Published on 12, July, 2020
Just thought I'd throw this out here.After a night of no sleep (realistically I must have had about; 30 to 40 minutes of sleep); I did some rather quick reading on the subject today, & I'm curious to know if anyone else has any sort of sleeping problems? From what I can tell it seems to be quite common in people with ASD?I've struggled with sleep since childhood. At first I believed it to be due to the abusive/ disruptive surroundings (& I'd listen to music to drown it out & help me sleep. Sometimes I will still do this, but other times even that doesn't really help), but even after I left that predicament & moved into calmer settings, the sleep problems persisted, & have done so even to this day.
I've had everyone; through the years, giving me their 'suggestions' on where they believe I'm going wrong. Even had a few cheeky sods suggest it's because I wasn't active enough during the day, so I wasn't 'tiring myself out' enough. As you can imagine; I managed to prove that theory wrong on numerous occassions haha.A few occassions in the past it has gotten bad enough for me to consider going to the doctor, but he's a bit bloody useless to be honest (& I'm actually on the look out to get myself & my family moved to another GP surgery).
All in all it tends to be manageable, believe it or not.
I think one problem I have is that I will stay in bed, 'trying' to sleep, when I clearly will not drop off no matter what measures I take. Every now & then I can tell when I'm going to have a small bout of insomnia & just wont sleep 'enough', last night was an extreme case as it's been a long time since I was awake all night.I was talking to a friend about this, & even she suggested something I was considering, which is to just get out of bed & do something productive with my time. I'm a freelance artist, so those hours would be great to make up on lost time. I didn't sleep a wink last night, & I don't feel tired at all. I'd planned on maybe having a nap during the day, but I really don't need it.
I think most of the stress stems from me also being a stay at home mum & thinking that me not getting enough sleep will result in me being too tired to contend with my children. I'm tempted to just get out of bed the next few times this happens; do something productive & seeing what the results are.My own little 'experiment' I suppose.
Sometimes it's pretty obvious that I can't sleep due to overthinking/stress, but other times, I'm just not tired at all & there really doesn't seem to be any obvious cause.Does anyone else have anything like this?
Apparently as a baby the slightest movement I would awaken when my mum tried to get me to sleep. I find zopiclone or valerian root helps. I usually have a fan near my bed as I tend to get hot!!!
That's the thing, I have three kids & the idea of taking any sort of supplement to knock me out really unsettles me. To be frank, I know that I will need something really strong in order to get me to sleep, & sleep all the way through, that's why I'm not comfortable with the idea of taking any pills (feeling 'relaxed' or 'sleepy' isn't enough some nights).I have a fan in the room, black out curtains, I've changed my diet, gotten more exercise, gone out of the house more, taken measures to relax before bed, I've done so much for so many years but nothing really seems to work. Some nights I get tired & will go to bed, only to be awake for another hour or two & then wake up repeatedly through the night, other nights I really struggle to sleep at all.It's not so much me looking for a 'solution', because I know the solution is to basically be knocked out every night to get a decent nights sleep, & there's no way I'm doing that. This was more me asking if sleep problems really is a common problem for ASD people or not. I guess it is :)
As I understand it, Melatonin does not work like a "sleeping pill" it helps regulate the night/day behaviour of the body rather than just trying to just knock you out. I would do a bit of research and perhaps talk to GP about it before taking it.