[PEPPE]

Hi!
I have onset insomnia. Problem falling asleep but mostly sleep good once asleep.
But this can go to the extremes with day’s on end with absolutely zero sleep. Day 3 i starts to see small flies. I gues brain gets tired. 9 day’s without sleep is my record.

I came off benzos, prescribed for insomnia, 10 months ago. It’s been really rough but now mostly only insomnia is left.
Insomnia makes it impossible for me to live a normal life. I can never do anything or plan as i can never tell if I been up for a few days or not.

Little seems do be done for onset insomnia..I have text book examples of what to do for promote sleep but nothing helps. So called Sleeping hygiene is a joke. I sleep with ear buds and a facemask so it’s dead silent and very silent.
Anywy hope you guys are good!
Peppe

[hiker]

Hi Peppe, it sounds like you are going through a rough time. All I can offer is my own experience. Maybe there is something you can use here. I can say that I have gone through a similar journey.

I wouldn’t say sleep hygiene is a joke, but I agree it only touches the surface, and can seem superficial when the insomnia goes deeper.

“Insomnia makes it impossible for me to live a normal life”—I can relate to this as well, but I would substitute “really hard” for “impossible”– When I was living through what seemed like a slice of hell–exhaustion, the temptation to despair, not go anywhere/do anything— I would try to remember just to focus on the nanosecond, this speck of time, I was in. Not how am I going to deal with driving to the store five minutes from now. Just making it through this nanosecond. Often described as mindfulness and often disparaged as stupid, irrelevant, etc. But the alternative is to try to deal with everything which may happen in the future right now, which is not only overwhelming but unnecessary.

I hope you will stick with the forum and even consider Martin’s course, where he addresses in detail how to not cede power to insomnia, e.g. not planning anything. The forum alone has lots of good info at no charge. There are success stories, and also posts similar to yours—which show there are lots of people out there going through this. We can learn from each other.

I hope you can give yourself credit for making it this far. Don’t give up.

[Martin Reed]

Hello @PEPPE and welcome to the forum — you aren’t alone!

I think @hiker offered some really helpful guidance. All I would add is there might be a big insight in your sentence, “I have text book examples of what to do for promote sleep but nothing helps”.

Based on that, it sounds as though your experience is telling you that sleep is out of your control — you cannot make it happen through effort. No matter how hard you try, you continue to struggle with it.

Is there any possibility that the (understandable) effort and ongoing trying might be making things more difficult?

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[Author]

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