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Hello everyone, I just barely signed up and am making my first post. I’m living in a stressful situation. My mom has stage 4 lung cancer and I’ve been watching her grow sicker and weaker on the chemo for a year and a half. About two months ago, I had a hard mental break down and was awake for five days straight. I went to urgent care and was prescribed benzos. After a couple more weeks, my mom had a seizure and an anti-psychotic had to be added on top of the benzos in order for me to actually get to sleep and stay asleep for more than an hour at a time. I have finally begun to back off of the benzos, but I am nervous. I am wondering, now that I know my brain is capable of keeping itself awake for (at least) five days, how do I retrain it not to do that? I used to be a really good sleeper. I never needed sleeping pills before this started. Now I can’t even imagine how I’m going to get back to that place. Has anyone had a similar experience, or words of encouragement?
Hello, I’m so sorry. My heart bleeds for you, as I went through losing my own mother to cancer. As Martin Reed says, “You will find sleep again.”
For me it has been a 1 1/2 since first experiencing insomnia. When working with western medicine doctors, they will do just that, put you on medication. I took medication to get me through for awhile, but I personally don’t like being on prescription medication. Personally, this has meant a process of reworking how my brain responds to anxious thoughts. This year and a half has not been all bad, in fact it has been a wonderful learning process of finding much more peace with not only difficult nights, but also difficult days.
Your brain has imprinted a negative association with sleep, but it will not always be that way. The experience of insomnia can can create a feeling of PTSD. What has worked for me is listening to the Insomnia Coach podcasts to see that I/we are not alone, and truly staying dedicated to this learning process. My thoughts and prayers are with you in regards to your mom.
Thank you for sharing your experience. It has been astounding to me to learn how common the problem of “I can’t sleep because I’m afraid of not being able to sleep” actually is.
External anxiety is definitely a huge factor. I’m working with a therapist and a psychiatrist to try to learn how to handle all the things that are coming at me right now. I believe that being able to address some of the anxiety with my mom and her sickness will put me in a much better place to be able to handle things without medication. I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it.
The sleep anxiety is harder for me to see my way out of. I’m reading my emails from Martin Reed and doing the suggested follow up research, and listening to episodes of the podcast when I get the time. I’m at the point right now where I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I’m starting to believe that there is one.
Hi, Sorry about your mother, I had an issue back in 2022 where I lost my father in-law (very close) five weeks later lost my mother, had knee replacement surgery. Insomnia kicked in and your statement of “I can’t sleep because I’m afraid of not being able to sleep” is so true! Mine cleared up about after learning from others on this site but the past few months has come back, even last night was a poor night with zero sleep. I am searching on here, trying to figure out what I did to resolve it the first time. As I am typing, I am starting to figure out that I am doing what I did the first time and that is search for answers about how to sleep better or just sleep so I am getting myself all worked up about sleeping. I went to bed last night and just when I hit the bed, I was wide awake and laid there in bed trying to force it and then it never happened. I guess what I am trying to say, that sleep will come because I was in your place, no sleep for days and didn’t know what to do. I know we can find the answers here, I wish I could remember what I did the first time around, if I can search my old posts and find anything useful, I will pass it on .
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