brokenpony
Silver Member
i read about postraumatic chronodisruption here.
i have mild but accumulative sleep issues compared to many with ptsd/cptsd. in briefer acute episodes i have insomnia and/or nightmares i wake up terrified from in the middle of the night, unable to go back to sleep out of fear of re-entering them. but at my baseline my sleep is pretty consistently “mid”: i tend to sleep 4-5 hrs as a rule. though i almost always have trauma nightmares or normal stress dreams, some of which agitate or disturb me upon waking, they don’t usually cause me to wake up at night.
then in the morning i will wake up “tired but wired” after about 4-5 hrs sleep. sometimes 6. my fitbit may report a good sleep score, fair or poor, but how i feel doesn’t seem to correspond. i have gotten used to about 5 as the average. it’s been many moons since i averaged more than 5 hrs a night for the week. i take modafinil sometimes if things are rough focusing, but i am rarely sleepy during the day. my brain lags and struggles to function, but my body doesn’t really ever feel like sleeping during the daylight hours, unless i am deeply crashing or acutely hypoaroused.
i also stay up late without meaning to. i often get a burst of adrenaline at night, around 11-midnight, some kind of night owl energy, even though i also don’t want to sleep when it’s light? it’s sometimes the only time i can feel my brain clear of the dissociative fog blocking my path and i can work on my art. i do my pelvic floor exercises, which felt difficult to do all day. i also send my therapist long analysis emails at this time and joke that we should have sessions at 3am (because i am so unable to talk or think in session, slushy brain, pulling teeth from a muddy bog).
so this looks like a regular sleep schedule of about 3am-8am. this doesn’t seem to be DSPD because i don’t sleep very late and never have. it is extremely rare for me to sleep past 9am even with an eyemask and blackout curtains.
but then, some rare times, i sleep maybe 7-8 hours. and for some reason i wake up feeling AWFUL. i feel exhausted and so heavy, bad sleep inertia and grogginess, derealization, feel like hit by truck, can’t get out of bed. i will look at the clock groggily thinking i’ve slept 10-12 hrs, only to see i slept 7… and somehow feel regretful, and preferring my “tired and wired” 5 hr feeling.
even though i never feel like sleeping in the light, i have at times allowed myself to nap. it will take a long time to fall asleep. but i experience a similar derealization/dreaminess/disorientation/sleep inertia after napping. i read that this can happen if you take too long a nap, due to sleep phases. so i shorten the nap, even just doze, but still experience the DR problem. also i have such disruptive nightmares when i nap. so i only do it if my body forces it, which does happen from time to time.
i see people joke about sleeping all day, or spending days in bed depressed. i have never spent an entire day sleeping or in bed in my life, no matter how low my mood. i always have to leave the house at least once to “break out.” i have never to my memory liked to sleep. the only good thing about it is that i don’t need to be awake and aware of the present day state of things, and that i sometimes have “interesting” nightmares that i can use in my art or therapy.
my therapist wonders if i am subconsciously afraid to go to sleep and procrastinating, and this is why i get night owl bursts. this could be true.
i know that some % of the population needs less than the standard rec of 7-8 hrs to function well. i don’t know where i naturally fall. but i can say my brain is definitely TIRED on what i get, even though it won’t chill out and properly rest. it’s burnt out. i feel like my brain and body are confused and not communicating well in many respects. i spend most of my time “tired and wired” (like my brain wants to go go go but is stuck, vibrating in place, wanting to move without forward momentum, tire spinning in mud) and the rest of the time in a state of inertia (but not sleepy, just HEAVY, like i am made of lead and moving underwater against currents). i guess this would be hyperarousal/freeze and hypoarousal/collapse, respectively, on the polyvagal chart.
i can’t remember the last time i felt rested (yes i have been tested for apnea) and fully truly awake and present in the world. it’s a mystery. is true restfulness possible for us after decades of circadian dysregulation? i really don’t like taking stuff to sleep. sedating medications aren’t my thing. if it hits 3am and i’m still wide awake i may pop .5-1mg klonopin.
also, i don’t want to make a new post just to ask this but i’m curious about something. i have recorded myself sleeping and have found that i move around a bit but not that much, no acting out dreams. however, some nights i do a weird thing in my sleep that may be self-soothing. i will raise my arms up one by one and run my fingers up and down each arm. sometimes multiple times in the night. i don’t do this when i am awake, but i vaguely think i did this intentionally as a child. does anyone else unconsciously self-soothe like that while asleep?
i have mild but accumulative sleep issues compared to many with ptsd/cptsd. in briefer acute episodes i have insomnia and/or nightmares i wake up terrified from in the middle of the night, unable to go back to sleep out of fear of re-entering them. but at my baseline my sleep is pretty consistently “mid”: i tend to sleep 4-5 hrs as a rule. though i almost always have trauma nightmares or normal stress dreams, some of which agitate or disturb me upon waking, they don’t usually cause me to wake up at night.
then in the morning i will wake up “tired but wired” after about 4-5 hrs sleep. sometimes 6. my fitbit may report a good sleep score, fair or poor, but how i feel doesn’t seem to correspond. i have gotten used to about 5 as the average. it’s been many moons since i averaged more than 5 hrs a night for the week. i take modafinil sometimes if things are rough focusing, but i am rarely sleepy during the day. my brain lags and struggles to function, but my body doesn’t really ever feel like sleeping during the daylight hours, unless i am deeply crashing or acutely hypoaroused.
i also stay up late without meaning to. i often get a burst of adrenaline at night, around 11-midnight, some kind of night owl energy, even though i also don’t want to sleep when it’s light? it’s sometimes the only time i can feel my brain clear of the dissociative fog blocking my path and i can work on my art. i do my pelvic floor exercises, which felt difficult to do all day. i also send my therapist long analysis emails at this time and joke that we should have sessions at 3am (because i am so unable to talk or think in session, slushy brain, pulling teeth from a muddy bog).
so this looks like a regular sleep schedule of about 3am-8am. this doesn’t seem to be DSPD because i don’t sleep very late and never have. it is extremely rare for me to sleep past 9am even with an eyemask and blackout curtains.
but then, some rare times, i sleep maybe 7-8 hours. and for some reason i wake up feeling AWFUL. i feel exhausted and so heavy, bad sleep inertia and grogginess, derealization, feel like hit by truck, can’t get out of bed. i will look at the clock groggily thinking i’ve slept 10-12 hrs, only to see i slept 7… and somehow feel regretful, and preferring my “tired and wired” 5 hr feeling.
even though i never feel like sleeping in the light, i have at times allowed myself to nap. it will take a long time to fall asleep. but i experience a similar derealization/dreaminess/disorientation/sleep inertia after napping. i read that this can happen if you take too long a nap, due to sleep phases. so i shorten the nap, even just doze, but still experience the DR problem. also i have such disruptive nightmares when i nap. so i only do it if my body forces it, which does happen from time to time.
i see people joke about sleeping all day, or spending days in bed depressed. i have never spent an entire day sleeping or in bed in my life, no matter how low my mood. i always have to leave the house at least once to “break out.” i have never to my memory liked to sleep. the only good thing about it is that i don’t need to be awake and aware of the present day state of things, and that i sometimes have “interesting” nightmares that i can use in my art or therapy.
my therapist wonders if i am subconsciously afraid to go to sleep and procrastinating, and this is why i get night owl bursts. this could be true.
i know that some % of the population needs less than the standard rec of 7-8 hrs to function well. i don’t know where i naturally fall. but i can say my brain is definitely TIRED on what i get, even though it won’t chill out and properly rest. it’s burnt out. i feel like my brain and body are confused and not communicating well in many respects. i spend most of my time “tired and wired” (like my brain wants to go go go but is stuck, vibrating in place, wanting to move without forward momentum, tire spinning in mud) and the rest of the time in a state of inertia (but not sleepy, just HEAVY, like i am made of lead and moving underwater against currents). i guess this would be hyperarousal/freeze and hypoarousal/collapse, respectively, on the polyvagal chart.
i can’t remember the last time i felt rested (yes i have been tested for apnea) and fully truly awake and present in the world. it’s a mystery. is true restfulness possible for us after decades of circadian dysregulation? i really don’t like taking stuff to sleep. sedating medications aren’t my thing. if it hits 3am and i’m still wide awake i may pop .5-1mg klonopin.
also, i don’t want to make a new post just to ask this but i’m curious about something. i have recorded myself sleeping and have found that i move around a bit but not that much, no acting out dreams. however, some nights i do a weird thing in my sleep that may be self-soothing. i will raise my arms up one by one and run my fingers up and down each arm. sometimes multiple times in the night. i don’t do this when i am awake, but i vaguely think i did this intentionally as a child. does anyone else unconsciously self-soothe like that while asleep?
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