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Thank you for your reply Martin, and also for your emails; they are superb and genuinely appreciated.
I’m also totally aware of the caveat you mention.
For the last week or so I’ve had my alarm wake me at 0630 every day. And I go to bed “when I’m tired”. This used to be around 10-11pm, but now, based on advice, I’m not going until I’m PROPERLY tired, ready to fall asleep on the sofa, which seems to be getting later by the day for some reason and is now 0140.
I don’t struggle once I’m asleep. But it’s that actual getting to sleep. I can even sometimes feel myself in that dreamy zone when drifting off, and suddenly some sobering worries charge in like soldiers and deliberately wreck it. Honestly it’s like my mind has an internal saboteur.
The getting up idea…that just worries me more. I don’t know what I would do. Reading would hurt my head I think and the whole time I would be really worried I’d never feel tired again that night. And my described experience of the result of several nights of that, I’m terrified of that happening again. I’d rather lie there silent and try to relax at least (though I know this goes against your advice).
Hey,
Further to the above, last night I couldn’t sleep because I was scared of the noises in the house.
The last time I had that issue was over 30 years ago as a child.
I have absolutely no idea what’s going on.
Thank you for the welcoming replies, I really appreciate that.
In terms of recent stress, my father in law passed away at the start of November. Long story short this actually led to me being unable to start a new job, screwed Christmas somewhat, and meant I missed out on a trip I’d planned (and I lost the money on). Although if I’m honest, I don’t truly believe this is the root (or sole) cause.
My wife is an incredibly light sleeper, and also someone who has never really respected that I am not. I own the fact I should have said something to her before now but I really feel this is my trigger.
I got a CPAP machine around 4 years ago and it is amazing, the benefits are huge. However, after a while she would always wake me if I rolled to face her as the mask annoyed her. A year or so later she would wake me if I was on my back as sometimes it would slip and become noisy. So I was left with one single position (I realise I sound like a doormat here, I’m not, but I was raised by a narcissist and a shamer so I struggle to stand up for myself at times), and just around the time of my father in law passing my wife woke me with a huge strop to tell me, with a poor but uncharacteristic choice of words that my “breathing is really annoying”. The mask was losing its grip in the night and needed replacing, but I was effectively hearing that I was no longer to breathe.
Since then, despite replacing the mask, I can get SO CLOSE to dozing off…but something pulls me back every single time. I just cannot crack it. It’s like I’m terrified of being woken (for me being woken up is like snatching food from a hungry person, it’s evil), or I’m scared of waking her…but on a subconscious level. We have spoken about it and she is no ogre, if the mask makes noise again she will go to the spare room. But I’ve let this go so long now that I don’t know if I’m capable of “not caring” enough to actually fall asleep. There is some alarm now in my brain that will not let go.
If I’m almost there and she makes any sort of movement or noise I am bolt awake again. It’s awful.
I mean it happens. I get an hour, two, three at the most, sometimes. But the days… yesterday was worse than any day I’ve ever had under the cloud of depression. Last week at one point I thought I was losing my mind. I cannot emphasize enough how scary that was.
I can honestly say I really don’t worry so much about the not sleeping…but I cannot, ever, get to that level of borderline psychosis again, the thought of that absolutely terrifies me, and that in itself is my “battle”.
Today doesn’t feel so bad actually, “all” I have are the tinnitus and a slight groggy feeling.
Thank you again for the replies and kindness.
