feeling the emotion, but no relief (UNTIL I GOT INTO THE SEWER)

i just got this email from Alan Gordon:

Yea, I don’t agree with him that nothing will work without sleep. That just puts more pressure on it. As you continue to reduce your stress/anxiety throughout the day, it’ll become easier to fall asleep. Just don’t put so much pressure on it.

Best of luck,
Alan


Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone


On Monday, January 6, 2020, 7:06 AM wrote:

Hello Alan,

> I have been having severe problems with sleeping ever since I came off opiods after 2months use after two major bowel surgeries. I came off them in March 2019, and have not had a decent night's sleep since, and for the last month or so, it has got even worse, so that I average about 1 and a half hours a night. I read this yesterday, on Dr David Hanscom's site:

> "If they did not get to sleep, I would aggressively keep switching meds until sleep was attained. Not sleeping was not an option. None of the rest of the DOC program will work without sleep " and have been even more anxious about not sleeping (if that's possible). Medication is not an option for me, so I am hoping that the SEP program and your recovery program will work without much sleep...

Thank you for allowing people to email you...
 
TG957 said:
As long as you recognize your self-pity as something that you don't want to have, it is OK to feel it. But it is much better if you meditate, and when your thoughts of self-pity come along, you continue to acknowledge it and focus on your breath, on the warmth of your body, on your hara (dan tien). Self-pity comes with exhaustion at the time of weakness. It will pass, too. I highly recommend that you re-read chapter 5 of my book, especially sections on meditation, fear and faith. Your brain right now is dominated by fear. It fuels your anxiety, which fuels your insomnia, which fuels your fear. You need to de-sensitize yourself, get out of this positive feedback loop of negativity (no pun intended). Any physical exercise that you can handle right now is good for you. I had a bout of depression last Friday night. I forced myself to go hiking. By mile 7, depression was gone, by mile 13 I was back to my normal self. But getting to the balanced self may take years for you in your state now. Just accept it and move on with patience.

If there is anything I would highly recommend to dwell on - it is any little improvement or achievement you may discover in your condition. Give it a full round of appreciation!
Click to expand...
I haven't got years to get to my balanced self, i am 77... But i will try...
 
I agree with Alan. Five minutes of real natural sleep is better than 8 hours of drug-induced knockout. Even if you get your sleep in short naps, here and there... That you are going regularly to the yoga class at 77 shows your strength and determination. Best of luck to you!
 
TG957 said:
I agree with Alan. Five minutes of real natural sleep is better than 8 hours of drug-induced knockout. Even if you get your sleep in short naps, here and there... That you are going regularly to the yoga class at 77 shows your strength and determination. Best of luck to you!
Click to expand...
thank you! anything positive is good!
 
nowa said:
Yea, I don’t agree with him that nothing will work without sleep. That just puts more pressure on it. As you continue to reduce your stress/anxiety throughout the day, it’ll become easier to fall asleep. Just don’t put so much pressure on it.
Click to expand...

It’s essentially the pressure to sleep that nixes things. In this regard I completely agree with Alan but in David’s defence, as a salvage spinal surgeon, his typical client base were pretty hard core and resistant to the general TMS message. As needs must and all that.

I drove myself mad trying to sleep in my insomniac past. These days I don’t fret about it. Sleep comes. Alan is quite right. Be gentle with yourself sweetheart ❤️
 
plum said:
It’s essentially the pressure to sleep that nixes things. In this regard I completely agree with Alan but in David’s defence, as a salvage spinal surgeon, his typical client base were pretty hard core and resistant to the general TMS message. As needs must and all that.

I drove myself mad trying to sleep in my insomniac past. These days I don’t fret about it. Sleep comes. Alan is quite right. Be gentle with yourself sweetheart ❤️
Click to expand...
but sleep doesn't come to me, i have been awake since 1am, i am so afraid of not sleeping now, and there's nothing I can do about it...
 
May I ask, why do you feel that you must sleep at 1am and not at 1 pm? Why not get up or watch TV? Then you may be more relaxed and start sleeping when it happens?
 
TG957 said:
May I ask, why do you feel that you must sleep at 1am and not at 1 pm? Why not get up or watch TV? Then you may be more relaxed and start sleeping when it happens?
Click to expand...
because i have been up for 4and a half hours and it's now 5.30 and there's no sign of sleep, but i'll try watching tv now , again
 
The point TG957, plum, and Alan are making is that worrying about getting enough sleep is actually not helping you. Your answer seems to be "Of course I have to worry about sleep! I have no choice."

This is a natural tendency we all have to get "amped up" and fearful about what is happening. We feel, I feel completely justified in this kind of thinking in the moment. But this is an example of my unskillful work with the outer and inner conditions arising. This is where following my breath even for a breath or two is helpful.

For most of us, the suffering is concentrated in the worry, pressure and fixing tendencies, not in "sleepiness" (or other symptoms) itself. It is the tight grasping/seizing/self-rejection that cements in our troubles.

When you get tired enough, sleep will come. It may have nothing to do with when and how you're expecting it, or pressuring yourself to have it. This is my experience, at least.
 
thanks Andy, it's the worry, you are right, not the symptoms, but it is so hard not to worry
 
Nowa, I love your honesty and your courage! Coming back to the wiki is such a great step to keep taking! I love the idea of "getting into the sewer" - I have found that the phrases "Fuck That Bull Shit" and "That's Fucking Bull Shit" have been HUGELY helpful to me lately! For me, it is important to focus on the situation or someone's behavior that I'm cussing out, because I believe we are all connected energetically and what I throw at another person, I throw at myself. That's just me, though, I'm not judging anyone. And I usually can't say it out loud in the moment, but I do say it to a trusted friend when I can vent later, and I definitely say it in my head in the moment. It has also helped me realize how culturally unacceptable it is for us, especially women, to vent our anger with profanity! In my conservative banking profession, even more unacceptable... lol... I can't think of any instance except this wiki when it is truly applauded in our culture to show how deep our rage is, except when it is with a trusted friend, and even with my friends I sometimes have to water it down because they don't realize I just want to be acknowledged. Beautiful that we can do it in this forum! Thank you for being part of a circle of other cussers - we hear you and we honor your rage!
 
I have just had a very strange experience, I went to bed and couldn't get to sleep. i had counted down from a hundred 3 times, when i awoke from a brief sleep in which i had a strange dream. (I am writing this at 2;30am).
I have woken up from a short dream that i was living somewhere else and had to go and look for some post to me, there was a table spread with letters, most of them to me, tattered and falling apart, from my bother R, who used to send me letters until i requested the person in charge of the Home where he lives to stop sending me letters, because they were crap and full of phrases like 'I HOPE YOU HAVEN'T BEEN MOLESTED" which had a sexual connotation.

and it reminded me of a dreadful time in my life, when i was 18 or 19, growing up in a house made so tense by his presence that it was a living nightmare, because he had already beaten my mother up so badly that she was gradually becoming paralysed, he was schizophrenic, and very tall and strong, and used to stand in the sitting room, picking his nose, and nobody dared say anything, in case it made him freak out. in the same house that the poor little spaniel existed in pain, and nothing was right or ok. But we all had to pretend that our lives were normal, or we didn't know that they weren't or realise how much we all suffered,

I had to lock my bedroom door at night because he used to burn my clothes and smash up my possessions


I hated him, but have only just realised it because i had already learned to suppress my feelings,



and I still hate him, although I know it was't his fault, and being schizophrenic is no fun, but i NEVER want to see him again, and I know he is living in a home for sheltered vulnerable ppl, i never want to go and see him, and i have not forgiven him, nor his schizophrenic twin, who jumped off a high building 15 years ago and killed himself. IF IT WASN'T FOR THEM I wouldn't have gone to a doctor to get some advice about my mother who was ringing me EVERY day begging me to stop the violence from R and my father by going home and abandoning my escape to LONDON and the course that I was doing at the Central School of ART, and if I hadn't gone to that idiot GP, I wouldn't have been prescribed the benzodiazepines that turned me into a recluse for 30 years and wrecked my life.
And even as i write this, I haven't really felt anything yet.

But I feel that it was a message from my subconscious telling me that I have to deal with this part of my life .
 
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i have only just realised that seeing my mother deteriorate gradually for years until she was confined to a wheelchair because of walking problems might have caused my fear about my own walking problem and their possible outcome.

I WILL never forget coming home from school when I was about 16, to find my mother covered in blood, Roger hiding under the stairs, having beaten her up with the pipe from the vacuum cleaner, and me having to sort it out for my 4 younger siblings. MY mother started to deteriorate some months afterwards, her death certificate said that she had "cerebellar degeneration" but I know it was caused by being beaten over the back of her head and neck.
her problems with walking were not the same as mine, she started to have falls 'Idiopathic ataxia" was diagnosed.
 
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