To ask what you’re doing awake post-midnight? Part 3: Return of the Insomnia

[5YearsLeft]

Hey all - We’ve made it to the third thread. Whether you’ve posted before or you’re brand new, if you’re stuck awake, then you’re welcome here. We’ve had people facing it all on the last few threads: grief (loss of DPs, DHs, parents, children, and pets), illness of every sort (cancer, COVID, post COVID, sciatica, antidepressant withdrawals, stomach bugs of every sort, cold/flu, autoimmune problems, and even more diagnoses), ill children and partners (vomiting, crying, unable to sleep… and that’s just the adult family members! Ok I’m kidding, that was mostly the kids), women in labor, women with surgery fears, fears of all other sizes, anxiety, work anxiety, and of course insomnia caused by myriad things (LOTS of peri and postmenopausal insomnia).

Whatever is keeping you awake, you’re always welcome to share it here.

If you’re following in from our last thread, it’s:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4473171-To-ask-what-you-re-doing-awake-post-midnight-Part-2-Insomnia-Strikes-Back

@5YearsLeft I was really worried about you!
It's shit to hear about your fall and you're so poorly but I'm glad it's not got so bad you had to go to hospital

@purpleme12 I’ve been really worried about me too, to be honest. I’ve been sleeping all day and all night (this isn’t an exaggeration; I’ll take pills at 0930 and then not wake up again until 4). And then when I was already super weak, my fall was at something like ten this morning and then my husband put me back in bed and I slept until 3 and then the physio showed up at 4. Plus I’m making these horrible gagging noises while I’m breathing. It’s really all fun and games here. And husband goes, “Well, can’t you lay on your left side? You’re bruised on your right.” I’m going no, the mattress tipped me out of bed ass over tits and there wasn’t enough room for a complete somersault so I bruised both left and right arms, my back, one leg, my shoulders, scratched myself up, jammed my right thumb - I’m lucky I didn’t break my stupid neck. That really would have been absolutely the height of ridiculous. “How did she die? Well, er, she fell out of bed and broke her neck.” Though my neck is sore, admittedly. Anyway, I feel awful for making you worried and for having all this shite when you already had so much to worry about. I hope your neighbor has seen the light and either stopped being a complete arsehole or maybe just gone and jumped in a river until the cold water helps him see sense. Argh. If those are both unlikely, I do hope you’ve at least been assured that the noise monitoring can’t be “faked,” as I’d be paranoid too, if I had a hateful neighbor. I’m so sorry about all of that, and do hope that maybe this will be growing pains and a year from now this will all be over and away from you and you can enjoy your house.

Ah don't feel awful for making me worried!
We just care about you!
It doesn't sound much fun over there 😓
Sending lots of healing vibes

There's not been another incident since Saturday but well unfortunately it's hard to forget about and yes you do feel paranoid...
I really really hope you're right and it does go away
I'm just not sure I can relax until I hear about this noise thing they want to get me on

@purpleme12 I completely understand. Once you know something like that is happening (like the noise thing), it’s hard to relax. At least no incidents since Saturday is a tiny, tiny victory so that’s something. I’ll keep all my fingers crossed (except my wonky thumb) that it stays that way for now.

Hey everyone - the new after midnight thread is OFFICIALLY open. If you can’t sleep, this is the thread for you. Share, vent, whinge, cry - whatever you need.

My worries seem quite dull and pedestrian. So i apologise (and know i probably need to get a grip)

It's a combination of jet lag, overtiredness (the day I got home from the US, my new chap decided he had missed me so much he took me away for the night so I didn't get much sleep then) and worry. I feel anxious about being in a new relationship. I have fallen for him harder and faster than my late DH, and it scares me even though I'm assured its a widow phenomenon.

He is in the middle of an acrimonious divorce (his wife announced in November she was divorcing him, out of the blue, and the decree nisi was served in February, they are just agreeing the settlement before the absolute. He has ADHD and is often impatient, impulsive and a bit obsessive, but he is also romantic, thoughtful, kind and always makes time for me. I worry that I will be hurt. He told me he loved me after less than a week of knowing each other, he bought me a ring that day (not an engagement ring, but one that monitors sleep and activity) and phoned me every day while I was away because he was missing me. The sex is amazing and he doesn't mind that I'm fat, he said all he sees is me and there's nothing he doesn't like about me.

Why do I feel like I'm waiting for things to go wrong? And that is what is keeping me awake. Oh, and I've given him flu. Nice exchange for the ring...

I’m only awake as I had a wonderful sleep on the sofa accidentally from 9pm until my husband woke me to go to bed at nearly midnight. Had a shower and now I’m wide awake with a snoring pug under the covers with me!

Waiting to pick my dd up from work, they were doing a stock take. Don't finish till 1am and I have to take the long way round to pick her up. Typical they shut the normal way for the next few nights.

Sat up coughing with the most annoying cough that's kept me awake for 2 weeks. Also alternating between my toddler's and baby's bedrooms who also like to ensure that I'm definitely getting no sleep

Full of cold. Was on night shift last night so now my body clock screwed despite me only sleeping a few hours.

Researching Labrador retrievers as hoping to add to our family in the next couple of years Never had one before but had other dogs.

I’m glad to have found the new thread, thank
you @5YearsLeft. I’m so sorry to hear about your nasty fall out of bed - you always amaze me with your resilience.
Well I’m still suffering with anxiety and insomnia from the AD withdrawal and have had to resort to sleeping tablets the last few nights (hence my absence).They work in terms of knocking me out, but they make me feel terrible during the day and I cannot function at all because of the anxiety. It’s really affecting my family but I don’t know how to get myself out of this mess…

I also fell asleep earlier and now fretting about finances - but I’ve done today's Wordle and Quordle as a distraction ✔️

@5YearsLeft oh you have been through the ringer haven’t you :( wish I could give you a hug!

I finished nights Wednesday morning and I'm massively struggling to get to sleep despite only getting an hours sleep between my shifts. I've also got the worst sore head (probably because I'm over tired) which is giving me a sore neck and jaw and to top it off my feet are boiling hot 😬 it's going to be a bloody long night at this rate

I was winning tonight and then my dog came to the door and growled for no reason just as I was dropping off.

My sleep pattern is nearly as much of a temperamental beast as my old dog. I have to pretend not to care to trick myself back into relaxing. Sigh. I will die early of sleep deprivation, though, and then the dog will nibble my corpse. #dramatic

Sympathies to the rest of you.

Sometimes I think a bit of 1960s style sleeping pill culture would be welcome. Even though I know that’s a totally terrible idea.

@AndNoneForGretchenWieners Eh, there are no dull and pedestrian worries. It’s impossible to say whether this guy is doing everything too fast and it’s a red flag or whether it’s one of those relationships where everything just seems to work perfectly. It depends on whether he respects your boundaries (like if you’d told him NOT to call you during vacation, would he have?) But it’s early days and you have time to figure it out. I’m sure being a widow is extremely tough!!!!

@Pugfostermum Well… better than being wide awake without a pug to snuggle with?? Sounds cosy at least!

@vodkaredbullgirl Of COURSE the normal way round is shut at night when you need it. Bastards.

@Rachaelrachael Oh gosh, DH has one of those coughs. Negative for COVID but the cough is apparently staying forever.

@BellaTheDarkOverlord So hard to sleep when you’re full of cold, and your body clock is messed up, but looking up pups is a nice distraction!

@MrsGlum So sorry to hear that things are still not better - that you’re getting sleep but still struggling so much with anxiety that it’s not helping.

@AiryFairy1 What a pain in the arse - when you manage to get to sleep then wake up and the worries you already had are waiting to pounce on you. Doesn’t seem fair at all. Sorry and I do hope you get back to sleep.

@ImNotDancing You’re so kind!!! I swear I’m finding a new bruise every hour, ha. I keep thinking I’m just stiff, oh wait no, it’s another bruise (I just found one on my spine, hurts like hell). Forget the hug for the moment; we’ll drink tea and watch crap TV instead.

@singlepringlenotbychoice Oh! So! I discovered boiling feet (if the rest of you isn’t boiling) can be a potassium deficiency. So try to eat something really potassium rich tomorrow (I actually had to take a supplement, but that’s by prescription because they have to be really careful since potassium can screw up your heart, which is why it’s not in multivitamins and things).

@Thoosa But WOULD it be a terrible idea? Like really??? I mean, sigh, I know it would, yes, but sometimes I look at all of us awake and those seem like good old days, when sleep meds were like M&Ms. But then I suppose they weren’t really, and people probably ended up zoned out of their minds and in dire straits back then and they just never talked about the addictive side. Sigh. We just can’t win. I do hope your dog won’t eat your body for at least a few hours after your death in a show of true loyalty. Har har.

Stuff like Ambien seems common in the States still and I suppose it is dangerous because there seem to be regular fatal overdoses (although often those seem to be situations of multiple prescriptions magnifying each other). Just the odd emergency tablet sometimes feels like it would be nice though.

The side benefit would be that if the dog did eat me, it would get knocked out too before it could defile my corpse too much.

Have you tried lo-salt as a way to get small amounts of potassium into your diet?

@5YearsLeft I'm fairly sure he would have respected my boundaries if I'd told him not to call. He drove from his home in Buckinghamshire to mine in the West Midlands on a whim on Valentines Day to hand deliver me a card (a week after we started talking). I had told him my house was out of bounds to him because it's my late DH's house, and he was fine with us just sitting in his car talking for a long time. He is respectful in general and very protective, always holds my hand or wraps his arm round my waist when we are walking together (even in supermarkets) and if I'm being fair to him, he presented all his red flags like a bouquet the day we started talking, and told me all the reasons it was a terrible idea to date him. To me, they didn't seem insurmountable. Deafness and ADHD are disabilities, not character flaws, for example. Argh, it's so hard. I don't know how much of my attraction to him is purely animal (I didn't have sex for 5 years and now I'm making up for lost time it seems). He's very good looking and slim - we do look a bit silly together because at 6'3" he's a foot taller than me and I'm short and dumpy. Ffs. I overthink everything.

We're all getting over covid, DD(3yo) woke up coughing so hard at 10.30pm. For the past 2 weeks she's been regularly coughing so hard she vomits.
So tonight I ran up to take her out of bed before the inevitable. Took her downstairs thinking it would be for 10 minutes until her airways clear up a bit. Finally got her back in bed at 12.30am after a biscuit, juice, medicine, inhaler and approximately 6 episodes of Paw Patrol

All's well, except my deadline for my uni assessment was midnight (electronic submition) so I have missed it. It's an automatic 10% penalty. Took my laptop up to bed with the intention of doing more work on it for handing in late tomorrow but instead found myself perusing AIBU and came across this thread

Hello, I'm a sometimes contributor.
Usually saying I'm awake because I don't feel well.

Well, I still don't feel well, so here I am.

Could you legitimately site covid as the reason for missing the deadline?
Surely it must happen a fair bit now?

@Thoosa I know what you mean. It all seems like it could work and then in practice, the world contains the kind of people for whom they invented stickers like the one on the hairdryer that says “do not use whilst in shower or bath” so… tough to say. As for my potassium at least, when I have no problem, I’m fine, and when it’s low, there’s nothing else I could have done (the deficiency for me is caused by medication - I don’t eat much salt).

@AndNoneForGretchenWieners Well… it may be one of those situations where you just have to wait and see how it goes. But never be worried about looking silly together; as long as you’re both happy, the rest of the world won’t really care. They only seem to notice people who are rowing in the middle of supermarkets, ha. (Or at least those are the only couples I really notice).

@BuffyTheBuffetSlayer I would agree that surely emailing your professor and explaining you’ve all had COVID could get you an extension for the assignment.

@RobertSmithsLipstick I’m so sorry you don’t feel well. It can really be shite, especially combined with keeping you awake.

I can’t get back to sleep tonight even after a sleeping tablet. I’m so full of regret for everything I am putting my family and friends through with all my issues. I’ve caused so much disruption and worry. Everyone is now suffering along with me and I feel so guilty and ashamed for that.