Im desperate. Im so sick of feeling so absolutely awful because I cant sleep.. Its causing me major problems... I have stress and anxiety induced sleep insomnia.. and that causes me to have worsened depression because after days of no sleep my brain and body just cant fight it off. I need sleep.. but I don't know how to sleep.. Ive tried medication to help fall asleep.. Tried everything I could think of... but as soon as I go and lay down and close my eyes.. All i can think of is everything I have to face tomorrow.. or everything i've done wrong.. and the guilt floods in.. for things I shouldn't even feel guilty over.. and the feeling of not knowing whats going to happen tomorrow makes my anxiety go through the roof. Lack of sleep is having bad effects on me... Im overly emotional.. I cry just because i'm so exhausted... sleep exhaustion is causing me to see things that aren't there.. my mind plays tricks on me.. it hurts... it makes me feel ill and weak.. and I don't know what to do. Does anyone have any form of suggestion as to how i can go to sleep.. preferably not a solution involving me making myself just black out by banging my head on the wall >~<.. but.. as I said before.. i'm becoming more and more desperate..
Hmm i guess you also now associate bed with these things so the minute you get into bed and close your eyes you are telling yourself you will not be able to sleep and the worry of life and what tomorrow brings hits you, for me watching tv or concentrating on something makes me sleepy so do that while you are in bed rather trying to go straight to sleep, even if its on the sofa and you relax there n end up dropping off its a start to get your body used to sleeping in the right pattern, maybe even some meditainment music? this is how my mum gets off to sleep but again without telling yourself " i must sleep, i cant sleep" i think something else to concentrate on when you are in bed would be good. are these things you have to face everyday anything you could move around or get time off from for awhile too ? keeping busy in the day is good though and being out in the air.
I went through a long period of not having much sleep so I'm sorry you need to deal with this. I always found that a couple aspirin with a glass of milk would help me become relaxed. One unorthodox method I found was to spend about an hour or so before I would try to sleep watching comedy on my computer. It would take my mind off bad things and make me smile and laugh, those thoughts would be in my head when I got into bed. It made things easier
i cant fall asleep no matter what i do.. ill keep myself busy.. do things in hope of growing tired, watching tv, listening to music, just zoning out and sketching. I try to completely clear my head and not think about things, but i just cant.. its like i cant shut my mind down.. Ill just be about to fall asleep when bam "You have to wake up early tomorrow to go to work" "Is your "dad" going to come home tonight, or tomorrow morning, will he be up, how do you avoid him" "school starts soon, how are you going to deal with the struggle" "remember that thing you did years ago that you never owned up for, oh yeah, totally bad karma"just thought after thought pops into my head no matter how hard i try for it not to.. Its worse when theres no thoughts at all, just complete inability to sleep.. Ill try and try... for what seems like hours, but is only minutes.. making the night long and exhausting wishing for sleep, or for morning to come. and its more and more common for it to happen.. ive always been a bad sleeper.. and have always had insomnia.. but.. as ive grown older, its more and more common.. especially when i become too stressed out and anxious to deal with it (which is currently happening due to the new school year coming up) which is making it so impossible to sleep.. literally.. the night before i didnt sleep at all, last night i got about a 3-4 hour sleep in.. and tonight just feels miserable already.
aaaaah so it is anxiety that is the real problem here! which is causing the insomnia, the new school year being that one thing too many that has caused your anxiety to go into overdrive maybe if you can try work on the anxiety and elliminatie some of the things that are worrying you or even see a therapist for your anxiety could help, i think it is what is causing the inability to sleep when i was over anxious ( not as bad as you have it ) i found it alot harder to be able to get my mind relax enough to sleep. your dad is one of your worries is this something you can have it out with him and fix whatever the reason you are avoiding him over ?
i have had this problem since second grade and it can absolutely be a life ruiner, I wish I could zap my brain out of it so sorry you have the same thing :c What medications have you tried? You may have to visit a doctor to jump past OTC stuff, I am assuming they are are useless to you as thwy are to me. A very low dose of generic ambien, vistaril, or trazodone has helped me a lot. Yeah if you can manage it without medications that is the goal, that will always be the goal, but until then get a prescription for these and get some damn sleep! The generics for these are affordable if you do it through Costco or Targets precription reward system thing.
JessieRayne: Theres a LOT of things you can do to help with sleeping problems. It depends a lot on your age and health too. Sometimes it takes medication, sometimes you have to adjust your daily patterns and deal with the issues that are not letting you sleep. First thing you need to do is focus and like any other problem, break your sleep deprivation down into manageable chucks you can tackle. Is your sleep deprivation serious enough to warrant medical attention? Can a doctor help you treat underlying causes?(like your anxiety) Do you think you'll need medication to help you sleep? Theres a lot of medications that come to mind for anxiety and sleep..zoloft, xanax, ambien. Your doctor can decide whats best for you and will give you much better results that over the counter medication or self-treating with something like benedryl. Another thing you can change is your habits. You've turned your bed into a worry chamber. During my late teens and early twenties, I had terrible problems falling asleep. Its like my brain was always switched on and nothing would shut it off. I would lie in bed for sometimes three hours before finally falling asleep. It started a terrible cycle where I'd never feel tired enough to sleep until 2-3 hours before I was supposed to get up and so of course I went through the whole day exhausted, that is, until about 9pm, then my brain woke back up no matter how tired I was and there was no getting to sleep. If you worry whats going to happen tomorrow, then start off the day right, get up even an hour early before you do anything else and do something fun. Likewise, try and set aside a different time of day for your worrying.(Either so you worry less around bedtime or stop associating your bed with worry time) Right after work/school, think about what you normally think about when you lie down..in fact ..go lie down in the afternoon if it helps get you there...think of your anxiety like a pressure cooker...don't do it all at once all night...break it up so you don't feel the need for your mind to race on negative thoughts. Also, do what you can to make your bed area as pleasant as possible, or change temporarily to another area if you can (like the couch). If you can adjust the temperature, lighting, TV, music, whatever it takes to make it a pleasant area for you to relax. Mlpguy88's idea of watching comedy before bed if actually a genius idea. Its pretty hard get into a restless state of worry if you've just spent the last hour or so laughing. If you enjoy watching stand-up comedy google your favorite comedian on youtube or watch a funny movie. Maybe occasionally a bowel of ice cream to go with it, get the dopamine flowing so your brain's natural chemicals are relaxing you. Do you have a pet, if so, call them over and pet them. No pet?..then pet yourself..perfectly healthy to masturbate to relieve some tension. You might also trying doing more physical activity so your body is tired at bedtime. Strenuous activity if you can, otherwise ride a bike or walk. Just try not to do it later at night as that can actually charge you up and give you more energy for a several hours afterwards. But later than that, and you'll feel it the closer to bedtime you get. You can google 9,000 more tips to help you sleep better, the main idea is identify the problems preventing you from getting good rest, stay persistent and improve on them so over time you get back into a healthier sleep cycle. Do you have an easier time getting to sleep on the weekends? Maybe you can adjust your work/school hours to make it easier, maybe you can just atone or forgive yourself for past mistakes so you don't waste time doing useless worrying when you could be spending that time much better living your life - which should be tiring enough to make you quite sleepy by the end of the day. GOOD LUCK ROCK ON
Running or intense exercise, it'll completely exhaust you and you'll have no choice but to sleep. Plus you'll have an endorphin hit which will help relax you. Definitely worth a try and good luck x
Thank you all for your advice.. I guess Ill try any of them.. Im just.. so done with not sleeping. @mlpguy88 I will try the comedy thing.. ive tried it before, and haven't been able to fall asleep, but perhaps it will work when im really exhausted, so thanks c: @xxemilyxx I do see a therapist.. as of somewhat recently.. and have been desperately trying.. to help with some of it.. but its extremely hard for me to even discuss things with my therapists, just too much anxiety and nervousness and doubt and so much its overwhelming for me. But im trying. As for the issue with my "father" no, I can't talk to him about it, and that situation is never going to be healed or fixed. That ship has already sailed by a long shot. He causes me to have great fear inside my own home, which surly doesn't help in this situation at all, but thats just something i have to deal with. But thank you for your advice, and ill try to continue working on it ;~; @gay axolotl Ive tried over the counter sleep medication.. and have tried medication prescribed for me. For sleep, for anxiety and for depression, but honestly the medication scared me. I dont like taking medication because my body has simply never reacted well to it. Especially any anti-depressents. It just makes me feel weird and oddly more depressed than when I started. I also am not fond of keeping any medication in my home, (more so higher prescription) on the off chance my depression comes in hard.. high prescription drugs can pose as a danger to me. I agree with you about it being the last resort, because i dont want to have to rely on it in order to sleep, and I just hope I can find a better method to sleeping before having to try the medication again.. @scanner007 everything youve said is very helpful, and makes a lot of sense, in previous responses to other people, I am trying to help my anxiety and other issues, but its a hard habit to break. Its bad enough to wear i feel medication is needed, but i dont WANT to necessarily use medication. Ill try your advice on changing sleep patterns, because it might help with the problem. Its just hard to do because my daily life is so routine and im afraid to break it (because of other problems which is another story) and i HAVE to get the things i need to get done each day, which is hard enough to fit in and do properly. As for all of the other things you've mentioned, Ill try them, and just.. see if anything works, which hopefully it will. Thank you @Mocha Ill try exercise.. but.. Im not really much into that Dx Im lazy and running is simply exhausting in itself.. but anything to get me to sleep. Maybe ill look a bit less twigish after it as well. But, thank you.
Melatonin tablets help me a lot, you can get them at most supermarkets. Besides that, if you just lay in bed doing nothing for hours, it does give you some of the benefits of being asleep, so don't stay up doing stuff because you can't sleep anyways.
