[emonaco]

Hi!

I am usually an incredible sleeper, but every few years I have sleep onset anxiety that really shakes me up and I have a terrible time trying to fall asleep. My most prominent fear is having a seizure or missing on important things scheduled for the next day. I am constantly thinking about sleep, heart pounds when I see the bed, and putting in so much effort, and overall just a wreck. My last bout was 4 years ago, in which I was able to get success with the sleep restriction approach and using a sleep therapist. I was getting 5 hours of sleep even during restriction phase. Took about 3 weeks total to get back to my sleep pattern, and a few months to get over the anxiety.

This time the sleep restriction is just making me so much worse, and I’ve only completed two nights before resorting to help. I can only manage about 2-3 hours of sleep, even with a 6 hour time window. I go back and forth on the couch and bed, and it’s miserable. My neurologist prescribed lorazepam which I’ve taken to catch up on sleep. Is there anything else I can do? With it working in the past, I’m so discouraged it’s not working as effectively as it was before. I have support, and my epilepsy is well controlled, but it’s still so taxing on me mentally.

Thanks for your help and all the videos!

[Chee2308]

Hi!

First of all, let me express my sympathies for the suffering you are going through. But what is really the problem here? IMO, trying to use cbti as some kind of magic sleeping pill or an academic formula to escape that which makes you feel extremely uncomfortable, which is insomnia or simply a phobia of having poor sleep. Well it just doesn’t work like that.

Assess how this statement makes you feel: “There is really nothing you can do to make sleep happen.” If you,
1. Chuckle and just shrug it off. Congratulations! You very likely don’t or won’t have insomnia.
2. Feel nervous, despair, defeated, anxious or any of those unpleasant feelings. Well, you still have something to work on. Actually coming to terms with it.

Note that people in category 1 don’t necessarily sleep a lot better than 2. It just means they are indifferent to the same set of symptoms. They don’t spend hours thinking about it. Recovery from insomnia doesn’t mean free from insomnia. It just means they have abandoned the struggle with it.

[emonaco]

Wow, I had never thought of it this way. It’s not the true insomnia, it’s the anxiety around it. It’s the epilepsy that really causes the anxiety, but I do have it very well controlled.

I am starting an anxiety medication, but want to thank you for this honest comment. I will have to focus on this in therapy. I think the insomnia is just a bi-product or the anxiety around sleep.

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