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Preventing The Crash?

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lostforgottensoul

MyPTSD Pro
So I have no idea what area this fits but I have been going through this cycle for a VERY long time. I know it happened the 2 ish years my parents lived with me. Not sure about the ex roommates but lets just say since I have been clean. And possibly longer. I work all week and those hrs have changed but I fight my way to work all week and then the weekend (or days off before it was the weekend) I crash and sleep all day.

I think its worse now that I am forced to work Mon - Fri as Sat & Sun there are no Drs to go to. And thats been at least a year now.

So, since my parents moved out, I can tell several different ways that I am in a pit of depression. My house is trashed. And reaks of cat piss. Which is what I was supposed to clean today. I got all the enzyme cleaner stuff. And I have a deep cleaner. And I can fight past the pain to do so. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stay awake. I couldn't stand up or the dizziness hit hard and I fell once because of it. I sit and tried to fight it and lost.

It looks like I just shot up herion or something. It looks like a drug sleep but it isn't. Its horrible and I hate it. With my dog's training, it is so important now that I move it to the day and I know flipping my sleeping schedule is hard but this isn't even that. This is a mental crash. It is also why I cant seem to work overtime. Its like I can only push so much and so hard and then thats it, my body shuts down. And I don't know what to do to prevent it or stop it. I have been trying every thing that I can think of to try. Get more sleep, get less sleep, sleep in the perfect atompshere, the self care that I know of, and many other things and I fail each weekend.

Also, when I finally wake up, I'm weak. Like I have the flu. So being productive then is out. I don't know how to explain this but a mental crash. All my medical Drs have tested me for many things and they haven't found anything medical causing it. It happened before medication. And I am so upset and frustrated at myself for not being able to fight it. I tried so hard and failed and now I am mentally beating up on myself. Ans thats the same every weekend. I cannot seem to fight it.

Does anyone know what I am even talking about and have ways to successfully stop this mental crash at the end of my work week? I'll do anything in my power. I just don't know what to do. I am sure this depression isn't helping but I'm not even sure what to do about that.

I don't know. Sorry if this doesn't make sense. Words seem to fall short right now....

I'm just so mad at myself that yet again, I slept through another Sat and couldn't fight it....
 
This is one of the things that happens to me when my stress cup is too full. I shut down. Will easily sleep 20+ hours a day. Some days I only wake up to pee, drink water, and if I don't lay down right now I'm going to fall down. Other days I actually wake up all alert, even in a great mood, but within a couple hours? Lay down right now!!!

Sometimes it's linked to me being depressed. Sometimes it's not. But it is always linked to my stress levels being at capacity.

Which does give me options.

It means if I can blow off enough stress? Morpheus doesn't come smack me in the head with his mallet. Even if I just start to feel it coming on, if I can tie on my shoes and all but run out the door? (Or when I have my own place, climb onto my exercise equipment) Then I can vent enough stress to fight off the sleep. I may be physically tired, but my mind is awake/aware. For a little while, at least. If I'm not zippy about it? Take 5 minutes to find my stuff? I usually wake up the next day all curled up on the couch/floor/wherever I sat down to tie on my shoes or change my clothes. Dammit! Okay. Next time needs to be faster. I've learned to have a go-bag ready for these kinds of things. Gym clothes, shampoo, cash, etc. always kept ready, right by my shoes. Because if I have to stop and look for anything? It's game over. I don't have enough time between the dizzy starting to come on and sleep to fetch anything out of the dryer. Feel it start to come on & I need to move. Now.

BETTER though, is not to wait until I'm about to pass the f*ck out, but to build into my daily routine an hour or three where I'm burning off stress, and practicing self care. Shazaam. Double stress management.

If I don't have the physicality to be able to exercise enough of the stress away? (Sick, injured, etc.) Then I'm a little screwed. Only a little, because it means as long as I blow off stress in small quantities, many times a day, then I don't have the Smackdown! as soon as my body reaches the explode-or-shut-down question.

I'm bad at this one, because I don't "need" to take breaks throughout the day. Except I do. I'm planning ahead.

When my symptoms are really bad? I've easily lost weeks & months to this cycle. Because if I don't have days-awake to be blowing off stress in advance? I am royally f*cked. It takes an emergency in order to interrupt it. Fortunately, emergencies tend to crop up when you're asleep for several weeks at a go. But it's still a cycle that once it starts I've learned to "stop the world" for. Whatever is going on needs radical adjustments. Now. Sleeping myself out for a day or two is no problem. But if it patterns? Like what is happening with you, or starts becoming more than a day or two, but 3, 4, 5, etc.? Okay. Stop. Everything, absolutely everything, needs to be majorly adjusted. Now. Because whatever I've been doing? Is NOT working.
 
I understand this completely! I feel like I could stay in bed all weekend! I've just been telling myself I must need the rest since my sleep has been horrible lately & the vivid dreams and nightmares every single night don't leave me feeling rested. I feel lately like I just push myself through the week so that I can hybernate & crash on the weekend.
 
If I don't have the physicality to be able to exercise enough of the stress away? (Sick, injured, etc.) Then I'm a little screwed.

Thats what I was thinking up til then cause I can't exercise. I'm lucky if I can walk the dog to the mailboxes and back. But, I can do that. I can push up to and past the pain. The tennis court in the neighboring complex is past the pain. I can do that much anyway.

I have tried that and I dont remember why it didnt work. I think its the pain and needing to sit to take my medication. Before the internal pain pump i had to wait for medication to work. I think that was why it didnt work. I cant walk without medication. My pump was implanted a year ago Nov, so its been a while. And the good thing about the pump is its constantly giving me meds. And I do the bulgus (an extra dose) in the morning but it hits like instantly. So its not a sit and wait 30 mins anymore. Though I still have to take meds for my neuopathy and ibuprophen and glucosamine chondtoitin in order to even bend my knees and my pain is at its highest in the morning so if I can get out on a walk is still an iffy but its an idea.

Okay. Stop. Everything, absolutely everything, needs to be majorly adjusted. Now. Because whatever I've been doing? Is NOT working.

Uh huh, I can totally agree with that.

Have you talked about this with your T? What does he say?

I have. All my Drs know as in the beginning I freaked over it and my medical Dr told me that addrall should be prescribed by my PDoc (head shake) and my PDoc does what I ask, and that is a HUGE no no when you have anxiety plus I am on oppioids, legal speed balling. Yeah, that was a trip. My therapist helped me to get off of that.

My therapist knows but he just gives me ideas of how to get me moving around a bit I guess. I don't know that he knows what to tell me other then its a mental symptom. I mean, what ive tried came from him so its an ongoing diaglog I guess is the best way to explain that.

It is exhaustion. But its like what ive never seen in anyone that wasnt on herion. And it has nothing to do with the opioids (as most suggest). They were there well before this started. And now that I have the internal pain pump, my meds are being given slowly but steadily throughout the day and night. What I use for sleep I have used for years and years. Before this. And my Drs have all said its not the medication. Its the main point they agree on.

Anyway, im not sure what to stop and do differently as other then going to work, nothing is the same. Like i jave adjusted the times i wake up millons of times, the amount I sleep, what I do in a day, other then work. I mean, even physical stuff has come into my life thanks to training my dog. You have to be very physical to do so. So though I cant run or work out, I havr to exercise him and I have to be up and moving around to do so. So I would even say i am doing that new.

Stress management. That is one area that I think i can make improvements. But if you were to ask me how I manage stress. I honestly dont know. I think i have and am stuffing stuff. Im numb, that I know. Therapist appointments aren't real productive because of that i think. My therapist was trying to dig around a bit this last session. I think he can tell something is off about me. He brought up that the stress my step mom brought isn't there but I said that yeah but its now scattered. So the same amount of stress but its all over the place.

Its something I can and will bring back up to him. I just didnt know if anyone has ever experienced this and had an idea of how to fight it or stop it.

I can try morning walks and see if I can stay up. I agree that if i sit i am done for and so i am not sure how the medications and bolgus will work. I can, and usually do, the bolgus standing up. So maybe do it, take the meds, and head out the door? Or when I am taking my dog out then maybe it should be a LONG walk? I tend to over do it and be laid out from pain but even a small walk is better then no walk.

I've just been telling myself I must need the rest since my sleep has been horrible lately & the vivid dreams and nightmares every single night don't leave me feeling rested.

I never feel rested. Ever. Never have. I just push my way through life til I crash. Obviously thats the issue. Or part of it.
 
I never feel rested.
I can kind of relate to that. I have some sleep issues and, apparently, the reason I'm tired is that I don't get enough sleep.:rolleyes: There have been some times when I've slept pretty good several days in a row and it's amazing how much more energy I have. The other thing I've noticed is that, on a few occasion when I've been prescribed prednisone for something, I feel great. That would probably be my drug of choice, if it was an option. No idea why.

But, it's pretty common that I wake up feeling like I've spent the entire night DOING something. Something other than sleeping, that is. No idea what that's about, other than that it's probably a variation on the theme of hypervigilance.

My T has suggested, before going to sleep, that I spend a few minutes more or less meditating and tell myself that I want to wake up refreshed and rested. He's serious. He does it and says it makes a difference. I've never remembered to do it consistently enough to be sure, but haven't been too impressed.`

One thing I'm pretty sure of with you is you're not lazy. If you feel tired, it's more than likely because you ARE tired.
 
One thing I'm pretty sure of with you is you're not lazy. If you feel tired, it's more than likely because you ARE tired.

No, yeah. That's a common thing said to me too. That I'm lazy and honestly, I'm just the opposite. In my "prime" (sad thats not now as I'm only 35 so thays weird to say), I had 4 jobs. 4. Thats a lot! So much so that my first landlord threatened to kick me out to quit one of them. I don't think he would have kicked me out but he was just an amazing part of my life. I am so blessed he was my first landlord. I could go into an entire bit about him. But I will say he is retired Marine Recon and so I guess he is trained to see over working and malnutrion? But anyway, he would let me work off part of the rent as he fixed up houses.

He was awesome. So anyway,

But, it's pretty common that I wake up feeling like I've spent the entire night DOING something.

This is very true with me. And always has been. I wake up more tired then when I went to bed and I always feel its a downward slide with me.

spend a few minutes more or less meditating and tell myself that I want to wake up refreshed and rested. He's serious.

Im sure he is serious. My therapist is a meditating type. I swear your therapist and yours are brothers. I have said that before. They sound identicle.

Meditating is a big fail for me. I would say that when im doing art (back when i could produce anything worth anything) that was sort of meditating. Its the closest I have come to anything like it anyway. My therapist REALLY wants me to start drawing and painting and he suggested a few things that i tried and failed. The issue is my brain is too croweded. Seriously. Too much going on. I can't seem to zero in on any one emotion or thought to draw but even beyond expression, its too loud to even be able to draw something in front of me. I did once when trying to teach a mentally handicapped friend of my parents. Her and her husand are their ex neighbors. She has a mind of a child or teenager. But even then its because i was teaching and not thinking. I could pretend to be teaching. Lol.

I mean, i have tried and tried and tried to meditate and watched how to videos and really tried and I just cant. Id say working the DBT workbook is like meditating. So I can go back to that. I need to anyway.

So walking and DBT. Ok, getting a plan here!
 
When my moods down, I can go months where I'll sleep around 16-18 hours a day. Never feel rested. And I wake up in shifts to get things done - 3 hours in the morning, sleep, 3 hours in the arvo, goodnight. People think it doesn't sound that bad, but you end up just as dysfunctional as when you get the insomnia, yeah?

For me it's straight mood. Hello Depression. I either slowly pull myself out of it, or it's gonna end up doing the hospital thing with a bad case of Suicide brain. Either way it's going to shift eventually.

Maybe start keeping track somewhere of how many hours roughly you slept the day before. Realistic numbers are helpful, because lord knows my depression loves to give me a very warped version of what's really happening by the time I'm reporting back to my T. Was this week better? I feel like shite every week, but if I check my numbers I can accurately tell my p-doc if that's more or less shite than the week before, which is super helpful for everyone.

Other than that, it's a long haul thing. When your mood's phases start to become months/years long, the haul out of the pit isn't a quick fix. So it's the lifestyle stuff - taking better care of numero uno, doing what you can to just improve things. The benefit won't show up overnight (and I grow skeptical of anything that does make me feel better overnight).

You know, we've actually felt pretty shite for most of our lives. It's hard to know what our "normal" is supposed to look like - what am i like when I'm not depressed? Who knows!? Alls I do know is that with years of therapy learning how to let the emotions come, notice them, cope with them, move on from them, I have a lot more insight into just how shite I feel at any given time, which doesn't help. "I used to be able to..." is usually getting filtered through some rose-coloured glasses that make my 20s look a lot more fun than it was at the time. Insight can be a b!tch of a thing.

You're doing great. You are, even though it feels crap, and it's exhausting- it's supposed to feel crap and exhausting this recovery thing. So you didn't get everything done. Story of my life! That's what stupidly high expectations will give you. But you at least got the stuff you needed to start the cleaning job. That's forward motion, and that's enough, yeah? Forward is progress, even when it's slow and exhausting.

It was only, what, a year ago that you seriously came out swinging finally about your trauma? And a lot of stuff has happened in that time. Mood being low kinda makes sense. Feeling exhausted makes a whole lotta sense.
 
It was only, what, a year ago that you seriously came out swinging finally about your trauma? And a lot of stuff has happened in that time. Mood being low kinda makes sense. Feeling exhausted makes a whole lotta sense.

Beem with my therapist 8 years this March. But, it took a year to yell him so thats 7, then it took another 2 years to pull it all out of me, 5. Then my family found out alowly over a few years and I have been here a year last Dec so I would say really swinging at it for 2 years, maybe 3 at most. Before this site was the pastor. Which was a year and a bit and then before then years of a back and forth about if it not being abuse and being justified, which was, per my therapist, the Stolkholm. But there was a point in that where I fought myself, and my therapist, enough that I start to have lightbulb moments, which was about about a yeat or so before the pastor.

So, I will say, all of that in account, I have been taking swings at my past for about 3 years for sure. Maybe 4. This didn't start right away. But I would say it did start when i really started to take swings at my past.

You're doing great. You are, even though it feels crap, and it's exhausting- it's supposed to feel crap and exhausting this recovery thing. So you didn't get everything done. Story of my life! That's what stupidly high expectations will give you. But you at least got the stuff you needed to start the cleaning job. That's forward motion, and that's enough, yeah? Forward is progress, even when it's slow and exhausting.

Yeah but how many weekends do I give myself? I got the stuff about 3 weeks ago. I can't do this on a work day as the pain will be too high to be able to work after. I did the deep cleaner at night once but that was before the stuff and just the two spots, not my full room as what really needs to be done. Which is a LARGE job. I can do parts of that before work on other days and I make excuses on why I "can't" and that makes me mad!

I swear I have Narcalepsy. I fit it so well. My Doctor wanted me to do 2 in home sleep studies but I never booked it. He was pretty positivie I have sleep apnea but I have to have the sleep studies done in order to find out if there is anything else. I dont think you can take meds, which is neccessary for me to sleep and having starngers there at night are my fears.

They come to you but I am not having anyone in here will it doesn't reak in here.

Also, though I know I dont stop sleeping ar night (they measured that one of the times I was in the hospital for pnwmonia), I refuse to wear a C Pap machine at night. I already have issues getting to sleep nevermind adding that.

But yeah, a sleeping specialist is still needed. I need the new Dr to order a new ones.

When I woke uo this morning, I go up and opened the windows and I want to have Chopper settle on his mat on the porch while I am drinking my coffee. Lets see if I can stay awake today!
 
Definitely get a sleep study done. It does sound like you could have apnea-and if you're concerned about the device (I had a test done recently and also have a very very hard time getting to sleep) they have different pieces you can use if one doesn't feel comfortable or is too intrusive. My husband has a machine and his face mask just goes under the nose with very soft almost cloth like rubber. It's very light and minimal. Give it a try at least before you say no-because how you are now is just inoperable. Keep in mind sleep apnea can have some pretty serious side effects. If it's something that simple and you can find a mask that works for you (my husband has been through six different types and there are many more), it would be worth it.

(you can take meds when you take the test-you just have to let them know what you *are* taking)

There's also another type of sleep study you can take if that doesn't work that you can get at an actual sleep clinic. It's rotten because it means you have to sleep there, but it also monitors brain wave activity so the doctors can find out if any unusual brain activity is happening while you sleep. It's non invasive-just taped electrodes, but again-sleeping in a strange place. It may however, provide more specific information if it isn't apnea or if your therapist or doctor are concerned there may be something more going on.

If you are taking sleep meds it could also just be that they're reacting differently now. Depending on what they are, that can happen. I loved my seroquel, but then it just...stopped working. I miss getting a good night's sleep. Using meds offlabel for sleep... after speaking with folks and looking around, it seems like sneezing funny can make them react differently-anything from environment changes, to diet, to just age can make them suddenly go weird, so all else fails you can look into them, they may be-for some reason-cycling later than they should be, or building up in your system, making you tired *all* the time instead of just for getting to sleep.

Just three suggestions... I'm still grappling with my own insomnia and looking for answers, and though it makes me tired all day, rare are the ones I'm exhausted when I wake for no known reason, so take my advice as you will.
 
If you are taking sleep meds

I'm not. Sleeping meds make me sleep for days.

It's not the meds as today I am go go go and on days I work I can get up and go to work. The meds are constant and this isn't. It's a crash at the end of a work week. And my MD, pain Dr, and PDoc all agree that the meds aren't causing it.

So I don't know.

you have to sleep there

I can't sleep on a bed so unless they have a recliner I can sleep in, thats out.

The in home sleep study I am open to, depending on many factors. But, open to it. I need to get it reordered though. Or re-referred.

But its on my medical and mental health records as a mental symptom. Not sure how they wrote it but its there on both.

Today, so far I did some training with my dog, I cleaned the mountain of trash behind my recliner. 5 trash bags full. I got the floor in my bedroom as clear as I can. I need to get cat litter before I start the major clean up in there. But got it as ready as I can. I also changed purses as I got a much bigger purse and cleaned the coffee table, mostly.

Now trying to get myself in the shower so I can go down to walgreens (without Chopper) to get cat litter and some food and then deep clean my room about 20 times. Whew!

The thing that helped was sitting outside doing Chopper's settle on a mat. The sun helped. I opened the window curtins too. I didn't go for a walk but I did get light in here.
 
I have sleep apnea. I would actually fall down from being so tired. I started falling asleep while driving, and my cardiologist ordered a sleep study. I had severe sleep apnea. I got the C-pap, and I don't even have to take a nap anymore. I feel rested some days, because my chronic pain wakes me, nightmares wake me, screaming in my sleep wake me and my pets wake me if I leave the door open. The difference between before the C-pap and after is amazing! I'm like a whole new person.

The other point is that I don't care when I have a therapy appointment, when I get home I have to sleep. Just have to. Is working causing too much stress? I had to stop working because of the stress and pain.
 
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