Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
But that is where I draw a definitive line between how an adult experiences trauma, and how a child views trauma. Still, to this day, I am afraid of my father. He is 81 now. Having not spoken to him since my YiaYia died (Grk for Grandma), (over 12 years ago), I rang him up to 'test the waters' and wish him a Happy Christmas.
Here is his response, verbatim: “You? Aren't you dead? Why aren't you dead? Someone should've killed you by now.” Click. The line went dead.
My last talk with my father, the day after Father's Day one year (his phone had been busy all day–may have been his adopted daughter, his wife's niece doing the teen thing), was one where he was depressed and wailing about something I couldn't undertand or do anything about. He had been told around ten years ago that I would not discuss anything about my sister or my mother, and he kept *pushing* it. That was the last straw, and I sent him a letter saying I didn't want to talk to him again. I knew I was going to hear that I'd put him in the hospital, but really, his own uncontrolled rages and high blood pressure did that, and I shrugged it off when it happened.
When I was dx'd bipolar, and told it was hereditary, I looked back on my father and saw where in the year his despressions hit. He'd been in the USAF, and in the military, you don't see a shrink, or it's out the door for your career. As it was, he was a self-destructive person, anyway. I think *his* father was, as well. His brother was a perfectly nice guy.
Intellectually, I now know that was the disease speaking, but it still hurt as bad as when I was a child. He would take me driving to the Red Light District in San Diego, and tell me that I'd never amount to anything; I'd end up as a 'whore,' and other miserable verbal abuse.
Mine was good at cutting you down verbally–my mom, he beat (etc), raped, humililated, and ridiculed, at the least; my sister he molested, humiliated, and belittled in much the way you describe above–also in San Diego! Me, I got the verbal abuse and humiliation.
'Kik' wrote on '09:It's 22:58 UK time and I'm far too awake to think about falling asleep, but my brain is too tired to concentrate on anything. It's this limbo that causes me to stay up a lot.
Am I ever familiar with that! Hates it, I do.
Sometimes I feel like the Princess and the Pea 🙁
Another Pea Princess! I am not alone–you are not alone in that, and I understand exactly what you mean.
The only times I've ever been able to just fall asleep are usually when I've had WAY too much to drink
If I drink distilled liquor, I have to watch how much I drink, as it tends to keep me awake–unless I've just had 8 oz of cheap singlemalt to stop my coughing. Fermented wine makes me drowsy, but doesn't let me sleep for that long.
Can't stand hops, so I don't drink brewed alcohol.
I wouldn't miss insomnia if it left my life–I so badly want to wake up feeling rested. It affects my personality negatively when insomnia has been long, and worse than average (as in 2-4 hours a night of fitful sleep). If I've had a reasonable amount of sleep, I'm much more resilient, and less prone to a dip in mood.
I'm still working on *quality* of sleep–getting enough of the two deeper levels of the four levels of sleep.
Since most of my insomnia seems to stem from the active mind being unable to shut down, whether I've read in bed or not (and if the topic is disturbing, I do NOT read it at bedtime). Trying to run a complex piece of music through my head occasionally helps–I'm trying to take my brain to something I cannot describe with words, to get to the non-verbal part of the brain.
Since getting a “spa heatwrap” filled with lavender and millet/flax seeds, that drapes over my eyes and ears, I have eased down to sleep rather better than before. I *must* pack it when I'm away from home.
However, I may have found something non-medicinal that puts me out very fast (relative to my former hour or more before sleeping): I get snuggled down in bed, and I start playing the game Bejeweled on my iPhone. In 5-15 minutes, it's starting to drop from my hand, and my eyes keep closing. If the standard distractors of noise, bad bedding/mattress, tactile issues, and not breathing well enough (stuffed nose) or coughing don't interfere, I'm asleep for several hours. It's wonderful. If this still works in a couple of months, I'll say that I only have to work on depth of sleep.
I haven't read the article yet, myself, but as an insomiac and a bipolar NOS, they are not the same BUT may have some similar brain processes in common. I'd say bipolar has more in common with migraines than anything else. If you look at Topomax/topiramate, it's used as a mood stabilizer (my first, lasted two years and quit), as an alcoholism treatment/drunk driver deterrent (NM), and as a headache preventative. Whether it is also used as a seizure preventative, I cannot say. There are some whose research seems to show that migraines are a seizure disorder. While on Topomax, I had my first night of restful sleep, from which I woke up *refreshed*, in over 20 years.
My husband had asked me in the year or so before, a little angry, if I ever woke up from a good sleep/woke up refreshed, and I looked at him blankly and said, No. Can't recall anytime in the past dunnamany years.
Before I was dx'd bipolar, and was thought to be merely severely and chronically depressed, I was stuck, for a few months, until I fired him, with a pdoc who didn't listen to me. I said, I'm a lifelong insomniac who's depressed. He decided to give me Serzone, which is for depressed people who have insomnia as a smptom, not the other way around. I said, Benzodiazepines and other sleep meds don't work on me. I tired it, and next meeting told him it kept me awake–I literally was prevented from getting to sleep by this stuff. I could feel the difference, the same way I could tell that the topomax was making me stupid when it came to “the right word” or remembering what I had crossed the room for. My brain didn't feel the same, and as an anti-depressant, it stank. So he upped the dose. Next time, I repeat myself, saying it's worse, so he tells me to take even more. He wouldn't listen to me asking for another pmed, actually, he never *looked at me in session*. He was in his 70s or later, he was hidebound, He Knew Best, and there wasn't another pdoc in the county accepting patients but one whose reputation stank. At the next session, I could barely keep my knees straight, as I was dead on my feet. My body wanted to sleep so badly, to say nothing of my brain!
The next pdocs I met were so much the opposite of him it floored me. I began to have hope. Maybe I had to go out of Santa Cruz County to get a decent pdoc. Mine's in HalfMoonBay, and worth the drive: I've been with her since July 2001. She doesn't try to treat my insomnia, because that's not her specialty.
Most of the sleep docs I know seem to be focused only on apnea, and I'm not an apneac. I also don't get manias–I have BIG, deep, long depressions, and leetle-teeny hypomanias that pop like a bubble once I figure I'm in one. They may last all of two hours in the middle of the day. So, admittedly having had no experience with true mania, I'd say insomnia and bipolar depression are two different animals.
