Article on insomnia and PTSD

[Saluki]

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/mental-health/ptsd-and-sleep

I thought I'd share this here because I'm done with not finding a solution for my insomnia. It seems a bit pointless for me to keep reading all these articles and nothing I try helps. For example, drinking was the only way I could sleep for years. It's a miracle I stopped drinking, but here they're obviously sensibly advising against drinking as a way to block out nightmares (never worked for me, but it did cause sleep... and hangovers... and alcoholism...)
Hmmm.
So I'm now wondering, will I ever ever have a normal sleep pattern or might I as well give up and just accept sleep doesn't work for me when I want it to? No: that doesn't work either...I need to get a regular sleeping pattern. I so badly need to.

Just ruminating really.

They advise things like "screens keep you awake" well so does my brain and that is way more powerful than a screen. In fact on my better sleep successes, reading books on my kindle was my only way to get to sleep. Now it's listening to podcasts on low enough volume to hear what they're saying but only just so I have to focus my brain on their words carefully and that can help- I emphasize can help but isn't guaranteed - to help stop intrusive thoughts...a bit.

[NarcKiddo]

I used to self-medicate with alcohol and am familiar with zonking out, thinking I had slept well but feeling un-rested in the morning. I have since discovered that my resting heart rate is high when I sleep (a stress reaction, it seems) and way, way higher if I drink. So I have cut back to almost nothing.

I have read some reports recently to the effect that screens keeping you awake is not really much of a thing. Certainly I can read on my iPad until I feel sleepy and it seems to be no different to reading a book.

A white noise machine has proved very, very useful. I got a little one off Amazon that is meant for babies and played the various sounds through until I found one that worked best (in my case it is one that sounds a bit like a train. I used to go on the train to stay with my grandmother and she was a safe person for me. So I just pretend I am on the train to her house.)

A regular sleep pattern in terms of going to bed and getting up at the same time every day has helped me. I have also found that if I wake up in the night it is very unhelpful for me to get up or to stress about how long it is taking for me to get back to sleep. I just lie there and tell myself I am resting and that is good for me, even if it is not actual sleep. Also people tend to over-estimate how long they are actually awake, which is one reason why I try not to think about it at the time. If you get up in the morning and think "oh, I was awake for HOURS" you automatically feel worse.

Exercise has helped me sleep much better. I exercise hard most days (in the morning).

Another thing that has helped is HRT. Partly because I suffered the most diabolical night sweats that got me up to change clothing and bedding, which was obviously not helpful. But also because the progesterone tablets they have given me are known to help with sleep and in my case they do.

[Saluki]

Oops- my reply never posted. I must have forgotten to press send.

My partner tells me I seem to wake up at night and start getting hyper alert when everyone else is getting sleepy... which is spot on.

It seems to be a habit my brain has set in concrete though.

When I was tiny I was left alone and out of the way because my crying kept my mother awake. When I was bigger I used to have terrible nightmares and night terrors so I got into the habit of talking to myself or reading under the covers with a torch. There were late night noises that kept me awake too, often my parents arguing.

When I was in my DV marriage he used to wake me up through the night on purpose. I'm not going to go into details but yeah that made me very, very hypervigilant at night and I think that's the main thing that made it impossible to develop a healthy sleep pattern.

I wake often during the night. Always have.

I have figured out I need to develop a bed time ritual. I am working on that.

[Saluki]

It sounds so lovely pretending to be on the train to your grandma's house! I think I will buy my son a white noise machine as he likes the sound of his fan which makes it very cold in the winter (I didn't understand why he needed it until I read about white noise). Plus the white noise machine takes up less space! I can't cope with fan noise as it's one of my triggers. I love the sound of the ocean but it sounds weird in headphones so I just listen to hours long podcasts which distracts me from intrusive thoughts which are my sleep's worst enemy. Plus I can figure out how long I lay awake for by rewinding and noting the timestamp from the last thing I remember hearing which is reassuring sometimes but when I get to the end of a 4 hour one and am still wide awake it sucks! With nothing I lay awake with horrible horrible thoughts. Even the podcasts can't block it out sometimes, but they do help.

The stupid part is that I can sleep much easier during the day. So if I don't fall asleep til 6 or 7 even several very noisy alarms don't wake me up because my brain knows it's daylight therefore it feels safe to sleep. Which is incredibly frustrating. Not being able to fall asleep OR wake up is a double whammy of bad sleep patterns.

[Lakelynn]

Saluki: I relate to sleeping easier during the day because it's safer. I take a nap every afternoon for that exact reason. One thing that worked for me, (I live alone) is to just give in and sleep whenever I felt I needed to. That worked for a month, then I gradually got naturally onto a schedule of sorts. If you're able to experiment around your commitments, it might be worth it.

[DD]

I also use podcasts as you do Saluki. On low but I will focus on it and it helps me get to sleep over the difficult thoughts. I too take naps easier. But then too there's always a sound that I can listen to. It would be lovely to sleep easily and well but it is what it is right now. It is something I believe and hope will fix itself when my body has had enough of safety to allow it.