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I’ve had insomnia my whole life, too. Only remember sleeping well as a child.
Hiker’s words are comforting. You can live a full life in spite of the condition.
There is no cure, only ways to cope. It helps not catastrophising about it, and refrain from identifying yourself with your insomnia as if it’s all you are, though we all do it from time to time.
Seeing the world sleep while we can’t is depressing, but it’s important to keep living as close to normal as you can, whenever you can.
Hey, Chee (and Raven),
Thank you, really. I know you mean well.
I’ve asked Martin to delete my profile, since I’ve noticed as well as you have that I’m just repeating myself here and by doing so, I’m not doing good to anyone, including myself. I’ve seen your response on my hotmail, though, so I thought before Martin deletes my profile I should respond, so that we don’t leave things hanging.
What am I afraid of? I am afraid of becoming one of those people admitted to the ER for exhaustion. That’s what I’ve always been afraid of. Even though Martin and Scott (and you) have repeated many times that no matter how hard things get sleep will prevail in the end, I still can’t bring myself to entirely believe it because of my weird combination of inability to nap and difficulty to sleep. That’s why I do what I do, and that’s why I panic when I miss entire nights, because in my case there really is a strong possibility for it to turn into a series of nights (and days) unless I do something about it. There are cases of people not sleeping for days, and I’m afraid that I am a candidate for one of them. Is my fear ungrounded? – I hope so. But my inability to nap puts me highly in risk of becoming one, so I get scared. Many people in my own family sleep poorly, but none of them has a problem snoozing here and there the next day, and so neither of them is in danger of going 50, 60, 70 hours of literally not even a minute of sleep. I really believe this can one day lead me to a psychosis. But let’s hope it never does.
I hope I’ve explained it well. Also, the older I get, the harder it is to function, and the harder it is to “live like I don’t have it” – an old mantra that I told myself before I even knew what ACT is, and it worked when I was younger.
But, you’re right. Saying the same thing over and over again leads nowhere.
I wish you all enough sleep, and a solution to your problems. I don’t think we’ll ever sleep like babies again, but I do believe we can sleep enough, and in our case that is a big success.
You’re right, Chee. I am just repeating myself over and over again, and this post really was a desperate rant. It’s not healthy. I guess it IS time to move on from the forum.
Thanks for you reply and your support in the past. You know how hard it is when you’re on 70+ hours of no sleep, and there is no sympathetic ear anywhere.
Thanks, Phil.
So far not so good, but I hope I get some sleep tonight. I’m glad Martin’s course worked so well for you. I would try it out myself but I’m ftom Croatia so US prices are too high for me.
Great couple of posts.
I myself wonder if there even is such a thing as “pure” insomnia, what would that be? I believe every insomnia is, in reality, a generalized anxiety disorder with an emphasis on sleep, that we developed over time. So maybe insomnia really is a symptom, not a disease in itself, something I have long opposed.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter, just another way of looking at the problem. Insomnia IS anxiety.Yeah, I am definitely prone to conditioning. Though, isn’t every insomniac kinda like that.
As for true sleepy, I don’t know, the line used to be quite clear. Sleepy at night, and fatigued during the day when I don’t get enough sleep.
I used to be the regular run-of-the-mill kind of insomniac. A bad night leads to overthinking and anxiety, ruins the next few nights until things return to normal. Now with this early morning awakening, I don’t know what I am anymore.
I have tried going back to no rules, and I will try again soon, but it isn’t easy. Being fully awake at times for 40+ hours with no naps or snoozes is literally torture.
There are a lot of issues here, I know. Some anxiety, some OCD, some insomnia. My only wish at this point is the right therapy, a safer alternative to booze, but since a psychologist is out of the picture it will have to be back to no rules, that is the only way. Time will tell.
Thanks for your patience and responses.Sorry for not replying, such a d*** move on my part, and so often seen here, people get solid advice and don’t even say thanks.
So first of all – thank you. I just didn’t want to go back to the forum after getting some sleep the next night.So, I slept well that other night, after posting this, but I must admit it was again with the help of alcohol. I just can’t take two zero sleep nights in a row. Being unable to take a nap, that would be too much for me to bear. I’ve slept fine since then, but always waking up somewhere in the middle of the night, getting out of bed, taking a few shots and a little V to get that oozy feeling, and then falling asleep for the second part of the night.
@Martin, you’re right, it is certainly not a fix. It is like putting a band-aid on broken arm. You’re right about me probably being able to fall asleep the next night without alcohol, but it was a gamble I wasn’t strong enough to take. In the past I felt even bigger anxiety trying to fall asleep the next night, after a previous completely sleepless one, and I always would fall asleep at least a little, and it would comfort me. Then the following nights would get better and better, until the next bout. But since my insomnia shifted from bouts of onset insomnia to permanent maintenance insomnia, things changed, the old rules just don’t apply anymore, so I cheat. But it is no way to live, I know.“I wonder if there might be anything you can do during the day, especially after difficult nights, to improve the quality of your days, lower fatigue a little, and help shift some focus/attention away from sleep?”
– I already don’t nap, even if I would like to, but I have included bike riding into my daily routine, so we will see if it helps anything in the long run. I am not quitting alcohol until June, when I will go on a longer holiday and use it to try quitting.@ Jaran , if you’re still here, I wonder if you’re from the Balkans, like me. 🙂
“One night when the tug-of-war was raging in my head, I saw crystal-clear that these really weren’t “fixes” at all. They were making me sicker, and if I chose to continue down this path I would either A) be an alcoholic or B) have a potentially fatal overdose.”I use alcohol + pills combo, too, not just alcohol They’re in small doses for now, but I too fear what you feared, and you’re right. I don’t consider myself an alcoholic since I don’t need a drop of booze ever during the day, nor do I like it, I see it mainly as a sleep fix in the night. A small bottle off gin lasts more than a week, I take a few sips combined with a small bite of Valium. But it is not a solution, I know. I am just so tired of suffering, and I need to be able to function the next day. I will try to stop again soon, when I get work out of the equation, and see if it works. I have to get back to the swing of things, but I doubt I will ever get back to occassional bouts of insomnia, I think it’s here to stay as a permanent, everyday condition, but I can at least try to improve it in that regard.
@ Chee – I did used to do nothing, in fact that was my motto – live like you don’t have it. And coupled with a little coffee, it worked for a long while. I went to drinks, I socialized, I went out, in short I pretended to be OK and most of the time was OK.
Somewhere around when I entered my 30ies, or a little before that, it’s like that routine just stopped working. The insomnia shifted into everyday early morning awakening, and I still fought to “do nothing” for almost a year before finally giving up and trying V. I just couldn’t pretend that I am not exhausted, it was clearly visible, I struggled to maintain a normal conversation, so I had to resort to something.
However, you’re right in that I’m conditioning myself more and more. First it was just a little V, then it had to be some melatonin and some V, now it’s melatonin, V and a little alcohol, I see the pattern and I know it has to stop. I will try to see if I can go back to the way things were, and if it doesn’t work, I guess I will finally go to the doctor and look for something less dangerous.
I am excited and I am looking forward to trying to go back to the way things were.I am also sometimes at the mercy of a dog, not mine, but my neighbours. I am very sensitive to noise and go to absurd lengths to try to eliminate it, but sadly there is nothing that completely blocks outside sounds. I use ear plugs, cover my head with two pillows on top of that, and close my windows and blinds, yet this night the dog woke me up. It’s just so loud!
Luckily, it rarely barks, though I often wake up anyway, but that’s a different story.
Anyway, no advice about the dog, sadly, I don’t know what to do about it myself, just letting you know you’re not alone in this.
Maybe she stops barking and sleeps through the night instead!I’ve watched the video, thank you for the suggestion.
The sleep coach there makes perfect sense, the question is how to turn that theory into practice.
For a long time, when I was younger, and hadn’t yet dabbled with sleeping pills and everything I do today to sleep, I lived by one rule and one rule only when it came to insomnia: “Live like you don’t have it.”
Go out, act like everything is fine, talk go people… Admittedly, I used a lot of coffee to get me through the day, and I dreaded the approaching night, but most of the time it would turn out ok.
After a few days I would get solid sleep again.When my insomnia changed from onset to maintenance about 5 years ago, that was when my motto lost its function. How do I live like I don’t have insomnia when night after night I woke up too early and my sleep drive disappeared. That was when things got really rough for me, coffee wasn’t helping anymore so I started with Valium and things slowly went downhill. I still haven’t recovered, and I just don’t have the strength and the courage to face the next night if the previous one was terrible.
I wish I could go back to that old self.
But tomorrow I have to work first shift. I just don’t dare take on the night with only the power of my mind. I will almost certainly grab a beer, take some V with it, and tomorrow regret my cowardice.
It’s so hard to live like this. I hope I will gather up fhe courage to try, though, I know this can’t be a long term strategy.
I will watch some more of his videos, Martin’s too, maybe I can, in time, be free from pills again.
Thank you very much for your response, Chee.
I see you’ve been doing a lot of good on this forum, just like Martin and Scott.
The “gas and brake” model, I like that term, and you’re absolutely right in that my insomnia is a well conditioned and deeply rooted state of mind by now. I often wonder if all those years (10+) on forums like this did more harm then good. Still, I wouldn’t trade them for anything, nobody in my immediate surroundings understands.
Up to this point my sleep drive was strong enough to bypass that “brake” in the analogy, and I would fall asleep. I hope that I haven’t broken that somehow.
I will definitely watch the podcast you mentioned, today.
And thank you.You,re right,Scott. In fact I said the same thing when people were calling my 5-5.5 hrs a day “not a problem” and asked why I’m even complaining.
My apologies to OP. Though 7 sounds like a dream…
I feel you. Been through a zero sleep night, then to work, I looked and felt like utter crap.
Next night drank myself to sleep, which is a terrible thing to do, now we will see what this night brings.I am not optimistic.
We are too focused on sleep and we let it dominate our lives, that is at the core of the problem.
Thank you for the yime you put in writing this post.
I will answer it properly when I can, for now let me say I agree wth you on many points. I am also a veteran of insomnia forums for well over a decade. They are my therapy when nobody else understands, though they also, in a way, maybe, perpetuate insomnia. Everything with insomnia is a double edged sword.
So you helped yourself exclusively with this behavioural approach? How is your sleep, generally?
