Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Oh, and I also get tons of micro sleep in the last hour of being awake, and sometimes it affects my falling asleep, sometimes it doesn’t. That’s a hard one to control – even if I’m sitting on the floor without my back resting on anything, I’ll still doze off. I also don’t like to get myself wide awake to keep from micro sleeps happening because I want the body and mind to be in that state of relaxation/sleepiness for when I get in bed. It’s contradictory…not sure what to do about it.
Steve,
You are still so in the beginning and you are actually having some pretty good nights of sleep compared to mine when I was in my third/fourth week – it was intense! I think it’s still too early to have any change well established – let’s remind each other to be patient with the process, we both need that: compassion with our insomnia 🙂
I think I’m getting the hang of this – the reality (at least for me) is that it will really take quite a few months of doing this to re-set the body’s sleeping system entirely. It has been so out of whack for the past 2 years, it makes sense that it takes a long time to really improve. I wish they didn’t say that people get better in 6-8 weeks of CBTI because that’s the window it took me just to see small improvements that are not even well established yet. To see significant and more permanent change, I’m assuming (for me) it will take around 6 months (with good improvements on the way there, hopefully). I was falling asleep very quickly for the past few weeks, and this week I’m taking at least 1 hour to fall asleep, so looks like the improvements come and go for a while until they’re more permanent.
I love the idea of reading a book in the middle of the night, instead of getting up – I find it relaxing and usually helps me fall asleep. If I’m up in the middle of the night I might try it!
Yup, it was the case for the first six weeks of SR, only this past week I was able to get more sleep again (5 hours)
Thank you for your response, Steve. It’s good to know that it is normal to have these relapses. I’m working on the frustration piece, usually it will last a little while and I eventually snap out of it.
I did CBTI with a therapist in person for the past 7 weeks and didn’t appreciate how she was handling things but learned the techniques with her. Now I’m doing Martin’s free course and applying what I learned before + what Martin suggests in the free course.
As for SC, I try my best to get out of bed when I’m not falling asleep, but a lot of times what happens is that I enter this weird state: I keep coming in and out of stage 1 or 2 of sleep which fools me and keeps me in bed, and sometimes this will go on all night – it’s horrible. I stay in bed because I’m not awake/conscious enough to get out. If I am wide awake though, I do get out of bed as soon as possible – I did it last night when I went to sleep and couldn’t fall asleep (even though sleep pressure was super strong). *Sigh…
Hi Joel,
Being new to this can be really difficult and scary. I remember when I first developed insomnia (emotional issues as well) it was maddening and so difficult not to panic about the whole experience. I think the most important thing for you to know right now is: you are not alone and as abnormal and surreal as it may feel, it is a very very common experience. I know that it doesn’t make the experience less “sucky” to know of this, but normalizing it helps us cope better and not freak out about it. There are thousands of us here on the website struggling with the same thing. The whole thing sucks big time, but try to stay patient and compassionate about it as much as possible. I suggest you get in touch with Martin directly as he is very compassionate, understanding, and eager to help!
