Waking up to a new day

[owl25]

Hi everyone, I hope someone might be able to give me some insight and help me with this, it's something I've not really been able to resolve for several years now. Waking up in the mornings and realizing it's a new day feels unsafe to me. The moment I wake up and realize it's morning I suddenly have anxiety. My body just tenses up and I am on guard. I don't feel relaxed and I just feel on edge. It takes me a while to ease into the day and to start to feel safe and get grounded. I can wake up in the middle of the night and be fine, I can sleep in the day and wake up and be fine. It's mornings in particular. Any idea what might be going on here and what I could do? I really would love to be able to have a good night's sleep and wake up rested and relaxed. Most of my nights these days are fairly decent sleep wise. The mornings that I have nightmares I wake up with the anxiety worse. I do tend to still go to bed later than I should, resulting in not quite enough hours of sleep. I tried IFS this morning and tried to check in with different parts of me, but it's like they didn't know I was there. I couldn't connect with myself. I'm still somewhat in that state. It was a bit harder to do too because I felt really groggy. It's like none of my system is online yet when I wake up and by default my guard goes up.

[marta1234]

I don't know if this helps, but for me mornings or the afternoon sun is very triggering on my bad days. When I see the light I just want to curl up and disappear. I'm thinking that for me, it was because most times mornings and afternoons were when everyone (FOO) woke up (on weekends or holidays), and were eating breakfast or lunch (which I had to join). The conversations at the table were always nerve wracking so I think I just developed anxiety for this.

I also wanted to add a hug for you (if it's ok), as I know sleep deprivation is very hard. for a good rest

[Jazzy]

I'm not sure I can help, but I can certainly relate to what you're saying. I've never been able to reliably wake up in the morning throughout my entire life. Like you said, I do better at night. It feels much more calm and relaxed, with most people sleeping, I feel way safer and more comfortable.

It makes sense, what you said about having to go join breakfast/lunch and it was nerve wracking. If this has been regular occurrence for a long time, then your body will begin to expect it. My best guess would be that you need to retrain yourself that it is safe to wake up. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done, but if you can somehow make a routine where you wake up, then do something to make yourself feel better, hopefully in time, it will start to stick.

For me, it has improved recently, along with a bunch of other things, but still far from normal. I think reducing triggers, general stressors, and proper medication will help overall. It all kind of goes together in my experience. Less triggers/stress leads to less anxiety, leads to less adrenal reactions, leans to your mind/body beginning to learn things aren't so bad and lower SoT somewhat.  Anyway, I think we're all different, and have to figure out what works for us... but I wish you all the best with it. Hopefully things improve for you soon.

[rainydiary]

Owl,

Thank you for voicing this experience.  I am realizing this happens to me too - I often wake up extremely tired and already hypervigilant despite having just slept a full night sleep and no immediate danger being present in my space. 

It seems like there must be some pathways in my brain that are alerted when it is time to get up.  Maybe it is my cat immediately placing a demand for food on me as soon as she realizes I am awake.  I also tend to have really intense dreams that seem to happen in the time before I wake so sometimes I wake up feeling so weird. 

I do not currently have any things that help as I honestly thought it was just me that experiences this and did not consider doing something about it.  I am reflecting how I have a really good night routine that helps me unwind and get ready for sleep.  I am wondering if I could also create a nurturing morning routine to give my brain a break.

Thank you for sharing. 

[owl25]

marta, that's rough, you have to parts of the day triggering like that Is this something you are actively trying to work on? I am finding it impossible to shift. I suspect it's just going to take time and that working through the past is the only thing that is going to resolve this, which means there is no short term solution in sight.

jazzy, it is tricky, and I'm not sure what's going to work for me at this point. I'm glad it's improving for you!

rainydiary, thank you for sharing too. Your description matches exactly what I experience. There's a strange sense of relief that I'm not the only one who goes through this particular sequence. I find the late morning dreams rather strange, right before it's time to wake. I did learn recently that it takes all of us 20 minutes before we are fully awake when we wake up in the mornings, no matter who you are. So maybe I'm kind of stuck with this until I've processed enough of the trauma from the past stuck in my body?

[rainydiary]

Maybe!  There is a lot to process and it's interesting what we are holding onto in our brain, our body, and our emotions. 

This morning I had your post in my mind as I was in that in between sleep and wake.  I kept saying "I am safe" to myself. I felt like I made my response last time more about me and meant to answer your question more and that was on my mind when I woke up.  I meant my thoughts to be like thinking out loud for problem solving but I apologize if it got away from answering your original question.

[owl25]

rainydiary, you didn't make your post all about you, not at all! I very much appreciated it, like I said there was a relief that it's not just me experiencing this. Not that I want for others to deal with this too, but it does make me feel less alone with that particular struggle, and not feeling alone with something always makes something easier to cope with. 

I like the "I am safe" mantra you came up with, I did that for a while too when I was really scared in the mornings. Now I recognize that I am in some kind of altered state and that it will pass, and I know I'm safe, it just hasn't reached all of me yet somehow. I hope it will help improve things for you 

[rainydiary]

Thanks Owl, my inner critic is loud right now.  It is disconcerting to wake up with this terrible critic already on the case after "rest."  What you say resonates with me - it seems like things we know in our mind aren't always reaching our body and hearts or all parts of our mind.  For me, it is hard to know how much to take action on or give it time. 

[owl25]

After struggling with this for so very long, and not finding any real answers anywhere, I come across a section in Pete Walker's book on complex PTSD that talks about the morning flashback. I was stunned to read it. He says:

"With undetectable triggers, I find that it is most helpful to see a flashback as a communication from the child that you were. The child is reminding you that he woke up feeling desolate innumerable times in that house that was not a home. He woke up daunted by the prospect of once again having to reenter the poisonous milieu of your family. The child is now asking you to meet his unmet need of having someone to go to for comfort when he wakes up feeling wretched. It is as if he saying: "See! This is how bad it was - this is how overwhelmed, ashamed and miserable I felt so much of the time."
     Managing the pain of waking up in the abandonment depression is one of the most difficult, long term challenges in recovery. Sleep seems to be a regressive, right-brain dominant experience. It is not uncommon to wake up with a temporary loss of access to the left-brain cognitive functions that control our more sophisticated understandings of our present-day reality. Without the latter, flashback management often reverts to the critic and our early childhood attempts to cope. This creates a fruitful ground for the critic to explode its arsenal of self-pathologizing programs [enumerated in the next chapter]. " (p 160)

I have had that same sense, that when I wake up in the morning, my psychological defenses are down and need time to come online.

Interesting that he states that this is one of the most difficult, long term challenges. I've been dealing with this for the last few years in various forms.

rainydiary, interesting that the first thing that is instantly active for you is your inner critic upon waking. I see that as a part of you trying to protect you by pre-emptively criticizing before the day even starts, in an attempt to keep you safe from others. It sounds like this really is a flashback of some sort, so likely something for us to try to actively work on.

[Lilypad]

I don't generally experience the morning anxiety you describe, but it takes me ages to get ready in the morning. About 2 hours. Has done my whole life. I just have to go very slowly and ease my self into the day. I have a sense it is because of reverting to a more child like/emotional state in my sleep, and then struggling to get my executive functioning back online. Interesting to think this may be related to CPTSD

[dreamriver]

Owl25, I love that discovery youve made from Walker's book! The snippet makes so much sense.

I, too, have trouble with mornings here and there. I think I'm especially triggered if there's a lot of things to do or people to interact with who I don't know. It takes me back to childhood where every morning I'd wake up early and have to go to school where I was incessantly bullied, then return home to more bullying from FOO that couldn't care less.

In the spirit of IFS I talk to myself and my anxiety, as if it is a different part of me. I acknowledge that it is a protector. I say, "I deeply thank you for protecting and looking out for me all these years; but I'm OK now. You don't have to protect me at the moment, I am safe and OK. You can relax. " Weirdly, that's been helping me. A lot.

[hypervigilante]

Hi Owl! Thank you for sharing this.

I shared once with my Trauma T that I had a hard time starting the day. She empathized with me, suggesting it's the critical voice I'm afraid of when I wake up. As in "oh ... another day of this" and I just don't want to deal with her.

Gaining that awareness really softened it's impact, for me!

[Marko]

Thanks for this thread Owl!

I have also struggled with this for years and it definately started before I was 10. Mornings were stressful and pressured times in my house and I've never liked them since.

I can say however that as my recovery progresses this aspect has definately got easier. I do know on a biochemical level it is related to cortisol levels which vary throughout the day and ours are unusually high (I think) in the morning. So meds can help with this as they can even this out.

I agree Owl that it has something to do with our conscious defences being down during the night, so we're at the mercy of our unregulated trauma for 8 hours or so. I can also relate to the lack of ability to do parts work which becomes more avaiIable later in the day. I do a lot of emotional processing work with quite a lot of body awareness so in the mornings I have found that surrendering to the emotion of fear, despair or whatever flavour it happens to be, staying in bed for an hour and really working with that emotion gets me to a point where I can face the day without too much pain.