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It was hard to believe when it finally happened. Covid hit and I was sent home to work. Gone were the way too early wakeups that held my anxiety triggered insomnia in place on and off for over 3 years. The insomnia that brought me to the absolute lowest points in my life. I began sleeping and sleeping well. There were still bad nights here and there, but overall I knew I was finally reaching that light at the end of the tunnel. I learned all I could learn about insomnia and how to handle it. Read books and did all the work. It’s just something that takes time and my time had finally come. Forget about sleep restriction and all these other rules that are there for serious sufferers, I had reached a point where I was even playing around on my phone for a bit while in bed before deciding to finally crash. Life felt VERY normal again, in a year that was not so normal. I was happy, I was upbeat. Even the dark circles under my eyes began to fade away ever so slightly.
Fast forward to about a year later and one month ago now, and slowly but surely my insomnia has somehow, someway, crept right back into my life. Taking a while to fall asleep, waking up too early. You name it, it’s happening. Middle of the night awakenings are more rare though. It’s never as bad as to the point it was in those early years, but definitely back and with a big of vengeance too. Truth is I can’t even pinpoint why or how it started. I’m definitely under some stress lately, but what does that even mean? So anytime in life I come under stress my sleep will suffer? What will happen if i have a kid one day? What will happen if I ever meet someone that I’ll have to welcome into my bed every night? Generally speaking, even this relapse aside, I have to admit I suffer from some pretty significant anxiety over sleep. It was there even before my insomnia began all those years ago. My therapist once said I could always get some pills “just incase”, maybe have one here or there to try and get me out of a relapse? I don’t know. All I know is that while my insomnia is pretty much night and day compared to what it once was, I’m still rather nervous about what the future holds for me and my sleep.
I am having the exact same problem right now. My current patch of bad sleep is not nearly as bad as my original “big one” which initially triggered my fear of insomnia. I was up for days at a time with that one, but with this current sleep disturbance its just the random wakenings (every night I wake up at least 2 or 3 times and have to fall back asleep all over again) and sometimes takes a bit long to fall asleep initially. But still it hurts knowing something is not right. I am starting to believe this could be something I have to deal with for the rest of my life. I had darn near 2 years of perfect sleep between my current problem and my initial one, but some work stress + medication change brought some terror back. Sorry I cannot add much, just you are for sure not the only one going through this. Hopefully we can learn tools to keep it away for good eventually, but the pessimist in me has doubts. I read comments on youtube and reddit about people having insomnia for 10, 20, 30 years. It makes my heart sink.
Very interesting that you had 2 YEARS of what you call “perfect” sleep and are now in the midst of a relapse. On one hand yes, I would be very upset that you’re revisiting this awful phase of life, but on the other, damn, 2 years, thats a success and should be clear cut evidence that you can put this behind you for another 2 years. I’m curious how long did your initial run with insomnia last and what triggered it initially? Have you lived in different homes in all this time?
The initial run was somewhere between 3 and 4 months and what triggered it was a health scare + work stress. For the first time in my life I had not only 1 night of no sleep but 2 in a row, which gave me a massive panic attack. Because before that if I had 1 night of no sleep i’d always crash early the next night. I remember it slowly getting better, and if I got 5 hours of sleep a night I would be so happy because its better than 0. Now when I get 5 i feel horrible.
Yup I’ve been there. Lord knows I’ve been there. I really hope you recover into another 1-2 year if not longer recovery. I guess at this point I’m just back trying to “decipher” whats wrong and what’s caused this relapse of mine, but deep down I know it’s just the typical anxiety again flaring up. I still haven’t ruled out pills as a temporary fix until I can get back on track, because clearly this may be some sort of long term problem for me now. After recovering so well last year I honestly never thought I’d be back here.
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