Haha running on 3 hours 7 minutes of sleep. Running on caffeine and Modafinil. Figured I would get some studying in since I am NOT going back to sleep. Nightmares suck. Like why can’t I just have dreamless sleep??
6 Likes
maybe some breathing exercises can help. Could be that the dreams are triggered by stress, which if you can relax a bit by doing breathing exercises by day and calming yourself emotionally, may reduce the stress in your life and thus stop the dreams.
1 Like
Thanks @POET I will give that a try 
right now it’s PTSD related nightmares because I am doing deep trauma work in therapy twice a week.
1 Like
i see hmm. true, i think as amazing and helpful as therapy is, it does stir up some old stuff. In a good way like you gotta crack a few eggs to make an omlete sort of thing. In order to move past trauma, you have to revisit it right… anyways wishing you healing with that. I know it might sound like a weird question but im curious if you’ve ever let yourself cry about the abuse you’ve experienced. im of the belief that tears are cathartic. I think its the weeping that happens when we revisit old stuff which is what heals us. revisiting it in of itself doesnt really do anything, but when we allow ourself to have that emotional release, thats when the real healing happens. so in a sense, therapy is less about “figuring out” past events or making sense of it per se, and more about releasing the chemical reaction of crying which should have happened at the time of the abuse but perhaps which was repressed because you were told to not cry etc. Tears actually contain neurotransmitters like dopamine etc from the brain. when we weep we are releasing and washing the brain of those neurotransmitters, instead of the brain just looping and looping and looping those same neurotransmitters in a repressed cycle because we haven’t yet open that loop and release them.
1 Like
I only cry very minimally if I am talking directly about the abuse in therapy. But it’s more tears of shame. I haven’t cried over what happened… maybe ever. I’m writing out the story and details of what happened that way I can express it to others but no… I haven’t been able to cry. I think I am too stressed about everything going on to cry.
1 Like
i see hmm, or perhaps you were so conditioned to accept what happened as normal that you have learned to repress them. can happen i think when your abusers indoctrinate you. I hope you know that whatever happened to you wasnt right and that its ok to let your guard down now and experience those emotions in a safe place… sometimes we have to say things outloud to REALLY “go there” if you get what i mean, back to that root moment the trauma happened and really relive it… im sure you might have even blanked some of it out etc. so it can be hard to access… but i pray when and if you do revisit it mentally you allow yourself to let go of anger which is in some ways the opposite of weeping (anger is fight, weeping is submission). At that time anger may have seemed to be the only option especially since your abusers seemed to have been manipulators who would have merely ignored your tears, but now you are an adult and in a safe environment to really weep, release those emotions/neurotransmitters, get them out of your brain and have mental freedom from those experiences. Thats my understanding of it, take it for what it is… anyways wishing you healing with this, you can always PM or tag me if you want to talk about anything. have a good one!
3 Likes
One thing I learned in trauma therapy was how to train yourself to not have the memories that flood you like everything just happened yesterday. That feeling like the memory just happened can evoke very very strong emotions.
Everytime those memories come up, you acknowledge, you remind yourself it’s just a memory and you consciously throw away that memory and replace with a good memory. Overtime you will see yourself mentally throwing away that bad one and replacing it with a good one. This will overall lessen the strong emotions attached to the bad memory.
3 Likes
Thank for the tips @sweetpotatopie i think this is all hard because I suppressed the memories completely for 13 years and they’re only just now getting addressed because of the end of the lawsuit. This lawsuit was going on for the last 6 years and there was a lot I wasn’t ready to deal with. I have a really good therapist thankfully
1 Like
Yes caffein can be some heavy stuff I use it to wake up so I go to the local gas station every day and buy 3 gallon of the well tasting Pepsi Cola and enjoy this every morning until afternoon and when it’s evening I go to the local gas station and by 3 gallon of ice tea and enjoy that in the evening. So I just need caffeine in the morning to get out of bed. But caffein is some heavy speedy stuff.
Yeah, nightmares suck, but from what I understand, nobody has dreamless sleep, you dream every night, some people just don’t remember them.
@Hanna_Foxx, I’m trying to find something for nightmares that could help.
Then I remembered passion flower,but it’s to late to find in pharmacy (10pm here)..
Maybe something like that would help …
1 Like
I’ve had the weirdest dreams on oxycodone. Now that I’m on a diff med it went back to normal.
1 Like
My doctor prescribed Prazosin today
2 Likes
Ah,yes I read …
2 Likes
I totally agree in that.