Bad night

I had my first panic attack since my diagnosis last night.

I kept my wife awake too before a busy work week.

I did too much at the weekend and burned myself out and ended up ruminating all night about anything and everything.

I know others here don't like Christmas, but I love it and it is very important to me and I convinced myself I was going to ruin it.

I'm not looking for anything really, just wanting to offload and explain if I am a bit dis-jointed and random over the next few days. I didn't sleep at all.

Parents
  • I'm really sorry to hear that, SpikeyMark. I'm prone to night time rumination, too, and I hate how it feels to have not had enough sleep.

    I'm conscious that you're not looking for any advice, so please excuse me sharing a tip that I've mentioned here before, just in case it helps (I last used this just last night, when my mind was, once again, revisiting various past issues):

    One thing I've found effective (some of the time) is "cognitive shuffling". This involves distracting and redirecting your mind by scrambling your thoughts, so that they're not following logical sequences - which is what your brain does naturally during the early stages of sleep.

    One way to do this is to think of a word (eg "forest") and then to work through it, letter by letter, coming up with other words that begin with each letter - including creating mental images to go along with each word (or just recalling each word, if you can't visualise things).  

    I learned about it in this book Self Care for Autistic People - 100+ Ways to Recharge, De-Stress and Unmask! 

    If you feel like you'd benefit from having help with the process rather than just doing it all in your head, the author recommends the app mySleepButton (or others like it). 

    I hope you feel better soon x

Reply
  • I'm really sorry to hear that, SpikeyMark. I'm prone to night time rumination, too, and I hate how it feels to have not had enough sleep.

    I'm conscious that you're not looking for any advice, so please excuse me sharing a tip that I've mentioned here before, just in case it helps (I last used this just last night, when my mind was, once again, revisiting various past issues):

    One thing I've found effective (some of the time) is "cognitive shuffling". This involves distracting and redirecting your mind by scrambling your thoughts, so that they're not following logical sequences - which is what your brain does naturally during the early stages of sleep.

    One way to do this is to think of a word (eg "forest") and then to work through it, letter by letter, coming up with other words that begin with each letter - including creating mental images to go along with each word (or just recalling each word, if you can't visualise things).  

    I learned about it in this book Self Care for Autistic People - 100+ Ways to Recharge, De-Stress and Unmask! 

    If you feel like you'd benefit from having help with the process rather than just doing it all in your head, the author recommends the app mySleepButton (or others like it). 

    I hope you feel better soon x

Children
No Data