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Bad Night, Can't Sleep


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Hey everyone!

It's currently 6am and I haven't slept in almost 24 hrs and I'm struggling hard with intrusive thoughts at the moment. The last two weeks haven't been easy for me, whilst I usually find going to sleep at night my calmest time I had trouble staying asleep and would wake up after 4-5 hours to (TMI warning) upset stomach and/or vomiting everyday. Knowing this happens every morning has only made my anxiety worsen and now my "calm time" before going to bed is gone and I've been having panic attacks since I've just about given up hope I'm going to wake up and feel some relief ?

I was working on self-treating my OCD but have now reached out for professional help, but I have to wait 1-2 weeks before I can finally start my therapy, I don't know what I'm going to do in the meantime because it feels like I'm getting worse everyday. I worry about how bad my intrusive thoughts are going to be since I haven't slept and feel constantly nauseous preventing myself from doing compulsions. I know it's a cycle and I'm not helping myself, but whilst I can deal with resisting the compulsions, the physical symptoms are making my life unbearable.

Does anyone have any advice on how to sleep since my usual distractions make me feel nauseous? Or does anyone know how to calm a panic attack so I won't end up vomiting in the morning :( Any advice would be appreciated.

-Alyssa :))

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Oh Alyssa I'm so sorry you're going through such a rough time! <hug hug> That sounds absolutely awful! First off, I want to just commend you for resisting the urge to perform compulsions (I'm guessing specifically Googling images?): you're really showing yourself how strong-willed and committed to getting better you are. But right now, if refraining from that specific compulsion is making you physically ill and making you unable to sleep, it might be worth temporarily engaging in the compulsion for your health. I say this in particular because you'll be seeing a therapist very soon, and so you'll be able to be under guided help (yay!!). 

Also, this is difficult to say because you should be so proud of the compulsion-resisting you're already doing, but I feel the need to let you know that your anxiety is so intolerable because you're actually still engaging in compulsions--in this case, rumination. Rumination is thinking in circles endlessly, turning over something in your head, much like you're doing when you're worrying about getting sick, how bad the anxiety will be in the morning, etc. I tell you this because I don't want you to think that this is what's going to happen when you stop refraining from compulsions! Right now you don't have the benefit of guidance from a medical practitioner, but you will soon.

In the meantime, you can still definitely help yourself and your body to calm down by engaging in mindfulness, deep breathing, and so on. Right now, your body is reacting as if it is under attack all the time, and your nervous system needs help to calm down and help you feel better. Here's a really good article on mindfulness to help control and avoid panic attacks: 

https://www.mindful.org/4-ways-curb-panic-attack/

Good luck, you're brave and awesome and you can do this!

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@Saffron37I cannot express how grateful I am for the help you have given me these past few weeks. :) I haven't opened up to anyone about this stuff in my life so this forum is really a safe place for me to ask all these questions.

In regards to temporarily giving into the googling compulsions I must admit I am (just a bit!) stubborn and will not give OCD an inch to pull at me with so long as I am able to hold out against it(okay maybe I am very stubborn!). And I would take your suggestion and indulge but the googling images compulsion has evolved into something slightly different this time and I'm at a loss.

(vent paragraph ahead sorry!)

Long story short I was helping my roommate with his uni coursework and he told me to look up the spark notes summary for his course novel. Knowing my luck it turns out the book is basically 100% murder gore and my intrusive thoughts had an absolute field day! Additionally, he very kindly pointed out there was a sequel that is apparently 10x worse...which you know my OCD...really appreciated.(?)So now I am not only being sieged by the horrible stuff of the first book, but my OCD is trying to get me to look up the summary of the second for whatever irrational reason so I can "face my fears"! But I am very aware of what I'm like and giving into the compulsion of going reading the books summaries is only going to cause me to ruminate and obsess over the violent stuff making me more nauseous, especially since my brain is coming up with all these lovely predictions of what horrible stuff could be in the second book. What also doesn't help is my OCD is also convinced that ultimately my therapist is going to get me to look up the summaries anyway so I might as well indulge now ...but it's a compulsion?? So I shouldn't do that?? But maybe they'll tell me to?? I don't even know anymore. It's causing me more anxiety to think I could be resisting all for nothing, but I'm too stubborn to give in and don't think it would help in the long run! 

(but like you said by having and engaging in these thoughts I'm engaging in a ruminating compulsion anyways!)

Sorry this turned into a vent it's just so much harder to stop ruminating than googling images or checking etc... Thank you for your kind words as well as the link the deep breathing did keep the sickness at bay whilst I was typing this so that gives me a little bit of confidence:)  

-Alyssa :))

 

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Hi Alyssa! Oh my friend, it is so my pleasure to help--thanks for allowing me to! This is not easy stuff, and you're clearly ready to conquer it. :) 

Your stubbornness? If that works for you, you go, girl. As long as you're not in any physical danger (are you keeping hydrated? are you eating?), if you're okay dealing with the discomfort then keep refraining from the compulsion. Just please make sure to nourish yourself and be super kind and patient with yourself right now.

As for the new version of your compulsion re: googling the plot summary, you're totally right that it's just googling images in a slightly different package. And any knowledgeable therapist will not make you look at those images for exposure, unless they themselves are confused about the actual source of your anxiety. I understand the confusion: when someone is phobic about gore, violence, etc, a therapist might ask them to expose themselves to those things as part of desensitization therapy. In your case, however, that's not what's actually going on (OCD Is so sneaky). People with a gore/violence phobia will try at all costs to avoid those things, like not wanting to leave the house on Halloween in case they see fake blood on someone's shirt; you, on the other hand, are faced with intense compulsions to seek those things out in order to relieve the anxiety of your OCD. You hate and loathe them, but people with OCD always hate their compulsions. The actual anxiety-provoking exposure is actually resisting those things, especially when the compulsion is triggered (like seeing the spark notes). So right now, by avoiding looking up the sequel's plot summary, you're actually engaging in exposure therapy with yourself. Pretty amazing!

And yeah, rumination is so tough. I think it's the hardest compulsion to stop for sure. But as you resist the other compulsions and learn more about OCD, you'll get stronger and stronger until you're able to beat rumination too. I'm sending you the biggest hug from across the pond! You got this!!

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@Saffron37You really are too kind !!!! ?I'm sending the best British virtual hug back to you as well :))

I'm keeping a checklist to make sure I'm eating 3 meals a day (albeit not much at the moment but I did spend a relatively stress-free eating week at my grandmother's so there's lots of takeaways food in my stores!?) and I don't have a problem with drinking so I'm staying well hydrated. Living with the constant anxiety at the moment is the hardest, but I'm convinced once I hit 8 hours sleep I'll start to manage it better!! 

As for the confusion well...I think it's going to be awhile before I fully start to believe I am doing the right kind of exposure therapy ?, after all I do tend to avoid gore and horror etc but I fear not so much the images, rather the ruminations I'll have because of those images which is what I need to remember as you said. After all if avoiding googling the images/plot summaries was a compulsion I wouldn't exactly be regurgitating my breakfast into the toilet every morning! Compulsions bring relief and I am most certainly not feeling relief...

I agree rumination is so hard to stop! Especially as I constantly have a 24/7 monologue going on in my head at all times it's hard not to engage with those thoughts because well...as mad as it sounds I talk to myself all the time?. The hardest is just before I go to sleep now I don't feel calm and in control like I used to, I know the thoughts are going to pop into my head and it's so difficult to ignore them. I think I saw some posts on the forum about good ways to stop ruminating though so I'll have a look at the them in a bit.

Thank you for listening to all my rambles today! ?

-Alyssa :))

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Yay for three meals a day! Takeaway, whatever, who cares, as long as it has nutrients/calories and you're eating it that's what counts, right? ? And yeah, I totally hear you on it taking a while to really believe that you're doing the right thing. One of the weirdest things about OCD for me is how what I know and what I feel can be so radically different. It takes time to see past emotion, especially when they're as strong as they are in OCD.

Let me know how things go. Try some deep breathing and mindfulness (I find that tuning in to my senses one by one works for me, tends to be grounding) before bed as you go to sleep. I also find that focusing on things I feel grateful for helps me to shift my emotional state to less anxious. 

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5 minutes ago, Saffron37 said:

One of the weirdest things about OCD for me is how what I know and what I feel can be so radically different

Nothing is ever going to more accurately describe my relationship with OCD than this sentence?Nail on the head. 

And as for letting you know I will do! I'm downloading the headspace app as we type :)

I hope you have a good rest of your day !

-Alyssa :))

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  • 3 months later...

Hi I am not able sleep tonight I’m really feeling nauseous and I got my first COVID shot 5 weeks ago. But I been kinda talking and obsessing on it and I think I’m having some panic attack or something my body tonight won’t let me sleep and I feel like I’m sick or something  . I kinda been having dizzy spells the last week and kinda also strange thoughts. I’m a mom and don’t know what’s my problem ?

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