It has always taken me FOREVER to fall asleep... often an hour or more. I also wake up several times during the night. But I never thought to define it as insomnia. I just thought people who fell asleep as soon as their head hit the pillow (like all the men I've ever spent the night with) were weird!
Usually I have things that I'm thinking about and working through, and that is my special private time. Or if I do want to try to get to sleep, I recite things over and over again to myself like "no words no words" or just count to eight and back over and over.
I like lying in bed whether I'm asleep or awake... that's the slacker in me. Especially in my new sheets.
Corri, how about fixing up your bed with new sheets, some sweet-scented flowers, as CE said classical music like Bach or Debussy (fewer emotional associations). Take a long warm bath before bed. Drink some chamomile tea. Make this a ritual of putting Little and Big Corri to bed at night with comforting surroundings. You might get a fabulous book called "Poem Crazy" and sit in bed at night and write poetry.
I think of my bed as my private island, my spaceship, my safe haven... especially now that I don't share it with anyone except dogs.
I have awakened in the middle of the night with panic attacks. When that happens, I take a xanax. I don't fight it or try to talk myself out of it. A panic attack is a physiological phenomenon that happens when an anxious though produces an adrenaline flow that then spirals out of control. Once that spiral starts, the thoughts are out of control, too. The middle of the night is prime time for this sort of thing.
I have a girlfriend who lost her husband a few years ago under very shocking circumstances. She was in bed and he was downstairs watching TV. He came up to bed, said he wasn't feeling well, and literally fell down. Needless to say, she's had trouble sleeping ever since. She loves to read and keeps a big fat novel next to the bed and when she wakes, she reads until she's sleepy, then the sleeps until she wakes, and reads some more, etc. She spends most nights that way and considers it a very kind and nurturing way to treat herself. She reads stuff like Trollope and Jane Austen. Whatever floats your boat, kwim.
You don't have to be at the mercy of this... create some safe, nurturing, caring strategies for yourself. You know, one of the blessings of this ankle thing has been that it has forced me to focus on myself and taking care of myself. I literally have to think about every time I stand up, every step I take, every thing that's on the floor, every curb.
Please stop cursing this condition and cursing yourself. Start nurturing, treating yourself with EXTREME sweetness, kindness, and understanding.
