Going to sleep, a poll for sufferers and supporters

[Never_falter2]

Question for the sufferers:

1. How do you feel about going to sleep?
2. Do you avoid going to sleep?
3. What do you do about it?
4. Does your spouse help you?

Questions for the supporters (basically very much the same)

1. How does your spouse feel about going to sleep?
2. Does he or she avoid going to sleep?
3. What does he or she do about it?
4. Do you help him or her?

 

[Abstract]

Question for the sufferers:

1. How do you feel about going to sleep?
It varies between very avoidant and on the milder end, conflicted. When bad it is around 1 or 2 hours a night, consistently, sometimes less.
2. Do you avoid going to sleep?
Yes. Its a very hard behaviour to change for me.
3. What do you do about it?
Depends on what is happening. If severe hypervigilence and very symptomatic then need to match the noise on the inside with the outside. Television, lights on, relaxation videos, diary writing, bad poetry, self care etc. Drugs make it worse as have a thing about being sedated. If on the milder end then working on good more "normal" sleep hygiene, self care, working on reframing sleep and related thoughts.
4. Does your spouse help you?
Do things on my own. There have been things that have happened in the past which were unhelpful.

Stuff that is sectioned off better when fully conscious can come out during sleep. Plus, sleep and a highly over alert hypervigilant physical and mental state are not mutually conducive. Being exhausted mentally and physically and yet not being able to let oneself sleep is not a pleasant experience. Especially when it is always there, year in and year out.

 

[NaeNae75]

Question for the sufferers:

I'm actually going to answer both...I'll answer for myself in sufferers and my vet in the supporters...

1. How do you feel about going to sleep?
It's stressful. I like sleep, but it doesn't always like me

2. Do you avoid going to sleep?
Yes, often times I do because of not liking the nightmares.

3. What do you do about it?
An hour before I want to sleep I stop screens (tv, phone, computer), drink a cup of tea, take a 5HTP, and read. Before I'm done with the phone, I have my nighttime meditation ready to press play. I meditate until I fall asleep

4. Does your spouse help you?
No, even before he left. If I had a nightmare, he would cuddle me and rub my back or arms...otherwise nothing other than normal snuggling.

Questions for the supporters (basically very much the same)

1. How does your spouse feel about going to sleep?
He loves sleep. Sometimes he can sleep well, other times not. I think caffeine is a huge problem. He doesn't often recall nightmares, but he has them periodically.

2. Does he or she avoid going to sleep?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

3. What does he or she do about it?
He will take melatonin and shower with lavender before bed.

4. Do you help him or her?
When he was still living here, we would just cuddle. Otherwise no
Now I just tell him goodnight and let him know I've prayed for him for the night. (it means something to him)

 

[Sweetpea76]

1. How does your spouse feel about going to sleep?

He doesn’t sleep well a lot of the time. He does have frequent nightmares from the sound of it. It comes and goes with how symptomatic he is at the time.

2. Does he or she avoid going to sleep?

Sometimes it seems like he avoids sleep and/or his bed. He’ll nap in his chair during the daytime a lot when he isn’t doing well.

3. What does he or she do about it?

He just rolls with it. The insomnia is just part and parcel with his PTSD. When he is doing better overall he sleeps better, when he is more symptomatic it is worse. He’s been on medications for sleep and medication for nightmares both, and none of them did any good.

4. Do you help him or her?

I don’t see how there would be anything I could possibly do to help him sleep if he has insomnia. I leave him be, and let him sleep when and where he can. I also keep the bedroom dark and comfortable. I never touch him if he’s having a nightmare, but I may clear my throat or turn over to wake him. If he wakes up I’ll say “it’s me, Babe” and he’ll usually want to touch me to ground himself. I never touch him first, but I will hold his hand or give him a cuddle after he touches me.

Insomnia and nightmares are both PTSD symptoms... they’re both in the diagnostic criteria. It’s more complicated than breaking a bad habit. The only thing that will really, truly help them is treatment.

 

[Freida]

1. How do you feel about going to sleep?
2. Do you avoid going to sleep?

These both depend on how symptomatic I am. I can usually tell if it's going to be a bad night so I get anxious at the thought of sleeping. Scary monsters and all that. So yep...I'll avoid it

. What do you do about it?

p
Xanex and guided meditations. If I can get my mind to quiet down I can be ok. I also went thru a pretty in depth sleep program to teach my brain how to sleep again

4. Does your spouse help you?

Yep..once I'm awake it's super calming to have him there. But if he touches me before I'm fully awake chances are I'll punch him in the head

 

[Never_falter2]

@Freida What kind of sleep Programme was it?

 

[blackemerald1]

1. How do you feel about going to sleep?

Anxious about going to bed. Anxious about dreams & hyper-vigilant about what could happen over-night.
But must follow my routine or I will not even make it to the bed. Worried that when I get into bed I will not sleep. Worried that my head will not calm down and I may start flooding myself with trauma memories.

2. Do you avoid going to sleep?

If I am unwell (ptsd) yes but there is no rationale behind this. I really need the sleep but cannot make myself lay down and be still.

3. What do you do about it?

I stick to a rigid routine of getting up at the same time each day, loads of exercise during the day, push myself through all my jobs in my diary that must get done. Eat something at least once. Drink loads of water and follow a rigid routine in the evening to make sure I am in bed at the same time each night or at least should be.

I can do almost all of this most days.... except the getting into the bed... walking around in circles trying to get myself to go there.
It's terribly frustrating fighting with myself about something I know I must do.

My punishment is to push myself out of bed in the morning regardless of how little sleep I have had and re-do the routine. It's all that I know will eventually work. Meds don't do it.

Eventually I am walking like a zombie or I crash into sleep for a few hours. Sometimes even nano naps and they really screw up everything all over again. Sleeping during the day - even for a few moments is very bad for my sleep.

4. Does your spouse help you?

Not applicable. :)

 

[Kubash16]

Question for the sufferers:

1. How do you feel about going to sleep?

It depends. I have two stages when it comes to sleep. There is the anxious/insomnia side where I avoid it and get maybe two hours. Then there’s the depression side where I very well may go to bed at 6 pm and not get up again til 8/9 the next morning.

2. Do you avoid going to sleep?

Sometimes. Usually because I don’t want the next day to come or don’t want to deal with nightmares or my anxiety is just that high.


3. What do you do about it?

Suffer lol. So far I haven’t really actively tried to fix either end of my sleep. But my pdoc did give me trazadone which has helped to get me more usual/normal.

4. Does your spouse help you?

Don’t have one now, and when I did no. First, he really wouldn’t have been able to do anything for me. Second, he usually kept me up with grinding his teeth.

 

[Abstract]

in depth sleep program

Also interested to hear

 

[Freida]

@Freida What kind of sleep Programme was it?

it was thru my insurance company - Kaiser - and was designed to retrain my brain how to sleep. Doc said that after ptsd the brain can become more like an infants and it has to be rewired. Who knew babies had to learn to sleep? :laugh:
I did about 2 months of tracking my sleep patterns on a computer program. I had to log when I went to bed, got up, what exercise I did, how I felt the next day after not sleeping. The idea was for me to get a true look at how I was sleeping and how it actually affected me when I couldn't so that it would reduce that panicked feeling that kept me awake

Then I took all that data and was sent to a T who specialized in sleep issues. I met with him weekly for about 2 months to learn coping techniques and -again- how to get my anxiety down when I couldn't sleep

It was a huge pain in the ass but I am so glad I did it. I went from only sleeping a few hours each night to being able to sleep pretty well consistently. Don't get me wrong, there are still bad days, insomnia and nightmares. But it's down probably 80%.

What was really weird was that once I got it under control I stopped needing as much sleep. Now I get about 6.5 to 7 hours a night on average, but I feel fine.

 

[Neverthesame]

1. How do you feel about going to sleep?

It's become a complex of it's own. I hate sleeping, but I'm so desperately tired I crave it endlessly.
I have the same kind of dreams over and over again. I find myself in some situation in which everyone I care about in the dream dies one after another in front of me. There's never anything I can do to stop it, they always die some horrible death, I always live. This has been a constant for over a decade, yet it never gets easier. Not gonna lie, it just sucks.

2. Do you avoid going to sleep?

Yes and no. If I don't sleep I can't function properly. I become emotionally unstable and risk important real life needs such as employment. It's become a necessary evil, but christ it's really evil.
The torture of Tantalus springs to mind as a comparison.

3. What do you do about it?

Unhealthy amounts of sedatives to put me out for a few hours. I can't willingly just sleep. I have to be utterly useless to anyone for any reason or I can't justify not being alert. The logic being since I am utterly useless, I may as well do the only practical thing left which is to sleep it off.
The catch 22 of it all is the guilt of putting myself into a position of being useless. I'm terrified something is going to happen one day where someone I care about really needs me, but I can't do anything but drool on the floor.
But it's the only way I can get any sleep. Damned either way.
I don't want to say exactly what I take and how much, it's not illegal or anything, just an non-sustainable unhealthy bit of self medicating. It's not like I haven't tried goddamned everything else. Short of committing a felony drug offense or literally hitting myself with a hammer, or becoming a benzo junkie.... There just isn't anything else. If there was I'd jump on it.

Oh and of course followed by too much caffeine... yeah, I know, I know....

4. Does your spouse help you?

No. My broken brain is my problem, I'll not burden the people I care about with my impossible dilemma from a choice I made many years ago. This is my cross to bear, no one else's. I've made my bed, now I'll lay in it.
This is my choice for me, I'm not saying it's correct, but it's my decision for myself. Other people are free to do as they wish with theirs, without judgement from me.

 

[LuckiLee]

My guy has been dealing with PTSD for almost 30 years. He knows himself very well. He knows his sleep issues. When he's symptomatic? Anxiety, nightmares, depression. He usually sleeps on the couch. He sometimes goes a couple of days without it. Or sometime it's the complete opposite. He will sleep ALL day to play catch up. There's nothing I can do. When he sticks to a routine he feels better all around.