[Awakeinthedark]

Hello Hiker,

Thank you for sharing your experience.
I am sorry you have gone through insomnia the way you have. In many ways, I feel like I can relate to you about insomnia being a monster in my life. It sounds as though you might be in a better place now. Have things improved for you with CBT-I? If so, how long did it take?

I am finally starting to understand that it is how I have been interpreting and reacting to every bad night that seem to have only made things worse. My fear and anxiety grew night after night as my obsession with fixing this problem only increased my hyper arousal while reducing my sleep drive.

Thank you again for taking the time for your thoughtful and kind response.
I hope you are sleeping better now.

[Awakeinthedark]

Hi Martin,

First of all, thank you for all your amazing videos. I have been watching them for many weeks now, and in many ways – your thoughtful guidance through those videos have been tremendously helpful, reassuring and kind.

Insomnia has developed into this mean cage bully who likes to come out (extremely early morning in the quiet darkness where I feel almost paralyzed) and torture my brain almost every day. On some lucky days, maybe once or twice per week, it’s not there but the fear and anticipation of another early morning awakening (2-3am) has now become a nightly habit.

I kind of feel like a “Hyper-Thinking Junkie” and no matter how hard I try to stop, in the morning when I get up, I am surrounded by cold (overthinking) “needles” I had no intention of using.

The strange thing is, at this point, rather than the actual number of sleep I am getting (no matter how big or small) that feeling of not having any control over the most basic feature of human behavior frustrates me like crazy.

I have been trying to let go of this type of thinking. So rather than toss and turn like I normally do at 3am, I got up this morning and left my bedroom. Not sure how much of a difference this behavior change might make but I am still hopeful that as long as I don’t give up, I will have some chance of ending up in the right place at some point.

Sorry for such a long answer.
I guess it’s really nice to respond to you as I’ve been watching your videos and gaining courage from them for so many weeks.
Thank you again.

[Author]

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