Waking in the night in an EF

[flyingfree]

Lately I've been having very vivid dreams, annoyingly so (I feel like I'm not getting rest). Sometimes they're about work, sometimes about my PDex (who I don't generally think about during the day??), and sometimes about my NM/Dysfunctional FOO.

In addition to this, lately I've been having the worst feeling of waking up in the early hours - between 3 and 5am - feeling absolutely terrified, scared and alone, with this sick, scared feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's awful. It's not always related to the dreams I'm having (to my knowledge) as I don't dream every night. It just seems to be happening. I have to calm myself and cuddle a soft toy, etc. to get back to sleep. The feeling isn't related to my current life, that's for sure. It's definitely something from the past rearing up.

I'm guessing it's some kind of EF, but I don't know why it's hitting me at that particular time, or why i'm waking up then....

Anyone else had a similar thing happen??

[FloatBoat]

Yes. I will wake up panicking often. Usually not even related to my dreams. It's kind of like a
nervous system response or something, but I wake up in full EF. In the early, early morning it's panic and fear, but I will also wake up around 7am in complete sorrow and despair. I'll just lay there and cry but not be sure why. I'm so sorry you experience this too. It's really hard. I've been taking an ashwaganda/rhodiola combo, as well as magnesium supplements. Seems to help a bit.

[woodsgnome]

This is a frequent EF symptom for me...the waking can/can not be related to a dream, it seems, but I often awake and feel like I'm a kid trying to feel or some notion that I'm not safe. I sometimes hear a distant "inner" voice with an admonishing tone, too. One difference nowadays is I can talk back to the voice, which I couldn't do when younger and which seems to help clear some anger that I bear. One of my cptsd symptoms is hyper-vigilance, so night is also a vulnerable time--something bad could happen, etc.

Nights were often a push-pull for my emotions when young. I was asthmatic, and sometimes awoke with a severe bout of it cutting off my breath. The caregivers gave me meds, and then left me to my own devices--i.e. you're a nuisance, I did my duty to give you drugs, now shut up, sit there, and you're on your own, you didn't die. I felt scorned for being a problem...which wasn't only related to night--but nights spent in a chair after the asthma, awash with thoughts of other familial and school stuff going on; yeah, nights became a real terror. There were other occasional nighttime triggers, but I don't want to get lost in that swamp here.

Regardless of the "then" story, the cycle of waking up in panic mode, and with no obvious present trigger, still happens.  That's kind of what this seems like, with the terrified part being the only constant. Once awake, though, there's other layers that activate a whole line of emotional reaction and I can't get back to sleep--a combo of feeling scared, abandoned, scorned, and then the thoughts expand, grabbing all the loose memories and making me into one scared little boy again. My only remedy is to put on soft Celtic music--my own form of music therapy, I guess. I'm now an expert on that genre.

   



 

[Kizzie]

Sorry to hear you're waking up to that Coralreef.    I had much the same experience about a year ago over a period of about 8 months. I would wake up drenched in sweat and having an EF unrelated to anything I'd been dreaming.  until very recently I also felt a lot of depression when just waking up or falling asleep like you FloatBoat.  Perhaps it's because when we are asleep or in that twilight state between sleep and wakefulness our walls are down to some extent and the trauma seeps through. 

I'm not experiencing either any more and I think that what worked for me is finally letting myself feel the fear, anger, and grief more consciously (in small doses),  and in doing so the trauma is surfacing, being processed and defueled little by little.  Pete Walker talks quite a bit about the IC letting you know they need to be heard in his book, and when you look at it that way and start listening and feeling compassionate it does feel like the IC doesn't need to struggle as much or shout as loud or at least it did in my case.

Also, learning to self-soothe and validate/accept my feelings rather than push them away helped - took a while to get the hang of but coming here and hearing how others were doing so for themselves made a big difference.

I hope your nights become calmer 

[flyingfree]

Thanks for your replies. It's good to know that this is 'normal' or whatever as unpleasant as it is. I'm quite new to all of this.

I too often get really emotional just before I go to sleep. Which I think makes things worse, because I then dream about things as well. I'm going to try to keep my thoughts light and happy before I go to sleep, and do my heavy emotional work at other times of the day...hopefully that will help.

I'm also trying to validate and accept my feelings. For a couple of days I was feeling so much rage and anger over the abuse...it was unpleasant but I just accepted it. I think my IC needed to let it out. I used to squash all of my anger down, or unleash it on myself with depression and self-harm. No longer....it's a healthy anger because I was mistreated and I need to feel it.