[UliHarp]

To start, let me set the scene. On insomnia, depression, and solitude:

Depression: In short, I've had recurring bouts of mental struggles during my teenage years and in early adulthood. Our family (maternal side) has a high predisposition to mood disorders; my mother has Bipolar II and Seasonal Effective Disorder as well as Chronic Depression. I myself have not been officially diagnosed with anything, only recommended to be by therapists and counselors I've seen in the past during my “slumps” or for anxiety. (My reasons for not being officially diagnosed for anything are admittedly cowardice.)

Solitude: My life has always been fairly solitary. In schools I was an independent learner/worker, all my hobbies growing up were individual activities, and as a night owl I was always up when siblings/parents went to bed. Even now, those core things haven't changed: I still work alone, my hobbies have no room for partners, and I'm always up when my roommate goes to bed. The one big difference between then and now is that back then, I got out of the house on regular basis, saw friends, or at least interacted with others/places. I recently finished classes at a technical college, and have since been working from home (as mentioned above). There's a lot of advantages to working from home, but for me, it's turned my fairly solitary life into a very solitary one. I don't regularly get out of the house much anymore, save Fridays (karaoke) and Mondays (lgbt group at a local cafe). Similarly, the only person I see on regular basis is my roommate; when a friend comes over or I go out unexpectedly, it's a big deal.

I often feel like I'm peddling my time away just being stuck in the house, and like I don't get much done. (You know the old drill; “go outside, do something active; you're wasting your day inside”.) Like I said earlier; I feel uneasy when I don't accomplish work my weight in gold for one day, so for all the time I'm alone in the house, I feel the need to keep busy. It feels almost like a compensator sometimes, juggling multiple projects at once to distract me from 'cabin fever'. Yet, as good as I feel for as much work I do one day, later on I always get the feeling that I'm not really going anywhere. Which tempts me to keep at the grind… and stay there…

Insomnia: My sleep habits/issues have been fairly constant throughout my life. As a child, I was always a night owl, and still am. The best way to describe that is I feel my day's (or night's) mental/creative peak begins at midnight and goes until sunrise. Paired with a world run on daylight, it makes perfect stew for episodes of insomnia. In a perfect world, I'd sleep at day and work at night.

This routine worked horribly during schooling, but since winter I've been working from home, and am more able to abide by it. But, as much as I hate to admit, sometimes the temptation to work through the night AND keep at the grind through day is too great. I often feel I can't call it a day until I've done work worth my weight in gold. If I spend a day lounging, I make up for it at night. When I'm sick of working on one thing, I switch over to working on another. In the back of my head, I know I should try to fall asleep, but that works vice versa, too: if I'm trying to get to sleep, in the back of head is everything I should be working on. (For the sake of discussion, I'll be specific about that work: it boils down to writing, researching, website building/upkeep, and arts-related projects.) The best I can describe is that when I'm working, I'm on guilt-induced high speed because I know I should be sleeping. But when I actually get to sleep, the moment I wake up I count the hours spent and feel guilty for any time I could have spent working. (Say I fall asleep at 6am, and wake up at 2pm, like today; I would rather have woken at 11am, before noon.)

These three things (insomnia, depression, solitude) I think tend to fuel each other, or at least affect.

So my questions/wondering about all of this is if anyone here has similar situations, how they feel about it, what they do… or if anything, the question of these three things being a Bermuda triangle or separate issues.

Sorry for the long-winded nature of all this- I figured more information is better than too little.

[UliHarp]

Oops! I switched around some of the paragraphs- so some “mentioned above” things are really below. Sorry for any confusion!

[Tommy ToXen]

Hi UliHarp, I'm in the same boat as you I reckon. I'd say they're related, in someway.

I'm seeing a specialist soon, to figure out what the best course of meds are etc. I *think* my insomnia was triggered by depression, and as for solitude, I like being alone sometimes, I love my space – but like you, that then makes me depressed, and I want to get out, and that starts a vicious cycle. Being stuck in the same 4 walls drives me insane sometimes.

I went undiagnosed for years because I refused to admit I had a problem. For years my self-destructive behaviour has lost me jobs, opportunities, friends, money and a lot of good things that were going for me once upon a time. People gave up on me, and I don't blame them. I started relying on alcohol and other substances more and more until it finally caught up with me in March. When I came out of intensive care I swore I was going to sort myself out for good this time so didn't run away as soon as the GP referred me to a psychiatrist this time, I actually went.

And I have to say, my life's a lot better for it, but obviously I'm typing this at 3.37 AM my sleeping hasn't gotten any better 😉

[Kik]

I've always blamed my insomnia and my reluctant solitude for my blue spells but I've never linked the two of them together.

For me, a lack of input/stimulus in the day almost always bums me out but I've never felt my insomnia was caused by depression. It's always felt exclusively the other way around.

[BellaRose]

I certainly think they fuel each other negatively, if you have depression you are likely to get insomnia because of the negative thought process & lower serotonin levels. & Vice versa, I've had insomnia since I was a child & I've gone through bouts of depression & solitude throughout periods of my life.

Once you're in that loop it's incredibly hard to get out, I felt the more I tried to get of it the worse I got. I went through an 8 month period last year in which I rarely slept at all, I'd have one or two hours sleep on one night and none the next, if I had slept a few hours on one night I would never sleep the next night. Although I would go through a few days at a time of no sleep at all. I think this happened because of stress, depression & finding out I had a rare syndrome which affected my mobility so I was no longer able to do most of the things I was physically able to do before.

I stopped seeing people because I was too ill or I couldn't socialize, the depression got worse which made my sleep worse. The lack of sleep & stress made my syndrome more & more painful. Which made daily tasks impossible and I ended up just not sleeping at all. The doctors said I was clinically disabled with insomnia!

Its impossible, that experience has made me change my view of life though, I'm now a lot happier that I'm no where near as ill as I could be.

[Kik]

'BellaRose' wrote on '08:

Its impossible, that experience has made me change my view of life though, I'm now a lot happier that I'm no where near as ill as I could be.

That gives me a lot of hope. Thank you 🙂

[UliHarp]

Also gives me hope. It makes me wonder to see I'm not the only one who gets caught in the 'vicious circle': wonder in the way that I'm curious to see if connections have been made and/or researched by professionals and what they do for it.

[UliHarp]

'BellaRose' wrote on '08:

I stopped seeing people because I was too ill or I couldn't socialize, the depression got worse which made my sleep worse. The lack of sleep & stress made my syndrome more & more painful. Which made daily tasks impossible and I ended up just not sleeping at all. The doctors said I was clinically disabled with insomnia!

I was very close to the point of not seeing people or going out during the winter time. I reasoned it then by saying it was cold out, etc., but looking back I flat out didn't want to see anyone. It added to the detriment of my relationship at the time, since my (ex)partner would often visit daily, and I would want nothing to do with him or just be crabby/bitter. I might still be stuck in that self-imposed solitude if not for my friend Eric: he came to our house for a party and starting talking about a cafe group he went to every Monday, and insisted I come with him to the next meet when I expressed interest. Since then I've gone to this group every week, and slowly come back out of my shell and remembered I enjoy being around people. It doesn't seem like much, only getting out and socializing on Mondays, but it was a nice, gradual step out of not seeing anyone at all. I look forward to every Monday now, especially since many people in the group also have insomnia or depression/related emotional illnesses. We don't always talk about them, but when it comes up, everyone's more than understanding and sometimes even helpful.

[UliHarp]

'Tommy wrote on '30:

Hi UliHarp, I'm in the same boat as you I reckon. I'd say they're related, in someway.

I'm seeing a specialist soon, to figure out what the best course of meds are etc. I *think* my insomnia was triggered by depression, and as for solitude, I like being alone sometimes, I love my space – but like you, that then makes me depressed, and I want to get out, and that starts a vicious cycle. Being stuck in the same 4 walls drives me insane sometimes.

I went undiagnosed for years because I refused to admit I had a problem. For years my self-destructive behaviour has lost me jobs, opportunities, friends, money and a lot of good things that were going for me once upon a time. People gave up on me, and I don't blame them. I started relying on alcohol and other substances more and more until it finally caught up with me in March. When I came out of intensive care I swore I was going to sort myself out for good this time so didn't run away as soon as the GP referred me to a psychiatrist this time, I actually went.

And I have to say, my life's a lot better for it, but obviously I'm typing this at 3.37 AM my sleeping hasn't gotten any better 😉

I (reluctantly) admit that I dodge help. It's not that I don't want it, but I always seem to chicken out or gloss over the problems at hand so friends and family don't have to get involved or be concerned. My family, as far as I know, just thinks I'm a night owl and assumes I sleep well enough. A few of my closer friends are aware of everything but rarely bring it up or just say “you're fine”. (Which both kills me and makes me consider if I am.) I think part of my reluctance is that I'm scared to be marked as this or that, because once something's official, it's set in stone. (Or at least, how it seems.) Also, I'm a little threatened by the possibility of medication. It takes a lot to work myself up to medicine for anything: even stuff like ibuprofen or aspirin makes me anxious because it's a foreign substance that could (in worst case scenario) have adverse side effects. I guess the reason for that is my lack of experience with hospitals and doctors, etc. I've never broken a bone, had stitches, or been to a hospital/office for anything besides what could be solved with a brace or exercises (Carpal Tunnel Synd.). So the concept of medicine going into my system is new and (quite honestly) scary. I've had more experience with plain counselors and therapists throughout my life. I'm more comfortable with their sorts of noninvasive treatments (i.e. mental exercises and mantras). My fear is that when I do go to someone for serious analysis, I'll be pressured to take medications or the treatment will change me. Which sounds paranoid and counterproductive, seeing as I would like help… it's just kinda one big, divided jumble in my head.

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