[KerryWillo]

Hi everyone I’m currently experiencing 0 hrs sleep every second night – it’s soul destroying🥲 when I do sleep on the in between night it’s around 5 hrs. I wait until I’m so sleepy to go to bed literally can’t keep my eyes open then in bed I’m wide awake. Anxiety is through the roof atm -feel so low. I carry on going about my day but with a very heavy heart and no joy in anything I do!! Last night I was struggling with leg cramps even though I take magnesium plus I’ve had songs that play over and over in my head on a continuous loop so I have to put earphones in and listen to one of martins podcasts to try and overcome this( anyone else have this problem )??I’m currently working my way through the free course and I thought I’d cracked it because last week I managed 5 nights in a row of sleep starting at 5hrs up to 7hrs by night 5 then I had one night with zero sleep and it’s all gone drastically downhill! Any suggestions??

[hiker]

Hi KerryWillo, the sleep anxiety is bad enough. When it morphs into panic, it’s even worse. It sounds like you are sliding downward. And suggestions can seem so simplistic: “It’s all in your head!” “Just get over it!” blah blah

Still, for me anyway, when I found myself sliding into what I think is formally called depressive rumination, i.e. that really dark place……when I could finally lean back and actually watch myself sliding down, instead of just sliding down, I could sometimes even verbally, aloud, say “I am really going through a slice of hell here.” And I could give myself a break from all the work of trying to sleep. And you know what, I’m just going to do the best I can in this moment. If I have to leave for work in ten minutes, I will just do what I can to get ready in these ten minutes. And if I don’t have to do anything for the next hour–the daily chores can wait a bit–then I’m going to give myself some free time to do whatever I want. Watch a show, read, just veg out, whatever.

The thought that “it’s all gone drastically downhill!” can feel like “it all gone drastically downhill, I’m going to crash, I am not going to recover from this, I am doomed.” A powerful but false thought, aka the insomnia talking.

I have been searching for what to write here…..then I looked up and reread the title of your post: “The struggle is real!” And I recall how tough it is when you are hammered by insomnia to see that the way forward is to stop struggling.

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