Nightmares f up my whole day 🙄

[CooCoo4CocoaPuffs]

I actually thought my PTSD was, at long last, actually improving. My hypervigilance is less, my triggers few and far between and not so “on edge” 24/7. I even thought my nightmares were going away.

Yeah right!

I had a long, doozy, crazy, violent, anxiety-ridden one late into my sleep cycles ie: starting around 5am. I know this as my Apple Watch shows my sleep stages. I had some REM action (not the band, damn it) early in the morning. It woke me up! I half woke up, dozed off and was right back into the bad dream. I got sufficient hours of sleep but I feel like sh*t. Drained, exhausted, unmotivated, feeling freaked out by weird (probably benign) noises etc.

FML.

This has been my nemesis for thirty years. Maybe longer! I’m over it.

 

[FFnerd]

I'm sorry that sounds exhausting, those kind of nights are never fun.
They may not totally ever stop, but they do happen increasingly less often as you go through recovery.

When I have bad nights/trips, it helps me just to put them in the framework that its just another symptom of my chronic illness - and this is just a flare up that will pass. It allows me some grace to treat myself with some extra care the next day as I deal with the 'hangover' like feeling.

 

[arfie]

gentle empathy, coocoo. the post nightmare drain can be meaner than insomnia in my own case.

the ability to just get **over ^it^** remains quite high on my wish list, but while i am waiting for my fairy godmother to appear, i find solace in accepting progress over perfection. the less time i spend insisting i am **over ^it^**, the more time i have for using my recovery tools.