I Can't Sleep...So Tired!

[Anna6642]

Hello Everyone!

This is my first post, I'm 20 years old, been an Emetophone since I was about 13.

My Question is about sleeping, for a while now I've had no sleep whatsoever and now it's worse. My brother had a SV last week and now my Dad has it too. I can't sleep or eat and I'm trying to sort out a project at Uni but it's impossible when I have no energy!

I just lie awake for hours waiting to see if I start to feel ill, and if I'm at my boyfriends house it's even worse. Then if I do fall asleep a few hours later I'm awake again panicking that in those few hours I will have gotten ill. It's been an old issue for me, for some reason I've connected going to sleep with waking up and being ill...therefore I'm terrified to go to sleep.

Does anyone else suffer from the same sort of thing? How do you get passed it? I'm so tired all the time.

Anna.

[x...RaChE...x]

Welcome

yes I used to be like that untill last year when I got sick at about 10pm instead of the middle of the night and I realised that you can get sick at anytime... but sometimes I do still wake up in the night scared to death I will vomit... I usually just watch tv untill I cant keep my eyes open any longer...
Sorry to hear about the stomach virus in your familly... must be like hell to you... best thing to do is keep up good hygiene then you definatly wont get it...
Try listening to music b4 you go to sleep, it might relax you
good luck x

[hope]

Night is the worst for me... I have laid in bed terrified many nights... but what I have to do is just listen to music and try to relax. My best tool is breathing slowly and smoothly. I just try to numb my mind and go into "neutral." I've found that fighting the fear is too hard, especially when you're so tired, so I try my very best to relax and think of nothing if I can (which is really not the easiest thing!). It takes time and practice, but I have found breathing and trying to relax my mind the best way to cope at night. I hope you get some sleep soon!

[Anna6642]

Thanks!

It means alot knowing I'm not the only one that's awake a random times in the night

I've found counting my breaths helps if I wake up in the night. I never usually get to like 50

xxx

[olschesky]

welcome to the forum.........i hope you are asleep by now

[brookeb]

Nights have always been the hardest for me too. I do the same as Rache said, if its a bad night I just watch the TV and it distracts me enough to fall asleep again. These days, though, I do sleep fairly well thankfully. I still worry a bit if I wake up, like i must have woken up because I'm getting sick, but I can usually calm myself down and go back to sleep. I tell myself the likelyhood that I am going to be sick is so small its almost not worth worrying about. And really the you are more likely not to get sick. Us Emets are pretty good at talking ourselves into feeling ill and its usually only anxiety. Hope this helps

[Mrs. Bloom]

I hear ya. Some nights I am too scared to fall asleep because I am afraid I will wake up in the middle of the night and v. I figure if I go to bed when it's light outside, "it would have happened by now," and it's "safe to go to sleep." The thought of v in the middle of the night terrifies me because everyone is asleep and the doctor is closed, i.e. no one there to help me.

[tman563]

I think losing sleep as a result of emet, in this case, is really an indicator of a much deeper issue

In many cases, people with emet also fear losing control. This appears in the form of emet because people fear physically not being in control of their body when they v*.

Your afraid that by sleeping, you lose control of avoiding sickness. To help this, ask yourself, if you laid there awake the entire night, would you have any better or worse of a chance of getting sick? The answer is no, and you need to use that logic to reassure and calm yourself.

It's all a mind game, but that doesn't mean it's easy. You could also look into sleeping medication to make it easier.

[Leigh6870]

I do this too. Because in my head I know if I eat at ___ time, then 4-6 hours later (food poisoning timetable) if I haven't thrown up I'm good. So, I lay awake until the wee hours of the morning worrying about when/if I'll throw up. And my new thing is that for some reason my brain says sleeping on the sofa is "okay" but sleeping in my bed is "not". So now, I sleep on the sofa if I even sleep at all. Ugh.

[Mrs. Bloom]

I do this too. Because in my head I know if I eat at ___ time, then 4-6 hours later (food poisoning timetable) if I haven't thrown up I'm good. So, I lay awake until the wee hours of the morning worrying about when/if I'll throw up. And my new thing is that for some reason my brain says sleeping on the sofa is "okay" but sleeping in my bed is "not". So now, I sleep on the sofa if I even sleep at all. Ugh.

Aww I'm sorry to hear of your struggles. I know EXACTLY what you mean about the couch being safe and the bed is not. If you're on the couch it means you are in a more "public" place and your body can't terrify you if you are there because there are other people near by, it's not your normal spot, and it's "safer." Or something like that. I can't even explain it. It's just so irrational. But it makes perfect sense in my head. The thought of waking up in the middle of the night in my bed to v terrifies me