rembrin' journal

[Remberin]

Well, here I go. I've journaled before, but not in a long, long time. I got really tied up in my head around the feelings that come up with journaling, I guess. I think it may have been since my 2nd health crisis started.

.. So many thoughts swirling. I wasn't very comfortable with that feeling, I Rember.

It's weird how you have to deal with the present in order to deal with the past. I haven't been in the habit of feeling safe for a very, very, very long time. When you have OCD, you know you can't run from the bad feelings. So I learned to repeat them to myself, so I could figure out solutions. But when you're absolutely sure your problems have no solutions anymore, because everything you try blows up in your face, you just end up drowning yourself in regret, shame, and guilt.

I think about those feelings a lot.

I've shared in group settings before. Al-Anon, ACOA, stuff like that. It feels so good to share but sometimes it can be so hard to listen. Especially when my mind was so predisposed to make judgments. Also to make decisions to try to get myself closer to the internal safety and peace that I so desperately craved.

So yeah, I think it will be good to come here and write for myself, and take in everything else at a slower pace than I used to.

I hope my life situation will be stable after everything changes. Because I really want to keep working on myself like this. There's nothing I want more

[storyworld]

Thank you for sharing your journal with us! Your statement regarding journaling bringing up a lot of emotions resonates with me. For a long time, I wasn't able to journal about my past at all without getting highly activated. Your statement about not feeling safe, due to OCD, resonates with me as well. I admire your desire to work on yourself.

[woodsgnome]

Hi, Remberin. 

I latched onto your comment about feeling safe, especially given the sharing part of a journal being shared with fellow travelers.

I sensed your need for peace. Maybe you can put some visualization into how you approach your wriings here. Maybe make this kind of a Salf-Haven resort, even. And while at Self-Haven, you have access to your own writing shack, where you can both receive thoughts (I picture thoughts as a waterfall), ponder them, and comfortably write what comes for you, with no fear of harsh literary critiques, but just you, in your world, with your past over there, but also the present-future, represented by the peaceful ambience you've created for your own nook here at Self Haven.

As it's safe, it's also open to surprise(s), which you can share via the journal. And remember, you're not writing to entertain so much as share and commiserate with those who know the pain and angst you've probably had, like those of us reading along, ready to learn along with you, share compassion, and acquaint ourselves with your inner strength and fortitude.

For my part, I always feel a tad weird bopping into another's journal like this, so take it or leave it. As I mentioned, I just felt drawn to your heartfelt pondering as you start your journal. May you find some of the peace you yearn for.   

[Remberin]

Well, it happened again. I woke up after maybe 4.5 hrs of sleep. Yeaeaghhh...

It's not hitting me hard like it was just a week ago. I've been training myself to accept the present, accept all the uncomfortable stimuli. It has helped me stay out of the future anxiety to a degree. "Living in the moment" is so tricky, when you've been trained your whole life that the moment can be filled with danger. Trained to look out for that danger or suffer the consequences. But I do think I'm making good progress with that pursuit.

Thought about posting here first, but I decided to try an herbal pill (alleged painkiller) that I hadn't tried yet and call up a crisis hotline. It has been a while since I decided to call one, as it usually isn't helpful in the ways I'd like.

I had an idea to preface the conversation with my ground rules - no suggestions, tips, advice, none of that stuff from the script to make me come up with solutions like "what do you normally do to help yourself feel better." I'm sure a lot of you can relate to the issue being nothing reliably helps and I feel this way so often. I just think everything in society, including therapists, psychiatrists, doctors, and hotlines, are infected to some degree with the biases and unhealthy beliefs that uphold abuse. And My God It Sucks.

But yeah, it was a good convo, even if I didn't fall asleep during or after. I decided to get some breakfast, which usually helps me get back to sleep. But I honestly am not feeling super tired, which is weird. I think my nervous system upregulates and downregulates the stress response and such while I'm processing different things relating to my traumas.

Could also be the pill I took. But I felt different than I usually do when I woke up, and a lot of herbal pills don't do much of anything, so who knows for now. I think more answers will come in time.


Been thinking about my mother (who neglected/abused me) and how she's stuck in her early childhood identity. I'd like to find a way to coexist since my other family lives with her. She tries to be a good person but she's so goddamn bad at it, and she won't listen when you tell her she's hurting you. Obviously that's caused me a lot of pain. She must have been through some rough * when she was super young or she wouldn't be the way she is. I hope all the members of my family can learn to heal from these awful patterns.

Edit: thanks for the support, storyworld and woodsgnome. It's nice to hear <3

[NarcKiddo]

I hope you find it helpful to be able to journal here. I'm glad to read that the herbal pill might be helpful (at least that is what I take from your report) and that the crisis line conversation was good.

Your ground rules for the crisis line conversation - no suggestions, tips, advice - would you like that to apply to your journal, too? I ask because I am an inveterate giver of suggestions. I try to control myself, especially in the journal section where such behaviour is generally discouraged, unless I know the poster is OK with it. And if I know they aren't OK with it then I will do my utmost not to make a nuisance of myself.

[Remberin]

[post]

Seems like the pill has long lasting strange effects. I don't think I'll take it again TBH. At any rate, thanks for asking about suggestions. I really would prefer you didn't give any at this time because it's a trigger for me. Thanks for posting 🙂

[Remberin]

Before I start, I've written a disclaimer at the end about what kind of responses are triggering to me. Please read it if you decide to respond. OK thanks, the post follows:

I've been having such a horrible time with sleep. Chronic sleep problems are a part of my 2nd illness trauma and I've been struggling with that for 9-10 years. I've been unable to hold down jobs because of the energy and panic issues I have, so I'm now on disability and I spend many days almost completely unable to physically engage with the world. It's a completely different life than many of can imagine.

Some background before I get into the recent developments: My subconscious is extremely sensitive to stimuli while I'm asleep and I've had to use earplugs and blackout curtains since this started. Also, if the temperature changes noticeably while I'm asleep, I'll wake up.

Usually when I wake up, my heart is pounding and sometimes I'm breathing heavily. It's incredibly difficult to get back to sleep most of the time. In the beginning, this would happen kind of randomly but I'd be severely freaked out about it. It was due to drinking 2-4 cups of tea or coffee a day, but even after I realized it and stopped, the problem didn't go away. I was doomed to suffer the consequences even though I was desperately trying to figure it out. If I'd known more about my OCD and CPTSD back then, maybe I wouldn't be in this kind of position today. I'm absolutely positive it's got to do with trauma response and my autonomic nervous system.

I've tried going to sleep doctors and tried a number of things including CPAP and dental devices. Nothing helped. I won't get into the details just now because this post is already huge.



Back to my experience with sleep. Usually I go to bed around 11-12. When my sleep is bad, I'll wake up in the 4-6a range, then try to go back to sleep. Most of the time I can't do it unless I'm severely sleep-deprived (for me, this is a level that most people can't imagine, because I'm always significantly deprived) or using some kind of sleep aid like melatonin.

I mentioned I'm very sensitive to temperature changes. So every fall and winter, the temp of the house becomes less stable and my sleep gets much worse. Also, the humidity gets worse which also makes me cough sometimes, though I have humidifiers and whatnot. I've been living in a new place this year and have been really struggling to get my sleep consistent.

Recently I went through a period where I was sleeping through the night sometimes but just feeling absolutely drained throughout the day regardless. I was unable to do a lot of the things I had planned on doing like giving my grandmom her Xmas present (although that was also due to her rescheduling) and getting my oil changed. Then, I stopped sleeping through the night, instead waking up after 4-5h of sleep every night.

The way I've been feeling when I wake up is so painful. When I wake up and my brain feels like it's not functioning, and my nervous system is in a state of panic, I sometimes feel like I'm doomed. I've been thinking about death so often (doesn't help that my partner's kid has leukemia). It's not suicidal but it's very bleak. I've felt so bad that I decided to start taking some Lexapro again, even though it always makes me extremely sleepy during the day.

After talking with my partner, we're thinking my dental health may be contributing to my sleep issues. My wisdom teeth came in partially and really jumbled up all my other teeth. I'm thinking of getting them removed and seeing if I need to realign my teeth with something like Invisalign. I've got pain near my wisdom teeth and in my jaw so maybe this was a huge part of the problem the whole time.

Anyway, this is the end of the post because writing this took a lot out of me. I feel like I probably didn't need to go into as much detail, but I wanted to protect myself from getting in the same patterns where people think they know what I'm going through but they don't realize just how much I've been through. IDK, I'm tired and not making sense. I hope I can get a little relief soon.



PLEASE: if you decide that you want to give suggestions, advice, or anything like that, keep in mind I've tried so many different ways to address these problems. Please keep in mind that I probably have tried many of the things that people will think of. I have so many interconnecting health issues that they get in the way of being able to do a lot of the interventions that doctors try

So feel free to ask if I've tried things, but write in a curious way rather than believing you know what will fix me. Because so many people have told me to do things that were supposed to help and were just not helpful that I have a danger response for people telling me what to do or giving advice.

[NarcKiddo]

I am sorry you are struggling with this. Sleep is so important and it is particularly frustrating to wake up from what should be a decent amount of sleep and feel exhausted anyway. Very demoralising. I'm struggling a bit with that at the moment due to some medical issues currently being investigated, so that aspect particularly resonates. I have also had my fair share of waking in the wee, small hours feeling totally stressed/in a panic/sad etc etc.

I've read your disclaimer and I am not going to make any suggestions. I will tell you some things that have helped me but feel free to ignore the following paragraph if you would rather not read about that.

A white noise machine has helped me go to sleep more easily. I have discovered that I have an abnormally high heart rate when I sleep - higher than my resting daytime heart rate. This goes with stress and probably explains some of why I can sleep apparently soundly but still feel tired. I monitor this regularly now - I don't like wearables at night but I found a mat that goes under the mattress which monitors heart rate, snoring and sleep apnea episodes. The mat has shown that alcohol makes my night time heart rate go way high. So although alcohol seemed to help me go to sleep more easily it did not really help me at all and I have cut back to virtually nil. My wisdom teeth pushed my others out of alignment. There was no pain but it was annoying so I had them straightened a few years ago. I did not need any teeth out but had the edges of some teeth filed down to make enough room. The actual straightening procedure is uncomfortable at times. After straightening I was advised to wear clear retainers at night (like Invisalign trays). I was told to wear them every night for a year and then I could cut down. But I have found the retainers improve my sleep and I wear them every night. I carry a lot of stress in my jaw and I grind my teeth at night. The tray-type retainers seem to make that more comfortable, plus I now don't have to worry about wearing down my teeth with all the grinding I do. If you want me to elaborate on any of this, let me know.

[Armee]

Hi and welcome to the journals! I didn't find your post too long or detailed and it's your journal for you, so write what you wish. We all have different bandwidths at different times and may or may not be able to read long posts but that's OK because your journal is for you.

Totally understand your disclaimer. It was so grating when my cbt/dbt therapist would talk about "sleep hygiene" like the problem was that simple.

Lack of sleep sucks. Many of us have dealt with prolonged insomnia as a symptom of cptsd. This is the first year in several years that I have been able to sleep normally (not as good as my husband but through the night most nights). It's a freaking blessing to be able to sleep after half a decade or more of sleeping 3-5 hrs a night. And you are right...none of the easy suggestions help.

This isn't advice, just hopefully a little slice of hope that one day you'll sleep well enough. For me, it required the long haul work of healing trauma and definitely that process made the sleep even worse at points and it is not a fast fix and there's no clear linear way to get there.

I'm sorry your partner's kid has leukemia. That must be tough to go through and tough to watch a kid go through that and is quite sad. Sending support to you all for that, too. 

[Remberin]

Thanks for the replies yall. I wanted to respond more detailed-ly but I didn't get around to it. I'm just going to write a small update to help myself get used to this.

I've had a few big fights with my partner. It's realized me that I still have some serious dread and triggers attached to our relationship. It's complicated because I was forced into this living situation due to my circumstances. I knew it was a risk, and it was very, very stressful at the beginning. I often felt I wasn't being heard. And we have an issue where I feel no matter what I say, it's not heard because they get defensive, which makes me very angry, and if I let that anger out at all obviously that only reinforces that. So we've had a vicious cycle.

I talked to an online friend for severable hours last night. It was so validating that I ended up staying up all night and probably fell asleep around 3:40a. I was concerned because people really don't want to engage socially anymore since the pandemic. It's so hard to try to talk to new people when you know most people aren't into intentional engagement with the issues in their lives (like loneliness)

In short, asdfahsdkghaksjfhaksdhfjalsdkflhajskvjarlgjalekrgjalkjdglk

[Remberin]

I never wanted to be here. I was forced into this situation because I was forced out of the other situation. I was forced to deal with personablies outside of my control and frankly out of control in general. The reason I became so insistent on expressing myself was because you didn't let me decide not to say things. You wouldn't accept it if I changed my mind about expressing something. So that built me an anxiety and how was I supposed to deal with that.

[Hope67]

Hi Remberin,
I have read your posts here in your journal, and I'm glad you're journaling here. 
Hope