Sleep Issues Again, along with some disturbing thoughts. 2AM major rant!

[jayone]

It's Monday, 2am. I can't sleep. I've spent the weekend at a wedding. Needless to say I had a bit to drink on the Friday night and Saturday night, but whilst staying at the hotel for those nights I've been semi ok.

I'm at home right now.

I think my sleep issues are alcohol related, but I can't be sure. Friday night I didn't recall any sleep issues. Saturday night I remember waking up a few times in the middle of the night feeling as if I can't breath, or move. Lasted a few seconds each time.

Tonight is horrible. 4 times I've dropped of to sleep and within a couple of minutes I'm awake, with a choking sort of feeling, and I can only partially move. It's as if I'm still sort of sleep. Each time it happens I have some crazy thoughts.

In this dreamy wake/sleep state my girlfriends dad is telling me how to make music. Remember this is a dream lol. I'm a music producer, he has no idea about music. It's crazy that I'm dreaming like this because it's so .... strange?! Argh I can't explain it.

Another one that happened just was I woke up in this state and my girlfriend was breathing heavily in my sleep. Horrible, nasty, thoughts went through my head. Like I wanted to kick her of the bed, or punch her, or scream at her to shut the **** up. WTF?!?!

Why the hell am I thinking like that is beyond me. I'm not like that. Its whilst I am in that wake/sleep dreamy state because once I'm fully awake I don't think like that.

It's every time I nod off to sleep to. It's only started happening since I've been away this weekend. I have had it in the past but it went away. Maybe it's because it's my first day back at home. It's been 24 hours since I drank alcohol so it cant be that.

I had an anxiety attack during the 3 hour journey home today in the car.

Why do I have to be the idiot that suffers with anxiety and has all these stupid problems. It's hard enough having anxiety at 27, but then having to go about life pretending you don't have it and hiding it to act normal is even harder. I don't even go to the doctors no more because I just feel like they don't take me seriously, or I'm a burden on them with a stupid mental illness.

I clearly don't have a heart problem. Or a lung problem. Or any other problem. So why all these symptoms? Why all these problems? Normal people don't have any of this.

It's nearly 10 years with anxiety now.

[jessed03]

OMG, some of the strange dream thoughts I had lol... I remember one where I was teaching Kobe Bryant how to knit lol. I also had the thoughts of telling people really untrue, embarassing things, telling people I don't love them, that I commited crimes that I didn't... I used to worry over them, but actually, I never did any, nor do other people, so they're of no use whatsoever. Just pretty weird going through them at the time, that's all. I found one thing that helped for me was just lying back for 20 minutes in silence, closing my eyes and letting it all pour, no words or judgement, ... and just watching it. It was the most entertaining thing I'd ever seen. How the mind can dream things up is incredible. Once I'd done that, I sort of could just see all those thoughts there, and knew I could dive into them, and get lost, or I could literally let them go... like a bunch of balloons. Just let them float somewhere.

It didn't cure anything, but once I'd done that a few times, these thoughts started to bore me. I'd seen them, watched them, carried them out in my imagination to the most vast, even perverted conclusions. I would watch as my mind tried to dream up more things, but nothing suprised me anymore, and on the off chance it came up with something amazingly creative, I had a small chuckle. I felt no need to hold on to them anymore. They were like a movie I'd seen a dozen times.

They just happen when the mind is tired, stressed and over worked. They literally mean nothing. Nothing whatsoever. The more I let them come, the more my brain learnt to let them go, I'd wake up in the night and have the strange thoughts, and within a second my brain would be able to just say "ah this again, I'm actually gonna sleep, because I've seen all this before"... and over the course of about 6 months, these cripplingly embarassing thoughts became a small source of amusement, until they vanished altogether. Occassionally now I still have the thought to tell my sister her baby is ugly, or in the night I have these thought dreams of shouting at someone,but they last about a milisecond and they go, I never really remember what occured.

It's hard going through life with anxiety though. Really hard. Have you made any breakthroughs in 10 years? I've had a few epiphany moments over the course of my anxiety, when in therapy, or reading a book, or meditating. It feels like when I have them I know what to work on, and over time the structure becomes weaker. Over 10 years you must have had some right?

So how has your anxiety changed in 10 years?