Sleep problems, any advice.

[WorldWanderer]

You guys have all been so helpful recent;y, thank you! But i'm here again to pick your brains and look for advice.
So NDE in 2022, found in bed by my partner. Been working really hard with my T on putting the memory together and so on. We've come across other traumas in my past and we're working through those too.
My T is really eager for me to work on what i'll write now, but i'm really struggling and i feel like i'm not getting anywhere, I don't know what to do.
Sometimes even opening my bedroom door and looking in causes flashbacks (sometimes dissociative), crossing the threshold into the room is crippling.
I can, and have, managed to go in there. Takes a loooonng time and a hell of a lot of effort. And i've managed to lie on the opposite side of the bed for a few moments.
How can i make that space what it used to be? It was my chill room and now it's a literal no go, high anxiety zone. It's crossed my mind to sell the damn house and move it's that bad!
It just sets me off on a spiral, beating myself up, feeling like i'm not trying hard enough, feeling pathetic for getting that way simply by going into a room. Like a kid scared of something under the bed.
When i do sleep, either on the sofa or the spare room i just can't sleep. Some nights sleep just won't happen, others i wake up p*ss wet through, freezing cold. The nightmares are every night and horrific. The build up of fear before settling down. Intrusive thoughts.
I want to fix this, i really do, i'm really struggling with it and i feel patheic when i talk about it.

 

[arfie]

getting past that pathetic feel is where i would start. as long as my symptoms have the power to make me feel pathetic, i have zero chance of jumping the hurdle and getting past the symptoms. neither my trauma tales nor the residual symptoms will ever be my favorite small talk, but being able to talk about them, honestly and openly, sure does clear allot of mental space. neither can be sorted, much less remedied, if i lack the objectivity to look at them.

a dream journal helped me get past my chronic nightmares. i'm not a great believer in dream interpretations, but they sure can offer some clues on where i need to do some therapy work, especially after i had journaled my dreams for long enough to spot patterns.

i have no experience on the room phobia, but my brain fart is to rearrange the house so that you claim another room as your bedroom and turn THE ROOM into something more benign. maybe a craft room? workshop? studio? just brain farting. steadying support while you find a way that works for you.

 

[Sideways]

Mod Note:
@WorldWanderer - I’ve removed your trigger warning. We don’t use them here, every thread has potential triggers (see the Community Constitution for more).

 

[Midnightmoon]

First things first...

i feel patheic when i talk about it.

It's not pathetic. End of. It's horrendous and painful and anxiety provoking but you aren't pathetic.

Your post really resonated with me because I had a similar difficulty with my bedroom after NDE and couldn't use it for ages. I was on the floor on the landing, the sofa, the corner of the kitchen. Anywhere but the damn bed. I did similar to what Arfie suggests and changed it as much as I could, not as in the room purpose but the look of the room. The bedding, the pictures the smell (room diffusers are your friend here), lightbulb colour, anything that was cheap and easy to change I did it. Then I spent tiny bits of time in the room. (I started by putting my socks on in there, as you do...) and built it up slowly until I'm back in the space now.

I still have loads of grounding stuff to remind me it's 'now'. I leave the radio on, I have soft lighting on, in the summer I'll often leave the curtains open or the door open. Making the space as a safe as possible to your brain really helps and the ability to work with and trust your T as your processing this stuff.

 

[WorldWanderer]

getting past that pathetic feel is where i would start. as long as my symptoms have the power to make me feel pathetic, i have zero chance of jumping the hurdle and getting past the symptoms. neither my trauma tales nor the residual symptoms will ever be my favorite small talk, but being able to talk about them, honestly and openly, sure does clear allot of mental space. neither can be sorted, much less remedied, if i lack the objectivity to look at them.

a dream journal helped me get past my chronic nightmares. i'm not a great believer in dream interpretations, but they sure can offer some clues on where i need to do some therapy work, especially after i had journaled my dreams for long enough to spot patterns.

i have no experience on the room phobia, but my brain fart is to rearrange the house so that you claim another room as your bedroom and turn THE ROOM into something more benign. maybe a craft room? workshop? studio? just brain farting. steadying support while you find a way that works for you.

Thank you, a dream jurnal sounds like a great idea. I can't really use another room as my bedroom as the other rooms are spoken for (home office, the spare room is my little brother's crash room when he wants to come over) but i can definately look at ways of changing the space around etc as soon as i'm able to face spending more time in there

First things first...

It's not pathetic. End of. It's horrendous and painful and anxiety provoking but you aren't pathetic.

Your post really resonated with me because I had a similar difficulty with my bedroom after NDE and couldn't use it for ages. I was on the floor on the landing, the sofa, the corner of the kitchen. Anywhere but the damn bed. I did similar to what Arfie suggests and changed it as much as I could, not as in the room purpose but the look of the room. The bedding, the pictures the smell (room diffusers are your friend here), lightbulb colour, anything that was cheap and easy to change I did it. Then I spent tiny bits of time in the room. (I started by putting my socks on in there, as you do...) and built it up slowly until I'm back in the space now.

I still have loads of grounding stuff to remind me it's 'now'. I leave the radio on, I have soft lighting on, in the summer I'll often leave the curtains open or the door open. Making the space as a safe as possible to your brain really helps and the ability to work with and trust your T as your processing this stuff.

Thank you, that means a lot and i really appreciate it. Thank you, i'm crying happy tears because what you said countered what i've been telling myself and i believe what you wrote.
100% going to look at changing the space, i imagine that once i am able to be in there without freaking out that process of changing the space might be quite healing in itself.

 

[arfie]

swapping out the home office and the bedroom would be my first choice. i process trauma far differently while i am working than while i am sleeping.

 

[WorldWanderer]

swapping out the home office and the bedroom would be my first choice. i process trauma far differently while i am working than while i am sleeping.

I thought about that but it won't work. My home office is a literal box room, a bed won't fit in it

 

[Freddyt]

Your post really resonated with me because I had a similar difficulty with my bedroom after NDE and couldn't use it for ages. I was on the floor on the landing, the sofa, the corner of the kitchen. Anywhere but the damn bed.

Never realized it for a long time but yup....did the same. Couldn't sleep in the bed sometimes so....where ever I could relax.....

Now - sleep has one rule - Don't worry about sleep.

Sounds silly? I realized when I read the PTSD cup thing - I need to empty the cup to get to where I can sleep, and worrying about sleep is filling it as fast as I could empty it. So if I can't sleep - then do something else. There are lots of "sleepy" things to do though. Read - slowly (on purpose), watch a video I have seen many times - anything where my brain gets bored, because then I can sleep or sing along to a theme song......