Middle of the night catastrophising - anyone else?

[Woofwoofwoofgoesthewolfhound]

I'm really struggling with this right now and I feel like I am going mad some nights.

Background - life is tricky right now, and likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future. DC are teens and everything is much more complicated and worrying than it was when they were young. One of the DC has significant MH issues and family life right now is different to what I'd imagined it would be at this point in our lives.

But - it isn't all bad! Day to day we are doing OK and we all still have things to enjoy (even the DC that is unwell). Of course I am worried about their future, but where there's life there's hope, as they say, and things could certainly be worse. So I'm generally pretty positive and just take one day at a time, balancing hope for the future against acceptance of where we are now.

But for some time now I have been waking in the middle of the night with feelings of absolute despair at the situation we are in and disbelief and horror that this is our life now. The feelings are so, so real - during the night, I feel like daytime me is in complete denial about how grim our reality is.

Come the morning, those awful feelings lift and I feel generally positive and cheerful again, but it leaves me with a lingering, nagging sense that I am kidding myself and that life has indeed gone irreparably wrong for my DC and hence for me.

Does anyone else experience this? And more importantly, has anyone successfully overcome it? I'm actually dreading going to sleep at night because I know I only have to stir slightly before bam, a catastrophic thought crosses my mind and I am wide awake, spiralling and terrified.

I'm on another thread where this is mentioned. Posters say magnesium glycinate is brilliant for this. Sold in superdrug by New Life products.

Worth a try.

I’m exactly the same. I woke up an hour after I went to bed last night and was awake all night panicking about everything our current life is, everything that is wrong and then worrying things will get worse. I’ve been like it for ages too. I don’t know what the answer is. A couple of years ago I had sleeping tablets off the doctor which helped a bit, but I never felt rested when I woke up after them, but I didn’t wake up having eternal worst case scenarios running through my head when I was taking them at least! You aren’t alone with it, but I don’t know what the answer is.

I think the 3 am horrors is entirely normal, regardless of whether you have, as you do, anything specific to be worrying about. Either you work on trying for a better night's sleep, and/or, if you wake, you do a nervous system reset meditation to get out of the panics. I like the Huberman Lab 10 minute Non Sleep Deep Rest one on Spotify, but there are lots out there.

I think the 3 am horrors is entirely normal, regardless of whether you have, as you do, anything specific to be worrying about

Agree

Joins others on the night fright bench. I get up and watch mindless TV while trying to sleep on the sofa.

I get this, and try to have a rule to 'Never worry about anything after dark'! I consciously direct my mind to trivia, like imagining a dream house or wardrobe or whatever other frivolous thing will change my vibe.

But sometimes I have to actively read or surf online to change the headspace, knowing that it'll cost me an hour or two of sleep.

I also list things alphabetically, like all the food I can think of starting with A - apples, avocados, asparagus, angel delight... then bread, buns, beef, broccoli... I rarely get past F or G...

when this started for me, it was the first real sign that I was in peri menopause.

Before this my mental health had always been very robust

Oh, and No Booze! Sorry, but even one glass guarantees me the 3am jitters...

Yes, totally.
The other night I woke up with a start thinking I did not remember seeing DC 17 drink any water that day. I was convinced that he was going to dehydrate and it was all I could do to stop myself taking a glass of water into him there and then!
I know that one is silly but sometimes my worries are less trivial and I always seem to choose around 5 am to try to work through them.
Depending on your age, for me HRT definitely helped and trying to have a plan for something different to think about. Sadly cheap red wine makes it worse for me so I have to avoid it when out in the pub, seems ok at home (in moderation).

It's a symptom of perimenopause. Magnesium and HRT help.

Sorry yes also drastic reduction in caffeine, alcohol and not much water drunk after 7pm.

Yes. I'm going through a redundancy process just now and when it initially happened I had terrible night catastrophising.

That they'd sack me without redundancy pay That I'd never get another job, we'd lose the house. Etc etc.

Thankfully now with my payout agreed and another job to go to it has stopped.

The GP gave me citalopram and diazepam and some sleeping pills all of which helped.

Same and I really don’t have anything particular bad to worry about. Last night I was worrying that some work I’ve done that’s about to be made public (it’s of minor public interest to a small part of the population in a small part of the country) is all totally wrong. But yet doing that work has really improved my morale in my job which I’ve been struggling with, as it’s made me feel more worth while. I’ve felt a lot happier in the day time. I find it hard to snap out of the night time worries though. I’ve always been a very happy go lucky / live in the moment person and my mantra was always why worry about something before you absolutely have to. This is really alien to me. But now I’m 43 and life feels hard!
going to try the magnesium. Thanks for the rec. and I know peri menopause is possibly a factor too 😭