Insomnia Forum Posting

Posted by Tom-N-Texas on January 31, 2005 at 13:52:00:

In Reply to: Re: Oh no! posted by Seeking sleep on January 31, 2005 at 08:55:13:

Molly,

Good for you. You know, of course everyone is different. You may find if you experiment with SR that it actually helps you some. It didn't seem to help me too much simply because my onset anxiety was just through the roof...and that seemed to exacerbate it. But you are unique. You're unique to everyone else on here. What works for you may or may not have worked for other people. You just have to decide what course of action to take.

My small piece of advice would be to simply do what FEELS right to you....and to acknowledge that getting back to normal is, in fact, very doable if you do these things on a continual basis:

1) Always believe in yourself, and believe that you have the ability to find your way out of this

2) Trust your body's natural instincts

3) Give yourself credit when you have success

4) Even if you have just a sliver of hope, hang on to it for dear life -- and build on it

5) Admit when things are getting better

I did want to clear one more thing up. In one of your earlier posts you mentioned how you couldn't believe or understand how it was possible to have an "I just don't care if I sleep or not attitude." To me, that doesn't really explain my philosphy. Maybe this will clear it up:

When I'm sleep deprived, I of course want nothing more than to go to sleep. Many times in the past (even during my recovery) I've been beyond desperate. Like other people, I would think about it all day leading up to bedtime. But here's the difference: Even though I was desperate, I KNEW I would not change myself for it. I knew that part of my life was over. So, it really DIDN'T matter if I slept. (Oh I'd be miserable if I didn't) ...but I would not alter myself or try new things. That stuff was over for me. What "stuff" you ask?

reading insomnia books, eating special foods, taking drugs or herbs, thinking about a way to cure myself, talking endlessly about it with my wife, doing research on the internet, over-analyzing my sleep schedule, skipping important events in my life, altering my schedule. Trying to figure out WHY. -- All that stuff was over -- permenantly....whether I slept or not. Insomnia was not going to rule me -- period. Oh, I might be desperate and miserable, or want to curl up in the middle of the floor and die, but even so, none of that stuff would ever come into play again.

That's what I mean by : "It doesn't matter if I sleep of not."

Now to be fair, as I started improving, I got to the point where I KNEW I would eventually sleep. It may be a few days before I snapped out of my funk but...I would sleep. And so will you.

Good luck. Tom

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