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Long time no speak everyone. Wanted to jump back on here for an update on myself:
I’ve been working from home since late March (was supposed to return in early August but that was extended and I am now going back to the office after Labor Day) and it has helped my insomnia tremendously to the point of where things will likely never go back to where they were, at least not mentally. While I’ve had a few brief relapses, I’ve slept very well for so long that I consider myself cured at least in the mental aspect. I know I can sleep, and I know I can sleep well. It’s really been truly amazing. I was even able to wear my contact lenses for the first time in years as my eyes were not droopy and tired. That alone was an accomplishment that I’ll never forget (crazy, I know)
That being said things are still not PERFECT physically, when it comes to the actual sleep, but I know I’m in a much better place than I was in the past, or even right before Covid hit when I was improving on and off. I still however seem to struggle with my one huge problem and that being “special event insomnia”. Whether it’s a get together for a friends birthday like last week, or a date to grab a drink, I still tend to let too much anxiety creep in before I fall asleep in bed. I hope that this last hurdle of my insomnia can be dealt with sooner than later. I know it was Sasha Stephens’ last hurdle. (wish she explained how she beat it) But in the meantime, I think I’ll take what I can get, because for me it’s enough at the moment.
-Mac
Hi Deb, hope all is well. I see you asked about me a while back. Hope you don’t mind (i’m sure you don’t) but I was taking an extended break from here. As far as work goes we are returning August 3rd. Originally it was supposed to be July 11th but that was pushed back. My sleep has been wonderful as I got out of that week long (rather bad) relapse and have been sleeping well now for close to an entire month. It’s reached a point now where I really and truly don’t even fear or think much about insomnia at all anymore. However, I know things will take at least a slight nosedive once I return to the office and I have a 6am alarm staring at me again everyday.
These last 4 months have taught me so much, and as much as I hate this pandemic, working from home has really opened my eyes to just how much of a non-morning person I’ve really always been. That being said, I’ve still been averaging a 7am wakeup during the last 4 months which isn’t too late, but boy, what I would do to get a job one day that allows me to at least sleep a little later. A job that doesn’t give me stress in the office like this one has for so long, along with some quite unpleasant people. A job that doesn’t give me some anxiety the night before thinking about how I better get to bed soon seeing as how I gotta be up at 6! It’s all these things that disappeared and subsequently lead me to better sleep and a better life for the majority of these last 4 months.
While I don’t see my recovery journey being completely over just yet, the light at the end of the tunnel and the final pieces to the puzzle now appear to be more clearer than ever. I’ve come a long way.
Back on track the last week ever since my bad night on July 1st.
Deb, how’s it going with you?
Had a flat out BAD/zombie night last night. Probably my first in months. And before bed, wouldn’t you know it, something big was on my mind. I was messing around on my phone with something related to what was on my mind, and though I knew to eventually put it the phone down, I definitely wired up my brain good. This is also something that hasn’t happened to me in a long time. Occasionally I’ll browse the phone for just a couple of minutes and then call it a night, but last night I was engaged.
This is consistent with what would happen to me during my darker days with insomnia as well as pre-insomnia as well. I vaguely recall that the nights where my mind was filled with a good amount of worry about something, would almost guarantee me a poor night. Not really a surprise, but I am just disappointed in myself. Let this be a lesson to me as well as all of you. A small bit of a screen time before bed is fine imo, but whatever you do try and not to let anything consume you right before you crash. Here’s to a better night tonight.
Steve btw, really nice to hear from you. Please keep us updated.
Really inspiring post. Enjoyed it.
Just curious if you don’t mind sharing… What originally started/triggered your insomnia all those years ago?
I’m assuming your normal wake up time for the better part of those 35 years was around 5am and that your body is still used to it. It can take a LOT of time. My Father was the same way after he retired. Woke at 4:30am for pretty much the last 20 yrs of his career. These days the latest he is up is 6-6:30am. It’s a new life adjustment for you. I feel in time you will adjust.
Thanks Deb. Yes there’s no doubt that I likely built up some new underlying anxiety once I found out that work from home is coming to an end on July 7th. As well as I’ve been doing, I know that day is in the back of my head like wildfire. I’m still struggling. Bit of a rough relapse this has been now, I must say. But it’s important of course to try and stay positive and I know more than most that it’s just part of the ongoing lengthy process.
Hi again everyone. Back with an update. Seems as if I can’t shake this rough patch that I’ve fallen into. It’s been a real rude awakening for me, so to speak, letting me know that I’m still definitely not out of the woods as far as insomnia goes. What felt like an eternity of beautiful sleep has suddenly spiraled into over a week now of pretty crummy sleep. Not horrible zombie nights thankfully, but nights where the sleep just hasn’t been very deep.
It’s been the usual case of awaking too early and instead of falling back asleep like I had been doing more and more which resulted in 8 hours or so of accumulation, I’ve now been unable to fall back, as some anxiety creeps in about what’s been happening and boom, next thing I know I have no choice but to just get up. Not liking this one bit of course, and I’m actually a little disappointed in myself for letting it go this far after I had just been boasting about how amazing things were going for me. Last night happened to be a tough one in general as I was battling what I like to call “special event insomnia”. Today I had to be up rather early in general to bring my car in for a repair, and then on top of that later today I also was meeting a friend for dinner. Two notable things that of course were on my mind when I woke too early.
Deb if you’re out there perhaps you can give me some words of encouragement, though I think I know at this point that only myself can turn things back around. Unreal just how fast it happens.
Odinsky as far as SRT goes there is nothing you can do but give it time as others have alluded to here. Whether its ACT or SRT this is anything but a quick fix. Naps I do not agree with in the early stages as they will only mess with the sleep window idea. I am curious what your sleep window looks like but it should probably be no greater than 6 hours. If you are finding it literally impossible to make it to the start of your window then cut it back by 15-30 minutes and try and stick to that. The absolute key is consistency. That is really all I have to say on it for now.
I think I need to take a break from here again because as hard as it may be to believe (or really not) I have found myself in a bit of a rough patch now the last few days. I’m also pretty sure and certain that there’s no irony in the fact that my few bad nights have happened right around the time I’ve been very active in these forums again. Reading all the horror stories, thinking back about my personal past ones, the memories flooded my brain and wouldn’t you know it, I’ve had some trouble now. This is what happens. You recover and your brain forgets what it’s like, and it doesn’t take much for a trigger to occur to start a small (and possibly big) downward spiral.
Deb I should note that based on what I’ve read from Odinsky he didn’t have much success with ACT at all. Unless I missed something? I’m reading posts from someone that clearly seems to be struggling very much and for quite some time. Some people may be different, but in my honest opinion for those really having a hard time with long term chronic insomnia, ACT isn’t the only thing that will help. This is why I think SRT is a good place for him to at least start. Yes it will bring some additional anxiety but at least it will get him to sleep which will eventually help him in the long term. Just my two cents but I feel Martin would agree.
Deb how are you actually doing these days? I have not asked in a while.
Yes eventually exhaustion happens around bedtime and usually will put you to sleep easier than usual. That being said, I did get out of bed if my anxiety was feeling out of control, no matter how late.
I always worked during this, of course. Quitting my job was never an option, though i was so bad at one point I actually considered taking a leave of absence. Work and my 6am wakeups everyday was the thing that held this in place probably just as much as anything else. Had it not been for a wakeup time that early I would have recovered years ago. Actually now that I think about it I never would have gotten into this mess in the first place.
Yes it did. I don’t think there’s any doubt that it was nerve racking. My thoughts were “Geez, now I’m only giving myself an 11:30pm-6am window and what if i STILL don’t sleep through the night??”
And make no mistake there were a good few nights I struggled bad. You may even have to tighten your window a bit at first until you get it right. In my mind, a lot of the time SRT is a situation where it makes things worse before they can get better. Martin would likely agree. But you have to fight through the bad. If you stick to it, before you know it you should absolutely be sleeping through your window night after night like I did. Only thing is, you cannot give it up easily. If you don’t fall asleep right at the start of your window you have to know that panicking is NOT an option. Just rest. Just relax. Just know that eventually you’ll be getting better.
odinsky, you are all over the place. Any given night someone can have a good night of sleep even during bad insomnia. Happened to me all the time. I didn’t have bad nights every single night for a year. I suggest you begin SRT in order to get to a place where you can begin sleeping through the night for several days if not weeks at a time. Then after that if your overall anxiety is still at a bad place you can start thinking about bringing in other tools to help.
For me it was ultimately a mixture of things ranging from starting with Sasha Stephens book to reddit forums all the way to finally giving in and starting SRT in January 2019. Two years ago I was an anxiety ridden freak in ways I can’t begin to get into. But back to SRT, each time I would begin doing well on it I’d start slacking off (I just couldn’t help it) and the bad nights/anxiety would soon return. By the summertime I began feeling hopeless. There were about 3 solid phases of SRT for me over the course of around 10 months, each one lasting a little longer than the last, and each one helping ease my overall anxiety more and more IMO. Every relapse ultimately made me realize my mistakes/bad habits which helped make me stronger in the long run if that makes sense. It was a journey, and yes, even a “battle” at times. It was NOT easy. I was a work in progress. There is absolutely no overnight fix for a chronic insomniac.
But after my “failed” SRT attempts came to a head and I had nowhere else to turn, I went to ACT after those 10 months and for the first time in a long long time I began sleeping well for multiple nights in a row WITHOUT any kind of strict rules (i.e. SRT/CBT-i). This was a powerful change and made me realize that I really wasn’t “damaged” beyond repair. By the time 2020 rolled around, though I was doing much better, I was still struggling at times as the one huge problem that in my honest opinion was holding the remaining sleep anxiety in place was my 6am work alarm. I was never a morning person in general and even pre insomnia 6am was always a bit of a struggle. I was a different person in my head and knew I could sleep well as ACT showed me, but I knew I needed a work change to truly break free from insomnia and in an ironic twist of fate, right around the time where I was entering another relapse, Covid hit and we were sent to work from home. For the last 2.5 months now I have been sleeping well around what I’d say is 85% of the time. I’ve been waking around 7am, going to bed around 11 if not a little later with no worries on my mind, and it’s been a beautiful thing.
I know full well things will change for the worse once I return to the office and I’ve accepted that, but I just hope that they can be managed well enough to the point where I can use the confidence I built over these last 2.5 months to somehow overcome things and get to a decent place. Also just to answer your other question yes I had some anxiety during the day when my insomnia was at its peak, but it was mostly at nighttime when bedtime would start approaching. Years ago now I would literally walk to my bedroom like it was an execution room. While I’m still not fully recovered by any means, those types of days are long gone now at least.
Looking at all these recent posts with some of these people struggling, it really takes me back to such a dark terrible time in my life. I sympathize with each and every one of you and also know you can get through this, eventually. I still can’t even believe it sometimes, all the hell I went through. It really is something how it took over my life for so long. I pray it never returns full fledged.
