Extreme Emotions >>> Sleep

[Friday]

I'm known to sometimes sleep for reeeeeeally long periods of time. I'll be wide awake, then feel like I've just been banged on the head, drugged, need to sleep now. And then I start losing major time. Days/ weeks/ months spent mostly asleep.

I can fight it off, but if I do it's still a bunch of lost time; because I'm gonna be engulfed in super fun emotions & symptoms. Rage storms, flashbacks, panic attacks, anxiety attacks, nightmares, insomnia. Pretty much 24/7 I'm going to be a hot mess.

I've only just figured out that when I feel like I'm about to be on my face, if I treat it like catching an anxiety attack, early? Physical exercise, now now now, I'll "wake up" and not get drop kicked into really dark symptoms for the rest of the day/week/month/etc. But I have to keep hammering it. Acting like I'm in the middle of a major stressor, and work on bleeding stress before I can even feel or. Or I'm out like a light. Zzzzzzzzzz. Or seriously f*cked up.

I don't think it's depression, although I suppose it might look like depression? I'm just out. Feels more protective, I suppose, than anything? Because fighting through it means one helluva a wild ride.

Does this pattern make sense to anyone? I don't have the physicality to be able to keep venting it the way I need to, to subvert it & stay even keel and awake. (Note to self : :shifty: get more fit).

 

[Sweetpea76]

I don't have PTSD, but I have GAD... I do this same thing for extreme anxiety.

If I have a panic attack, I go straight to sleep. If I'm very stressed or upset, all I want is my bed. I have slept 24 hours straight before when I was off my meds. I know it's an anxiety thing, because usually I'm a raging insomniac.

I agree it is some kind of preservation mode.

 

[Poofycat]

I've been dealing with this one lately. It's so strange because usually I can't sleep at all. Then something emotionally triggering will happen and yeah, have to sleep NOW. It happened two weeks ago while I was at work. It was 2 in the afternoon and I had to take my phone and a pad of paper into the conference room and shut the door like I was taking a conference call or something. But actually I was taking a half hour nap!

I haven't figured out how to deal with it yet, but as of now the best way I've found is not fight it at all at first but set an alarm for 30 minutes or an hour if it hits during the day. It hit at 6pm last Saturday but we had a dinner party to go to at 7:30. So I set an alarm for 7pm, went to dinner, but left early to go back home to go back to sleep. Then rested as much as possible on Sunday. I guess give in as much as possible but don't let it take over your life Approach it with self care and self compassion maybe? I don't know.

I guess also learning how to better process these emotions so that checking out isn't the first thing my brain wants to do, but that's a whole other can or worms. Although I wonder if it's my brain using up so much energy to process emotions that there's nothing left to devote to there tasks.

 

[desiderata310]

This sounds like my entire life except, flip it. For as much as you sleep, I don't sleep which spins me up more, which makes me sleep less which makes everything much much worse.

For me it seems to center around times of the year or anniversaries. (Note: that sometimes it's nothing specific that I can pinpoint about a day/week/month but often if I think about it I can. Other times I KNOW why) It's somewhat predictable and somewhat not. It's also loosely based on how much shit I am dealing with in current life. If it's high stress/trigger city then I am going to have a harder time around an anniversary time. Oct is historically terrible for me. This year, despite how horrible I feel and how little I am sleeping I'm doing better than I was last year when I was dealing with major life stressors at the same time. It's not night and day but the difference is noticeable.

FOR ME: If I can focus through something it helps a tiny bit. Knowing I have a goal JUST PAST this that requires that I do certain things NOW, can help. Other times like the last couple of weeks I've just been fingernailing it and trying to hang on till my brain decides it's going to quit torturing me.

Have you kept any sort of log? Can you trace it back to certain months/events/triggers that would give you a heads up? That might give you a puncher's chance and figuring out a way to mitigate it. Honestly that's what my trauma diary has become for me: a way to track all of this so that I can revisit when I am not doing well and try to plan

Be nice to my friend Friday! She's been through hell here in the last few months.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

I haven't slept for days, but I do find sometimes I a going along and then next thing I know I am waking from sleeping deeply for hours or a whole day. When this happens, it worries myself and my supports because it is like I have taken an overdose. I have discovered though that I have a part who can cause the whole system to go into a deep dissociative sleep and not be able to fight against it. She's also the part that threatens to overdose so it's hard. Anyway, back to you, I really just wanted to let you know that I relate in some way and to encourage you to keep asking probing questions to continue to pinpoint a cause for this sleep and how to help it. I don't know how to help mine. I just journal with that part later to clarify what was going on (if I can).

 

[Ronin]

Q, did you have sleep studies done / have a neurologist to check that up with, to check it's not something else & PTSD & trauma just offsetting it? Since with this whacked sleep pattern my first go to's wouldn't be trauma, but whatever fun one caught living in the tropics & neuro checks.

&, Relating. Smallest steps out, literally, much smaller activities than with depression, & don't stop communicating, or at least if you're any like me, because silence just makes zapping in that state way easier. Music, words, things that don't require you to be darned active about them but require you be tuned in, not a slightly veggie person.

 

[One step at a time]

I agree it is some kind of preservation mode.

Seconded.

 

[NoWhereKnowWhere]

This is a very interesting topic. I have so much problems with sleep, too much, not enough. It's a real pain in the butt.

I noticed though when looking at my Fitbit sleep log although I might be in bed and think I'm sleeping for 10hrs I'm actually only really sleeping 3/4hrs. So after a few weeks of this (as well as the occasional night where no sleep is had) my body is probably exhausted and I sleep a whole night and most or all of the next day then the cycle continues.

Although saying that my bed is my safe place and whenever things are too much that's where you'll find me. I absolutely use sleep as an escape and a means of isolating. My parter hates it. I also noticed with the sleep log when using sleep that way (staying in bed all the time) that's when the quality of the sleep is at it's worst you can see it's all restless and I'm waking up all the time.

So here I was in bed for over 12hrs! Only actually got about 6hrs sleep. I still think it can be a bit optimistic as there's times I know I've been awake because I looked at the time but it said I was asleep.

Perhaps a sleep study might be the thing. It would be interesting to know if you're maybe exhausted because your not getting any quality sleep. Exercise definitely helps me sleep better but if I over do it again you see the quality decline. It's a god damn tight rope walk of things to do, not do, be careful not to do too much of to get a half decent sleep.

 

[desiderata310]

I had a Garmin that tracked my sleep for a while and my cycles look similar.

 

[Tinyflame]

I think I relate. But I get 2 kinds: one hits out of the blue & seems like physical exhaustion, which I expect with poor sleep especially & follows running around. But the second is with emotional exposure, & it's like I could drop right there. It started with being screamed at, but now includes other things. Not that I would sleep long, but it's like NOW. Very frustrating & draining to fight through.

 

[Abstract]

If I am understanding I relate to a lot of what you describe. I also have other but related symptoms at times. I loosely call them my "hypersomnia" phases. My normal state is reliably insomnia (its 3.30am here now). When I go into this mode it really isn't from tiredness as a result of lack of sleep (fundamentally at least). Its what I think of as a form of my switch off mode. I just plug out and can;t stop it. I hate it far more than insomnia. I can sleep 20 hours a day and feel sedated when "awake" for the rest. It lasts until it stops. I don't seem to respond to excercise like you do.

The related stuff is different but feels connected, in essence, for me. I get catoplexic type reactions when very intense emotional states or situations hit me. Especially when there is a interpersonal dimension to it. I will literally feel myself drop and I appear asleep but am conscious on some level. I loose sense of time and will go into a spiral of dissociation stuff usually for weeks after. Can sometimes just loose control of legs and drop without the rest. They all feel a bit off switch to me.

I have found what works best for me is: initial acceptance and grounding. Then more grounding and self care. Allowing withdrawal in a more functional way (very counter intuitive for me and has been a VERY hard and long learning curve). I seem to come out of it quicker this way - for me.

It sounds like your brain and self are truly overloaded and need shutdown. Totally and utterly normal and understandable if you think about it. I know how frustrating and disempowering it can feel though. Normally I can force will over body but am starting to think this is the bodies override system kicking into action! Try to do something kind for you,

 

[Stickler]

Yeah, I collapse easily into hypersomnia under stress...
In fact...:sleep: