Is anyone else afraid of the night?

[courtneykay]

I have found that as an emet, I feel generally more calm during the day, because I feel like I am less likely to get s*. But when it gets dark and night time comes around, at least in the winter, I start getting really anxious. I am afraid to sleep because I worry that I will wake in the middle of the night and V*. Then I start thinking if I don't get enough sleep, my health will decline, and I will be more prone to catching the SV.

Are you afraid of the night or sleeping? If yes, what do you do to cope?

[kaiilyn_23]

My anxiety and overall mood is always worse at night. I feel uneasy and my stomach is never at ease. I always distract myself at night with my computer or music, but it's a vicious circle because my sleep-health declines... it's been particularly bad this year... I don't remember the last time I went to bed before 12:30 AM!

[marzipan]

Completely agree with both of you.
I've always been an awful sleeper and often in the past it's been very rare for me to sleep before 4/5am (sometimes later)!
However lately I've luckily gotten into a better sleeping pattern where I am usually asleep by 1am and then can wake up at about 9:30am.

As both of you said though - the nights are definitely worse for me, that's why I find the winter months so awful because it starts getting dark here in England at about 4-5pm! I have an irrational fear that I'll be ill in the evening or as you said - I'll wake up v* in the night. I think it's because as a child almost every time i v* it was in the middle of the night so I have a weird association with it.

Plus I've always seemed to tell myself if I were to v* I'd much rather it be during the day as the whole thing would seem less scary. I don't know why but the idea of v* when it's nighttime and the rest of the world is asleep seems awfully scary and depressing. Where at least in the daytime you could switch the tv on and you know everyone is off about getting on with their day fine.

It is a vicious circle though, because there is a massive temptation to try and stay awake until the early hours of the morning (It's common for emets to stay up till about 5am when it starts getting light out) to then have a nice anxiety free sleep, but then that means you'll be waking up much later in the day as a result of you going to bed late - which then means the night will only roll around quicker.

So yeah my advice would be to try and get to sleep as early as you can as then you can wake up earlier and the night will be very far off!