Well, it’s 2:08 at night and I’m still awake. I’ve been in bed for 3 hours. I hate it when I’m so tired but I cannot sleep. I can never turn my mind off. I’ve never been able too. It drives me nuts. With my mind racing from thought to thought to thought………….it’s frustrating. Although, I’ve always been a “night owl”. But, not so much anymore. It’s really not like it was when I was little. When I was little I could sleep for 6 hours and not be tired at all. And, I was a “night owl” because I never really was tired. But now, it’s not that I’m not tired that keeps me up at night. It’s the fear and anxiousness that night brings to me that makes me not sleep. I’m not afraid of the dark. Infact, the dark calms me. But, it’s what memories of the night that keeps me up. Because alot of things have happened to me at night. With me not sleeping well doesn’t help when I have school. Because, since it’s really hard to get me going in the morning, it takes me awhile to get ready. I am not a morning person. But there are many times when I’ve gone to school in my PJ’s. But, since I’m on summer vacation now, I don’t have to get up in the morning in less I have counseling. But, even on the weekends or on vacations, I’m still up by 8:00am. So, even if I have a chance to sleep in, I never do. I wake up and cannot fall asleep. Or I cannot fall asleep and then cannot wake up. Or I just don’t sleep. God, I’m tired……………..
                    Wow, I’ve just wasted person’s time by having them listen to me rant.
3 comments
I think this is what the shrinks call complex PTSD. Regular PTSD is usually for people who’ve been in a war, or sometimes a car wreck or something like that – they keep re-imagining the thing happening to them over and over again.
Complex PTSD is similar, except it comes from many, much smaller things that might not be traumatic one at a time, but when you add them all up they keep you from sleeping (among other things).
What happens is it’s like your panic system (adrenaline, fight-or-flight, whatever you want to call) gets set off so many times that it gets kind of ‘stuck’ in the ‘on’ position, and you can’t shut it off. It comes from never feeling safe, from never having anybody understand what you’re going through, from not having control over the situation, not being able to change your life situation so that you feel safe.
I’ve been going through a similar thing, which is why I’m sitting here typing on this keyboard instead of sleeping…so it actually helps *me* to hear you describe it, because I know I’m not the only person who has this. Especially the part about can’t sleep, or can’t wake up, or just not sleeping at all. And being SOOoooo tired. I can relate.
For me I think it has something to do with being bullied as a kid – I think a lot of the anxiety comes from feeling like I’m not allowed to stand up for myself, that I’ll get in trouble if I do. Or that the bully will do something even worse to retaliate, and I’ll end up regretting I ever stood up for myself.
But – the more I’m able to stick up for myself and not put up with other peoples’ sh*t, the better I sleep. I’ve noticed there’s a pretty direct correlation between the two. Don’t know if that would work for you or not, not knowing any details of your situation.
I feel your pain. As soon as my head hits the pillow my minds engine kicks into high gear and i cant get it stop. About a thousand ideas and topics will rush through my head every minute, some coherent but most totally random. People like us just have more on our minds than most, more shit to deal with than the average. All of it, from the small to the huge, comes out when we hit the bed since theres nothing else to hold our mind’s attention. Its to the point were i need fairly large doses of sleep aids almost every night. You mentioned being a night owl and i can appreciate how much trouble that can cause in your life. It almost feels as if im genetically nocturnal, if its light out i cant keep my eyes open but as soon as the sun goes down i feel like i chugged 20 pots of coffee. Everything becomes so much more complicated when you’re timetable is the complete opposite of everyone else.
You are not alone. You are just like me. When I was little, I saw this figure, it still haunts me. It was at night, I couldn’t sleep. I know you didn’t see a figure, but I wanted to share you my reason. The weird thing is, is that I crave the night life. I love the feeling that you get when you see the sunrise. And when the full moon gazes upon your face as it shines on you. That fact is, when I saw that disfigured person, I know that someone is watching over me and that guardian angel will let you sleep foe eternity.