It's 6am and I am wide awake. Am I exhausted? Absolutely. Have I tried to sleep? Yep. I've tried ASMR videos, relaxing music, guided meditation. Nothing works. People will so often say you must be doing something to stop you from sleeping, they'll tell you better ways to help you sleep. That's all well and good, except that, it doesn't work. Not for me. No matter how tired I am, how much I want to sleep, I can guarantee that the minute I think i'm ready to do just that and close my eyes, my brain wakes up again. It might seem for a few minutes that it's finally letting me rest, but it isn't. Half the time, people don't believe it. That's where the assumption comes from that you're just doing something to keep yourself awake. It's a nightmare really because suffering from depression, I feel exhausted a lot, but the anxiety that goes with it, keeps me awake a lot too. And of course, the people who think they have the solutions are the people who have never suffered with it.
Here's the fact of it, I can do everything possible to distract my mind from the anxiety so that I can unwind and feel ready to sleep, but the minute I actively try to sleep, it's a no go. Every subconscious thing I've been trying to keep at bay for ages, literally hours sometimes, comes rushing right back to the front of my mind. Many times i've been watching tv at 10pm and felt like I was about to conk out, so I turn off the telly, get comfy and have an 'early night'. I will still be awake 6 hours later. I've tried sleeping with the tv on, it has worked in the past, sometimes the noise in the background is an annoyance that stops me from sleeping, even if it is distracting my mind, so I turn it off and then, yep, mind is no longer distrcted. So that keeps me awake for the next few hours.
It's a fact that mental health affects sleep, and vice versa. And no matter how much you explain that, some people still just won't get it. I am going through an especially rough time right now with my mental health and my physical health on top of that. So I am finding it very hard to cope with life in general and I'm worrying about various things pretty much 24 hours a day. I feel drained, exhausted, like all I want to do is sleep and yet it's the thing I'm finding hardest. For years, I've tried to explain to people why this is. Why I might be able to nap during the day but no matter how tired I am at night, I can't sleep.
What it comes down to is that during the day, there are more distractions. Most people are awake, so I can go and talk to them, do something to keep busy. If I nap, I know that if I wake up from bad dreams because of my constant anxiety and worries, there'll be somebody I can message, or go and talk to that can pull me back from it a bit. At night, you don't have that because most people are sleeping. So, when that anxiety hits the peak, a panic attack hits, all the things that worry you through the day become utter terror at night and there's nobody to talk to about it. Less way to distract from it, not really anyone you can go to with it. Even if it's not even talking about what's causing it, sometimes just being able to say to someone 'I'm feeling really anxious' can help and at 4 in the morning, you can't exactly do that. People might say wake them at any time of night if you feel like that, but for me personally, I'm not someone that could do that. I don't want to put my issues onto other people. I don't want to keep them up because I can't sleep.
I suppose that's why anxiety affects sleep so much. At least, in my case. It's not something I can deal with on my own, but during the night there isn't anyone who can helpe me to deal with it, so it becomes a vicious cycle of not sleeping until you literally pass out from sheer exhaustion. Which then leads to people who complain about you sleeping late because you didn't fall asleep until the early hours, or when everyone else is waking up. Trust me, pal, this is not how I want it to be. I'd love too be in bed and asleep by midnight like everyone else I know. That would be great. So if you could just find the cure to this whole 'extreme anxiety keeping me awake' issue, i'd appreciate it.
There's so much more that can be said about this topic. Research to be looked at, statistics etc. Maybe at some point i'll do an in depth post on that. This morning is just about me getting it out there. This is how MY anxiety affects MY sleep. Everyone is different. It's also why i've called this blog 'We Need To Talk', because that's exactly what it's going to be. A place where I can talk, put my thoughts out there on how my anxiety and depression are affecting me at any given time. Different issues surrounding mental health and honestly, just whatever else I feel the need to talk about on a specific day. This was today's.
Now it's almost 6.30am. Time to try to sleep again.
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