Insomnia Forum Posting

Posted by Seeking sleep on January 25, 2005 at 13:39:57:

In Reply to: Re: My Key to Unlocking Anxiety posted by DCTom on January 25, 2005 at 13:03:27:

Very good thoughts - everything you just said and I so appreciate it.

I have a strange question. How do you not feel guilty for having insomnia? I mean, I am doing it to myself - people with cancer are sick. Is insomnia an illness? I mean what is it? Does that make sense? I've said before, and know that this is being said from a place of sleep deprivation, that if I had cancer at least I'd know I didn't do it to myself - I mean, unless I had smoked or something. I just feel ashamed that my crazy brain can't just relax and not worry about it. If we'd lose the worry, we'd all sleep right?

You asked about my sleeping. This is the problem. I have a 1 year old who very often wakes in the night and no matter what I try, we cannot get a consistant wake up time from her. What this means is that I'm like a doctor on call and I'm trying to recover from insomnia at the same time. Because I have sleep maintainence insomnia, I fall asleep easily and am often awakened by her at some point. Often she'll need me and so I've conditioned myself to not be able to go back to sleep in a way. Then I'll go back to sleep after a while and it's not long until she's up. This morning at 2:20 I woke up to go to the bathroom and got afraid. It had nothing to do with my daughter. But then I keep thinking about the possibility that she could wake up anytime. I got out of bed at 2:40 to go and read, returned to bed, couldn't sleep, got up to read and came back to bed at 4:30. I had just fallen to sleep and she started crying. I shot awake then and ending up doozing on the couch from about 5:30 to 6:00. Then I woke up angery at myself and cursing the insomnia. It is very hard to figure out how to take this on with this kind of schedule. I would love to do SR but I really can't because I cannot come up with a consistant wake up time.

Now two weeks ago, my husband was the main one going to her and I easily returned to sleep even though every time I woke up I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to. That week I averaged 7 hours a night. Then last week she got sick and needed me too. I was up and it would take me an hour to go back to sleep for some reason. I started fearing everthing all over again. Saturday night she stayed with my mother and I slept 8 hours. But the last two nights have been the worst I've had in a while.

If you can think of any advice I'd appreciate it. Please don't tell me that there is no way to recover with this kind of schedule because I'm already afraid that this is the case. But there is nothing I can do about it. She's been getting teeth, before that she had a cold, before that we had gone out of town. I mean, I'm not opposed to letting her cry and not going to her. That wakes me up too though.

Anyway, motherhood has certainly stirred up the problem. I don't know what to do.

Any thoughts?

Follow Ups:

• Re: My Key to Unlocking Anxiety nocturnally yours 14:52 1/25/05 (1)
  • Re: My Key to Unlocking Anxiety Seeking sleep 14:59 1/25/05 (0)

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