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Last night something different happened. My sleep drive came on around 10:30p. Lately I’ve been doing what Deb mentioned a few days ago. Going to sleep as long as that strong sleep drive shows up. As long as that exhaustion and head nodding comes. With this, I’ve ended up having a lot of good nights. My sleep anxiety in general is back down to a super low level again so any kind of sleep window has kind of been put on the back burner for now. But anyway, I was adamant last night about staying up to watch something on television. Long story short the sleep drive seemed to slowly disappear as I forced myself to stay up. A half hour later around 11pm I went to bed, not as shot as I was 30 minutes earlier. Long story short, I didn’t have a great night. I woke up a bit too early and while I may have been asleep for approximately 6.5 hours, overall I feel like my sleep was bad quality. I’m very tired, so that tells me something was very off. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.
Really enjoyed reading Borgesbi’s story and seeing how he has had success. Not too many on here that have 2.5+ years behind them in dealing with sleep issues. Still hoping to hear an in depth tale of success that meant completely being healed from Insomnia.
I’ve been doing ok the last couple of weeks since my awful breakdown. I’ve been waiting for my sleep drive to come on whether that means 11pm or even 12am on a few select nights. Typically though I try and avoid going to sleep before 11. I think I’ve realized through trial and error one thing… As long as I have that brutal sleep feeling before bed, and it’s at least 11pm, I have around what I’d say is a 90% chance of having a decent night. Those are pretty nice odds and I’m ok living with them right now.
The sleep drive is so important, but as noted in my breakdown rant a couple of weeks ago, I just wonder if I will ever get to a day where I can go on without it. Where I can just hop into bed slightly tired and eventually drift off to a regular 7 hour night of sleep. Until then, this is going to have to do for now. But overall, I’m doing quite well at the moment.
Martin is right IMO in the sense that if you are in the early stages of sleep anxiety that you have little control over, you should stay away from these forums at least on the days where you are doing very bad. Feeling down and then reading a thread about how someone has suffered with Insomnia for 10 years isn’t exactly a recipe for relaxing your already fragile nervous system. I remember it would effect me. I would keep it in this forum only and I would suggest skimming over anything you don’t think is good for you to read right now.
On a positive note for you Steve, and I’m not the greatest person to talk to as I can’t say for certain there is a 100% success story coming from me yet, but I can say things will get better. I was in the absolute depths of hell insomnia wise, more than you could ever imagine. Today I’m leaps and bounds better. I go through these rough phases that get me terribly down sometimes as you saw this past weekend and today, but I’m still better than where I was, even if its only by 30%. Will I one day reach 100%? Maybe. I hope so. I’m trying to stay optimistic. Part of me thinks I’ll blink and it will be December talking to you and Deb about my struggles still. But there’s another part of me that knows I have improved, albeit very very slowly. You will be ok Steve, you just need to understand this is not easy and nobody ever said it was.
If there is ONE thing I’ve learned in my 2.5+ years now of dealing with this, it’s that this is ANYTHING but an overnight fix. You have a completely traumatized nervous system that needs much care and discipline to begin helping, and you’ve already done that a bit in just a few weeks IMO.
Of course I can beat it again Steve. That’s not the issue anymore and hasn’t been for a long time. It’s beating it and KEEPING it beat. I know it’s near impossible for you to relate to me fully seeing as how you’ve only been dealing with this for 6 months or so, but when you reach over 2.5 years, a certain sick feeling in one’s stomach starts to set in. A feeling that regardless of how many good nights or good phases I go through, it becomes harder and harder to envision a complete escape. Would really like a few thoughts from Martin at this point if he’s out there. Feeling down these days.
I’m surprised you went to Ambien during a recent bad spell. Sasha Stephens basically says drop the pills no matter what. My question to you is this… how did things get so bad that you had to resort to this?
Thanks Deb. I need to realize that this SRT HAS been working for me. I repeat, it HAS been working. Sure not every single night, but these last 3 weeks alone before this weekend came I’ve probably only had about 3 off nights. And these off nights as you know only came after I tampered with the therapy by messing up my window. I just have to stay positive and be happy that I’ve made progress, even if that progress/SRT began 5 months ago now. Nobody ever said this was an easy thing to get over.
Thank you for your words Deb. I really do appreciate them. I know I am hard on myself, but when you realize this has been going on for over 2.5 years (even if I didn’t finally crack down until just this past January), it creates a sickening feeling in my stomach. A feeling that, even though it’s pretty much false, this is permanently my life now. Again Deb, over 2.5 years of on and off bad sleeping. Sure i’ve been doing well as of late in general, but to have what was really THREE bad nights now, I just can’t. I just don’t know. I know saying I’m and tired of being tired comes off as comical and silly, but in my world, it’s just on another level. Let’s hope and pray that this is my very last back to back night bad weekend for a very very long time.
Extremely rough weekend here, and past three days in general going back to Thursday night. Friday night was interesting as I was out and not home until 11pm. Long story short I had no sleep drive until around midnight and even then it wasn’t exhaustion. But I had big plans on Saturday so anxiety began to creep in about getting a good night of sleep and how going to bed so late and having to wake early to maintain the window would affect me. This is one area where anxiety still seems to always get me. Sasha Stephens would call it “special event insomnia”. Anyway, I crashed around 12:30am and it was just a bad night of sleep. I finally got out of bed around 7:20am which was way past my 6:30 weekend wakeup time. But that 7:20am wakeup wasn’t before being in and out of sleep the last couple of hours, so it felt.
Then last night things got even worse, somehow. While general sleep anxiety was now calmed down, I again (don’t ask why) went to bed without being exhausted. I was tired, but the sleep drive wasn’t really there. Probably because of me sleeping so late that morning. I just had this idea in my head that two BAD nights in a row haven’t happened in so long, that I would be surprised if they did. I finally ended up passing out around midnight, only to wake up at 5:56am. Today I am an absolute zombie.
Sorry to vent with negativity now , but this really is finally getting disgusting to me at this point. Like is this really my life now? Where I’ve been so traumatized for SO long over sleep that ANYTIME I go to bed without being completely sleepy/exhausted it guarantees me an off/bad night? That regardless of my sleep anxiety being leaps and bounds better than it was even 6 months ago, ANYTIME I break my sleep window or sleep in its a recipe for an absolute disaster? I just cannot do this any longer. I’ve seen improvement in many areas, yes, but one thing has remained constant, and that is the fact that I don’t think I’ve ever come close to 100% healed. At least not after seeing things like this past weekend happen.
2.5 years later, 34 years old, here I still am. Looking at horrific dark circles under my eyes in the mirror, another weekend day completely shot. Now ok, on a positive note, it should be known that it’s been a LONG while since a bad weekend, but that’s not really my point. My point is that it’s becoming harder and harder as time goes on for so long, to think that there is a total and complete escape from this.
Any words of encouragement would help today. Thanks.
-Mac
Steve…
Some nights, yes, I feel perfectly fine. Other nights it’s just been more of an “ok” feeling to where even though I’m perfectly fine during the day, I’m not exactly ‘refreshed’. Understand that me going in bed at 11:30 doesn’t mean me passing out that split second. Usually I’ll finally crash around let’s say midnight and then with a 6a wakeup time, that’s 6 hours of sleep which was always an iffy amount of time for me, pre insomnia days or after. On nights where I’ve gotten in bed around 11 and crashed 11:30, I can tell a difference. End of the day though, 7 hours has always been my magic amount of time. Not trying to go crazy focusing on time bc I know that’s not what you’re supposed to do, but it’s just the reality of it all whether we like it or not IMO.
Really just not sure what lies ahead for me or where to really go from here other than continuing to try and stick to the 11-1130p bedtime timeframe and hope it continues to build up my sleep confidence so that I CAN actually begin to do well on 10:30p bedtime work nights. Anyway thank you for your words. As long as I don’t have another downward spiral like I did a month ago I’ll be happy for the time being. How exactly are you doing at this point in time? Would you say you are a whole worlds difference than where you were let’s say a month ago?
Mac
Update:
So for the last week things have been ok. One bad night thrown in there and honestly it wasn’t even because of an early awakening or anything like that. It was because of a bad dream that messed with my sleep in the later portion of the night/early morning. That brings me to last night. I’ve been sticking with the 11-11:30 bedtimes as that’s when my sleep drive has usually been coming on, but last night I don’t know what happened. By 10:30p I was absolutely shot. Instead of playing games like turning the lights back on and standing up, etc, I took this opportunity to give myself a real test. I went to bed. Wouldn’t you know it, early awakening. Didn’t look at the clock but I estimated it to be around 5am. Went back in and out of light/BS sleep until my 6am alarm. While not a brutal/bad night, I am very tired today. This is just more proof that I am still not ready and cannot handle an earlier bedtime, even if I cannot keep my eyes open.
The thing of it is, I know I can sleep well going to bed at that time. It’s happened plenty of times over the last 5 months, especially on weekends. I think there is still just and was just a good amount of underlying anxiety in there over entering my bedroom at that time, 10:30pm, after sticking with this 11-11:30p timeframe so well for several weeks now. Plus, with work in the morning, there is always that built in anxiety there that is very hard to shake. If I didn’t have work and didn’t have a 6am alarm, I can almost guarantee you I would have slept better. May have woken up early still, but would have fell back into nice sleep much much easier.
Oh well, not happy today.
here’s to another cup of coffee… Large sized.
Slarus… It is not possible to go three full days without sleep so can you elaborate? Have you taken naps?
Thanks everyone, but I know more than anyone that we should hold the celebration off for probably a good few months, lol. If I had a dime for every relapse, small or large I’ve ever had I’d be a very wealthy man by now. I wouldn’t recommend anything but a strict window time for high anxiety sufferers because of the obvious. It probably won’t work. You need to be so strict at first to the point where you have to discipline your body into sleeping, and messing with the times (i.e. Going in bed a little early/sleeping in a tad later) just isn’t good. It might not be completely detrimental, but I can tell you it absolutely won’t help. It’s not easy, and its definitely rough, but if you’re freaking out over your sleep you need to pick a window and stick with it, no excuses.
Been sleeping well since Friday night. Been consistent in going to bed in between 11 and 11:30pwhen the sleep drive comes in. And of course, waking up at just about the same time to ensure that the sleep pressure comes back around at the same time every night. I say just about because on weekends I tend to give myself an extra half an hour which for me is ok. For newbies with sky high anxiety (Steve?) I do not suggest any kind of soft SRT scenario like this!
I am glad I am sticking with my (light) window this time though, as opposed to my first go around in January where I kind of ended up moving away from it rather quickly. Within 3 weeks I think it was I was already going to bed when I wasn’t even completely exhausted. Now I am making sure to stick with this for much, much longer. Only time will tell however if I can heal completely long term. If a day can come where I can consistently get into bed around 10:30p again, just a tad sleepy, and still have a good night. Only time will tell.
Mac
