Life and trauma

[Former-Member]

@MJG017 it's just so hard to deal with especially when it happens several times a day. I get where your coming from when sometimes it feels too hard to keep fighting cos at the moment that's every day for me and it's so exhausting. You should de be proud of yourself and how far you have come, you are chatting with me tonight and honestly stopping me from just completely breaking down. But not because you have to but because you are choosing to, you are choosing to make a difference in someone else's life, someone you don't even know. For that I'm so very grateful. The tears are flowing for me cos I so desperately want to sleep cos I know if I don't I'm going to end up having a seizure (epilepsy) but it's just not happening. I'm just getting more and more restless and frustrated. 

[MJG017]

@Former-Member  I guess that is what keeps me here since I joined up earlier this year.  People dealing with their own issues and struggles but still take the time to support people dealing with their own.  I don't know many places where that happens!  None of us know each other here but I've never know people (other than my current partner) who have supported me more and who I've felt like i've trusted with my inner thoughts more.  I can't really describe it, but we've all seen how they system fails so many people and i think a lot of us sort of take up the fight to help those who find it so hard to find support elsewhere.

I would try to offer some advice on how to get to sleep when feeling so restless but you may as well ask a cat how to do calculus!  If my mind doesn't want to sleep, then sleep isn't happening.  I usually get on my phone and that is supposed to make it worse so it shows how much i know about getting to sleep.  Sometimes just laying in the dark listening to a podcast or audiobook does the trick, but other times it just wakes me up more.

I guess eventually the sleep gets us but some nights it can be a very long wait.  Hopefully it comes before a seizure for you.  I could try to be as boring as humanly possible.  I've been told i'm quite good at that.

[Former-Member]

@MJG017 yes we definitely know how broken the system is and i take every chance i can to try and help someone else who is struggling yet i can't even seem to help myself. 

I go on my phone cos I can't sleep and usually being on my phone actually makes me sleepy but not tonight, after everything that's happened I'm wide awake which really sucks cos I have a big day tomorrow which requires me to actually adult. 

Unfortunately my body hates me and a seizure is inevitable but at least I'm laying in bed so I'm in the best place for it. I think I'll be pulling an all nighter cos I just can't seem to stop this feeling. Honestly not sure how one's body can stay in a state of panic for so long. 

[MJG017]

@Former-Member  Last year when I was still trying to accept my health situation, and especially early this year when it all went slightly more pear shaped, I had so many nights like that.  I rarely got to sleep before 5 or 6am!  I would just lay there and the tiredness never seemed to come.  I guess if there's one positive, with tonight and your day later today, you'll probably sleep well tomorrow night.  Hopefully.

[Former-Member]

@MJG017 not being able to sleep cos you are kept awake worrying is just so frustrating. One would like to hope so. Sleep doesn't come easily for me as it is and I usually average 3-5 hours a night but this is just ridiculous considering I have to be up at 6am. 

[MJG017]

@Former-Member  Over the past 2 years, it's really only the past 3 or 4 months that my average sleep has gone above 4 hours per night.  Everything just becomes harder with so long with such low amounts of sleep.

I know you said it's been helpful for you to chat, but I do hope I'm not helping in keeping you awake in any way.

[Former-Member]

@MJG017 it gets me how we can function on so little sleep when you are supposed to get like 8 hours a night at least. 

Believe me the chatting is helping and no you aren't keeping me awake my body and mind are the things doing that. It's really keeping me distracted and stopping me from doing anything silly, I'm just laying here watching a movie and enjoying the chatting. Thing is my movie is almost finished then comes the hard thing of trying to find something to watch next. 

[MJG017]

@Former-Member  I think I'd have to spend about 12 hours in bed to get 8 hours of sleep.  Actually, it's less 'think' and more personal experience.  I think i've just adapted to 6 hours at most a night.

I remember when I first got that first bad result in December last year I came home and watched this random youtube video.  When it finished I thought well what now?  So I watched the next one.  That was my life for the next week and a half.  I got up, watched these videos starting from the first one and just watched them until i'd had enough and went back to bed.  It was like I had nothing else in life.  I ended up watching about 120 episodes of this guys channel during that week and a bit.  All because it removed that worry of "what next".  I still watch them today as he still releases a video every Sunday.  I think it just became like an "old friend" who kept me company through a very dark time.

[Former-Member]

@MJG017 i lay in bed for hours on end hoping to sleep but reality is i lay awake with a million things racing through my head. I'm so sorry to hear about your bad result but I'm glad you found something that kept your mind occupied, I did the same thing when I went through something really traumatic a few years ago and watched videos of a couple of guys doing random things. I even commented on some of their posts and actually got replies from them to say to stay strong and keep smiling. In those moments when I watched those videos everything else just didn't matter and I found myself actually laughing out loud at silly things. I still watch them to this day. It's funny how sometimes it's the most random things that can actually distract us from the pain and suffering that's going on deep inside and often we stumble across these things by accident. 

[MJG017]

@Former-Member  Totally.  It's so strange the things we latch on to to get us through tough times. Just... whatever works at the time.  And it tends to stay with us.  Maybe on some level we remember that calm and distraction that it brought us.  I don't know what I would have done if this guy had only done a few videos, but the fact he had enough to keep me watching continuously for so long was just what i needed.

Yes, i just can't sleep at all when i have thoughts racing in my head.  It doesn't matter what they are, it just that sometimes my brain decides that nothing else is important but these thoughts and just wont switch them off!