part of that. Nothing new to me at all. It just is what it is until we can manage to slowly overcome.

[Mac0908]

Without question this was my worst work week since starting ACT back in November. My first real breakdown or even relapse you could say, since then. Though the truth is as I talked about yesterday is, I really haven’t been *doing* ACT. Just going to bed, knowing the ‘just don’t care’ attitude worked before, and just kinda assuming it would be the better case scenario. While last night was a tad better, it was still a bad night. It’s time to get back on the wagon now and go back to the basics of ACT. The good news? I know I can get back to where I was. The bad news? I keep questioning myself when, if ever, will I be able to truly break through…

[Deb]

Taylor – yes I’ve had sleep like that. I swear that I’ve been awake all night but husband said I was sleeping and snoring.

[Deb]

Mac – I do hope you do some kind of a sleep diary. Then you’ll be able to track your progress.

[Mac0908]

Again, Deb, I’m not opposed to this diary, but I would just like a little more insight from you on it. Sleep diaries are rather controversial based on all I’ve read to be honest. So let’s say my diary looked like this:

Monday: early awakening, felt ok, fell back into light sleep

Tues: took a bit long to fall asleep, early awakening, didn’t fall back asleep

Weds: Decent night

Thurs: took a bit long to fall asleep, early awakening, didn’t fall back asleep

Fri: early awakening, felt anxious, went in and out of light sleep

How would writing all that down “help” me in the end??

[Steve]

Mac – The only thing I can tell you is what my counselor told me and that is that once you write it down. it gets it out of your mind so you won’t dwell on it.

[Author]

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