How to sleep

[Anxietyagain3]

Got hit by anxiety all of a sudden tonight. It took me 1.5 hour to fall asleep then DS woke me up less than an hour later and here I am again, I could cry. My heart is racing. My usual sleep hypnosis track isn't working, I get more and more wound up listening to it wondering with each minute that passes why im not asleep yet.

This is the pits, I hate it.

Anxiety at night is the worst. Can you say more about what's making you anxious? Are you struggling with any issue in particular or do you have GAD?

I'm sorry OP. My anxiety is always worst at night so I do sympathise but I wish I could say something to help.

Instead of sleep hypnosis I use white noise but I have a specific one that only works for me (inside a plane noise, DH hates it but it's the only white noise that really helps me).

Can you put a familiar TV show on that could help maybe? That sometimes helps me too even if the volume is super low. It's just comforting enough to help me.

Quite a few things. I'm anxious about why DS is constantly waking and doesn't seem able to sleep on his own anymore. It triggers my insomnia as i'm worried he'll never sleep properly again and therefore i wont either. I lie here anticipating the next wake up.

I've also just changed jobs and although it's going really well I can't shake the feeling that I've made a terrible mistake for some reason.

I've also developed some form of OCD which involves doing a lot of checking and inspecting and it's recently escalated a bit so I also feel like I need to constantly check my bed which isn't helping.

Urgh I'm crazy aren't i? Incidentally I had my first therapy session today and although I felt better right after it I'm worse than ever now! I slept perfectly last night!

You are not crazy OP, but you do need to get help with your OCD. Your anxious thoughts about your son's sleep pattern are probably as much a part of that OCD type disorder as the checking behaviour. You're repeating ideas and patterns in your mind.
CBT can be very effective for OCD but you do need to practice the exercises every day. Do you have a proper therapist?
Please make sure you get support. You don't need to live like this xxx

DH has just come in from settling DS and had a go at me for not being asleep, saying I should have gone to DS if I'm going to be awake anyway.

I usually deal with 90% of night wakings, I just need to be left alone right now, he doesn't get it at all.

Ps: on the new job front, make a commitment not to assess it (whether or not it was the right move) til you've been in the role six months. Moving jobs is always hard but this helps give you the time to adjust before making any radical pronouncements

Thank you for taking the time to reply @YukoandHiro , it's helping to get my thoughts out there as clearly can't talk to DH about it right now...

I'm only doing typed therapy online so the jury is still out about how useful it will be but that's all I could access right now. I will definitely give it my best go.

I had CBT a couple of years ago and did find it useful at the time for 'normal' anxiety but the OCD thing is new.

I need to just accept I might not sleep well tonight and let it go, its not the end of the world. Rather than catastrophising about being anxious and not sleeping as I do.

Yes that's a good strategy - so you don't sleep tonight, what does it matter? It's amazing how little sleep we can all survive on if we have to, and you're bound to catch up tomorrow night or next week.

I can't sleep either. I slept really well last night and now have complete insomnia 🤷‍♀️ So I'm here if you need to rant

Op I hear you!

I read so much about having adequate amounts of sleep,,and how your body and brain needs it.

I try so hard to live a healthy lifestyle, and fear of dementia of any kind haunts me.

I’ve not slept since 3 am, and i didn’t come to bed particularly early.

I’m retired, so I can do a catch up sleep in the daytime, but then that worries me that it will spoil my next due nights sleep.
You are suffering more than I, as you have a family to take care of too.

No advice for you, but just to say that I get why it upsets you so much.
It must be harder if you live with someone who seems to not (want to?) understand how it is for you.
Do they really think you want to be awake? Grrrr!