[Thistooshallpass]

Hi all, starting having issues sleeping back in September. Tossing and turning for hours on end. 0-2 hrs of sleep on average in the beginning. I have a history of anxiety but it had never really crept into my sleep, until now. After about a week, I really started to panic and it kind of got ‘hard wired’ into my life. The more I worried, the less I slept, the less I slept, the more I worried. I’m sure you are all familiar. The pressure was so great to catch up on sleep the following night that of course, it wouldn’t come. Felt like I was a prisoner in my own mind and it was damn awful. Probably the worst couple months of my life. Saw a bunch of doctors, scared to take meds but was so desperate for sleep that I tried a bunch. Trazodone at first kind of worked but side effects, doxapine no, klonopin sometimes but terrified of becoming dependent. Prozac helped my daytime mood but made sleep worse. It seemed no matter what medication, my anxiety can override all of them if my mind tries hard enough. I got off them all and moved home. Being at home was comforting enough to see my sleep improve on its own and had a pretty good month or so. Averaged about 5-6 hours per night and was really feeling like I was over the hill. Unfortunately I have fallen off the wagon as of last week and feel like I’m back where I started. Extremely disheartening. Reading around this forum I see that setbacks are normal but man this sucks. This is here for the long haul and looking for tips on how to manage like the rest of you. My main problem is sleep onset. Once I manage to get that first wave of sleep I seem to manage pretty well. It’s just more often than not I can’t get into sleep until 4-6 AM with the alarm clock looming. I’m pretty good with sleep hygiene stuff but I can’t turn off the voice in my head. “What if I never sleep normal again?” “I only have 3 more hours to sleep till the alarm, tomorrow will be awful” “What if I don’t sleep again tomorrow night?” “What if this eventually kills me?” It always comes down to distracting myself long enough, thinking about something pleasant, to not notice I am falling asleep, and I do. It’s just really hard to do when your anxiety is so high and you are so focused on sleep. Seconds turn to minutes turn to hours… Ruminating, panicking. My case is completely mental it seems like, I just can’t control it. I’m getting a new psychiatrist and probably going to try a different antidepressant to take during the day to see if it brings my baseline anxiety down. Curious what has worked best for you all in that regard? Continuing with mindfulness and talk therapy as well. Thanks and I really feel for all of you struggling with this.

[Thistooshallpass]

P.s. I realize I spelled vicious wrong. Oops.

[Deb]

Yes, insomnia is a mental condition and drugs are only temporary solutions. There are two therapies for it – CBT-I that Martin explains here on this website and coaches people on, and ACT, which you can read about in The Sleep Book by Dr. Guy Meadows.

[Martin Reed]

Welcome to the forum. Your post is a perfect example of chronic insomnia — and for chronic insomnia, the best treatment option is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I).

How are you getting on since you posted? You mentioned that you were doing really well but you hit a rough patch over the previous week. If you keep looking forward, it’s likely that your sleep will get right back on track all by itself.

It sounds as though you’re doing really well at identifying some of the thoughts that are generating anxiety — make sure you also take some time to evaluate them for accuracy. When you do this, you will almost certainly realize that the thoughts that are generating so much anxiety aren’t very accurate!

For example, how accurate is the thought that insomnia will kill you? Nobody dies from insomnia because after being awake for long enough, we will always sleep — we never lose the ability to sleep. How accurate is the thought that tomorrow will be ruined after a night of poor (or no sleep)? Have there been times when you’ve been able to get through the day after a bad night? Maybe noticed some OK moments? Maybe even had a good day?

This video might be worth a watch: What to do when anxious thoughts are making sleep difficult and leading to insomnia.

I hope this helps!

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The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Author]

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