I Avoid Sleeping

[MapOfOhio]

I sit up most nights until about three or four in the morning, reading random articles on the internet and contemplating life. Any tips on how I could get to sleep earlier? I actively avoid sleep. It doesn't seem like I'm living my life if I go to bed at eleven or so. Also, I sleep every night with a heavy metal torch under my pillow and a walking stick near me. Is this a normal response to a potentially life-threatening situation, and how can I help myself to get over it?

 

[franciemarnie]

My body is on high alert every night until dawn. Then I can sleep. The fact that you have weapons at hand would suggest you are also in a mode of hyper vigilance and your body is anticipating danger.

I believe my body changed its rhythms long, long ago during four plus years of daily terror. It is extremely difficult to change IMO.

I was on a med 25 years that worked for 20 in putting me to sleep at night, but it numbed me completely. Now off the drugs, the feelings are all there, the uncompleted actions coiled and ready to spring.

I have been going to energy healers and somatic therapists to discharge the trauma energy in my body. It has helped immensely versus decades of talk therapy.

The only thing that makes me sleepy is if I feel super safe, and watch a riveting non-triggering movie. Also physical exercise. But even then I can startle awake.

It is a conundrum - finding the key.

 

[bluebird]

Hi, @KiteRunner1234 , I also struggle with sleeping a lot from time to time, I am scared of nightmares and such things... I will try to give you a few ideas about stuff that hepled me :-)

Try to exhaust yourself by running or long walks... Than you will gain much better sleep.
Make sure to calm yourself down before going to sleep by doing some pleasent activities.
Try to establish a shedule and act in this way.
Do certain things before going to bed (i.e. - reading a chapter or two in a book, studying - it always makes me fall asleep ;-) . listening to your favourite music...)
Ask somebody of your friends to call you in the evening.
Drink tea with herbs that are good for sleeping - ask in the pharmacy.
Make sure you have a pleasent bedroom, with things you like, things that make you feel safe.
Try sleeping with a tedy-bear - yes, I know it sounds childlish, but somehow - even many adults find it comforting...

...or just anything else. Good luck! :-)

 

[Emily The Strange]

I have actively avoided sleep for many years and have never spoken to anyone else that does the same. For many years I have sat in bed, either on my laptop randomly surfing the net or reading a book, generally killing time waiting for morning to come. I sit up for hours knowing I have to get up for work in a matter of hours. I normally get about 4 hours before my alarm goes off and am not happy when I wake. I also fear the dark and the quiet so I have a golf club next to my bed in case anyone was to intrude and a night light in the corner partially illuminating everything.

I've been thinking about the reason I do this recently and have come to the conclusion that I am afraid to sleep due to the nightmares and waking up in a panic thinking they are coming to get me. I have learned to stay awake until I am exhausted and fall asleep and then the nightmares stay away, the sleep is too deep for dreaming. I don't know why this is but once learned I couldn't break the habit, it was the only way I could stop them. A safety behaviour and set routine that helped me. Now I know that the lack of sleep damages my already fragile mood so I'm trying to fight the pattern.

Before I go to bed I go through a new routine to sooth me. I lock my door, close the window and drapes, check the dark corners and get into bed, I turn the radio on and listen to classical music really quietly. so quietly you have to close your eyes and really concentrate to hear it. then relax. I start a relaxation technique someone once taught me. lay on your back with your hands by your side. take a breathe in and focus your attention on your scalp without moving it or touching it, just sense it, as you breathe out feel it relax, next your face, neck, shoulders, arms, hands. let them all relax. then start again but instead of your shoulders move to your chest, stomach, lower back, pelvis, thighs, knees, ankle, feet and visualise the stress and negativity leaving you through your toes. It sounds silly but once you get the hang of it it really calms and relaxes you.

This hasn't dealt with the issue but I now get a little more sleep most nights. I still have the weapon by my bed and check the dark corners every night but that's never going to change.

 

[austint]

I used to play classical very quietly for my daughter and we would read Mathew or Corinthians to try and have hope that one day the abuse would stop. Now she is with her father who abused us, and is still abusing her, I have no legal right to see or protect or help her anymore. Every night I lay there thinking about her, and about everything that went wrong, all the break ins, all the pictures and police reports that my lawyer never mentioned in court. I think about how she will have an empty sadness inside her being raised in his abuse, never knowing how good our life was when we were safe together.

Mostly I don't want to self soothe, because all those things I would do for myself, I used to do, and would still be doing for her, and it makes it hurt more, it makes the hopelessness and frustration as raw as it was the day the judge gave her to him without listening to a single one of our witnesses, and punishing me for getting my daughter therapy when the abuse gave her anxiety disorder.

When I can sleep on medication, it's either flashbacks or this wonderful dream that turns into a nightmare- where I get her ready for first grade in our old apartment before he broke in and we had to move. Then I wake up and she is not there, and she never will be, I will never see first grade or second or third, I will never pack her lunch or sing her to sleep at night or hold her when she is afraid and play classical music and sit next to her until she isn't afraid of her daddy anymore.

So I am afraid to sleep but long to so maybe tomorrow I can have energy; but I know if I go to sleep tommorow will come, and tommorow will be another day, like every other day forever that I am in his cage, that I will never raise or protect my daughter, and that he will do to her what he did to me.
I guess self soothing is a trigger. It feels like everything is a trigger. Does that ever stop or get better? It has been two years now, and one year 6 days and 15 hours since he took my daughter away.

 

[Viosinger]

I do the same. I wish I had advice... I have various levels of lighting in my room to avoid being in the dark on difficult nights, to try and not stay up until dawn (because I will). Luckily, I work afternoons now which helps me if I need to just sleep late after being up too late. I keep a body pillow, and feel safer now that I have a dog or when my boyfriend is around.

 

[In Exile]

I'm putting off sleeping now. It's 11:30 and I should be in bed, but I postpone.

 

[berryblade]

It's 1:52am and I'm still awake. I find I have this problem as well. When I do sleep, it's either a good 12 hours of nightmares that I can't wake up from or it's a short 4 hour jaunt of waking up and going back to sleep. Either way I wake up in sheets that are soaked with sweat and it's like I just can't be bothered dealing with it?

I have class tomorrow morning as well at like 10:30am too and it takes me an hour to get there but, in the words of Bart Simpson, can't sleep, clowns gonna eat me.

 

[Cadiche]

I sit up most nights until about three or four in the morning, reading random articles on the internet and contemplating life. Any tips on how I could get to sleep earlier? I actively avoid sleep. It doesn't seem like I'm living my life if I go to bed at eleven or so. Also, I sleep every night with a heavy metal torch under my pillow and a walking stick near me. Is this a normal response to a potentially life-threatening situation, and how can I help myself to get over it?

So weird to read this. We have the same problem. Usually I don't sleep often at night. I find myself exhausted at about 5am and soon drift off with the help of a hypnotherapy app. When that does not work I take meds to help me sleep but I hate feeling like a wacked out zombie when I wake so meds are always last resort.

In Australia I slept with a pistol under my pillow for many years. Then I married and moved to Finland. My Dad in Australia inherited my gun and here in Finland I had a peek hole and chains fitted to my front door and added locks on my balcony door. When my husband is away at night and I go to bed, I put a door stopper on this side of the door so it cannot be opened by an intruder and I sleep with a wooden baseball bat by the bed.

Sleep is not my friend. The nightmares are so crazy vivid and I do not want to be locked inside them for too long. Unfortunately I cannot get help here in Finland because I simply do not know how. Different culture. Different language. Different everything. But I love it here. And I really did not help with your post at all after my babbling. Sorry. Hopethings improve for you xx