Unable To Keep Regular Sleep Schedule??

[Vulnera_Sanentur]

I guess I was wondering if this was something other people experienced as well. I still do have nightmares about my traumatic events, but over the years they seem to have become more convoluted, and vary in their intensity and graphic-ness.

I remember when I was younger that I was terrified to sleep at night. I had panic attacks every single night when I turned off the lights, and was just waiting for someone to come in and hurt me. I would obsessively run through horrible scenarios in my mind and come up with ways to get out of them and fight back, and began (and still do) to keep weapons close by my bed, just in case.

It seems like when I keep a normal sleep schedule, I have more nightmares and they are extremely awful. I don't remember some of them, but have been woken up by people telling me that I'm screaming and crying in my sleep. I also don't take well to being woken up, and have punched people many times for waking me up, without remembering hitting them when I "actually" wake up.

When I don't have as many nightmares, I find that I am unable to sleep regularly. It's like I force myself to stay busy with meaningless, weird tasks to put off sleeping as long as possible. When I do sleep, it is for very extended periods of time (10 hours to as much as 24 hours or more).

Has anyone experienced anything like this? People in my family seem to think that I just do this to be different or something and find it annoying. I feel like I am unable to stop all of this sleep stuff and that it is out of my control.

The most frustrating part is that I feel convinced this has to do with something bad that happened to me at night, as a child (what normal 10 year old has panic attacks about someone breaking in and brutally assaulting them???) but I can't remember anything. I wish I could just remember, and I feel like my mind is taunting me with stuff like this. *sigh* For example, I woke up at 2:00PM yesterday, and it is now 8:20ishAM my time and I will probably sleep until dusk. I spent all night looking up different ways on how to modify/improve/upgrade my car. I feel like I'm at a loss and my sleep cycle is controlling me. Has anyone else had this problem?

 

[ScruffMcBuff]

You are most certainly not alone.
Night times are by far the hardest for me. And yes, just like you i suffer with extremley graphic nightmares. sometimes they are uneventful and of little distress. but other times they are so intense I wake up so violently I've actually broken my bed.

I wish i could offer you advise on how to deal with it, but unfortunately im just as lost as you are on this front.
Im sorry to hear that you are suffering this way and not sleeping. sleep deprivation is a horrible, horrible thing to deal with. do you not find any medication has been of much use. i know in some small cases Prazosin has been known to stop nightmares, it worked for me for a while, but i dont use it anymore.

 

[Powder]

From both posts, I hear that you do not feel safe enough to sleep. Meds will not alter that feeling and would be a temporary solution only.

This is due to the fact that your trauma probably occurred in your bed while you were sleeping as a child. Also, you feel invalidated and not protected (they either didn't know and therefore didn't protect you, or one of them was the perpetrator) by the caregivers.

Like you, I had amnesia. But the dreams were right on and contain most of the memories that I was pushing away. Yes, they are "convoluted" but only when you are avoiding the memories, which is a part of PTSD. As you heal and grow stronger, you will be able to see that it's not so bad to just look at them and process them--after all, you survived them as a small child, so you can certainly survive just the memories, not matter how painful, now as a grown up.

Since meds are not an option, and won't fix PTSD anyway, are you working on this in therapy?
Your posts are very clear, so you seem to be functioning pretty well overall.

But sleep and a regular schedule of activities is needed, so you are right to focus on that.

Muse

 

[franciemarnie]

Forgive me but I think your family or anyone who thinks you are perversely doing this to be different and annoying is at the very least irrational (who would choose to have nightmares and terror of sleeping?), cruel in their assessment and unsupportive to the nth degree. I am sorry you have to live with them at present. I shudder to think what they are like in other areas. As in - what else of your reality do they deny?

But congrats on sobriety!!!! Me too.

I also vote for maybe taking another look at what's going on in therapy. I wonder if you could add another dimension of maybe somatic experiencing or some kind of additional work to release the energy of what is coming up in dreams.

I have come to a place where I accept there will be unpredictable periods of sleeplessness or lots of sleep or nightmares. But it helped immensely when I added other forms of emotional energy release to my daily life.

Working out every day is a must for me. Even though that is primarily a physical release, it helps the emotional extremes, rebalances my system and stabilizes stress hormones.

 

[ScruffMcBuff]

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Working out every day is a must for me. Even though that is primarily a physical release, it helps the emotional extremes, rebalances my system and stabilizes stress hormones.

I'm a huge believer in the medicine that is iron! Power lifting and football have been a huge factor in my recovery. I play D-Line and find its a huge help in relieving stress, although I appreciate its not for everyone.

A few people bought up the topic of therapy, this is by far, given your past experiences with Meds, the most appropriate course. I hope you get to the bottom of this, as I'm sure we can all sympathize with you.