To feel this debilitated?

[somethingdifferent1]

The cumulative effects of chronic sleep deprivation have caught up with me and I'm like a different person. I barely speak to friends, I find it really difficult to motivate myself to go out, I get easily panicked, I get rage that appears out of no where towards very trivial situations, I get brain fog, forgetfulness, numbness and often feel like I'm walking around in a dream. And more recently I've been feeling so overwhelmed that I get intrusive thoughts about myself and others. It's only a few weeks before I'm due back at work from maternity leave and I am so stressed because I don't feel I can cope at the moment - all because I'm so chronically exhausted.

AIBU in feeling this way? I feel like I'll seem like I'm taking the piss if I claim to a doctor that all of this is as a result of a lack of sleep.

Sleep deprivation was not used as a method of torture for nothing.

@LadyKenya That's very true. I just feel like sleep deprivation is viewed as a normal part of parenting and wouldn't be taken seriously.

You need sleep , can you arrange some childcare so you can do that?

@maddening I wish it were as simple as that but unfortunately not. DC has medical issues affecting sleep which are for some reason exacerbated at the moment, and currently/for the foreseeable I have absolutely no childcare whatsoever due to family issues on DP's side. I try to sleep when DC sleeps in the day but need medication to knock me out for it, but then feel no more refreshed for the sleep because I'm groggy from medication.

Sleep deprivation can mimic fibromyalgia symptoms. Driving while sleep deprived is as dangerous as drink driving.

How much help is your DP providing? Can he pick up alternate weekends of night care to let you sleep? It's not fair that you should be this unwell

Chronic sleep deprivation can do all kinds of difficult things exactly as you describe.
It can also push you into a depression whose root cause isn't sadness so much as the body chemistry and how that is affected by lack of sleep.
I've been in a similar position and once sleep was possible again (I hope this is in your future) it took about a year to come out of it as I'd gone so deep.
I'd fully lost my sense of humour, couldn't compute normal stress or emotions, had a really blank stare if someone spoke to me unexpectedly etc etc

And just because it is a common part of parenting doesn't mean it doesn't extract it's price.

@Politicalnamechange DP works 4 12 hour shifts a week with a 1 hour commute each way, plus is completing a masters degree (a day in uni) and having to do a placement shift 1 day elsewhere for this, so has 1 day off a week. But he isn't around at all at the moment and neither are PIL who can usually help a couple of day times a week.

@SoCunningYouCanStickATailOnItAndCallItAFox Yes that exactly re depression. The doctor, alongside giving me medication to aid sleep, said to refer myself to mental health services. But like you say I don't have issues that I need to talk about because the depression like symptoms/feelings aren't stemming from an emotional issue, which is why I don't really want to contact them because it feels like I'm wasting a space someone else could benefit from, but then it looks like I'm not cooperating.

Depression can be induced by seratonin deprivation... Sleep deprivation causes this. So you're life can be fine, no upsets, no congenital predisposition to depression etc etc but if your seratonin levels are held down for long enough you will be in a depression.
The good part is that depression with that root cause will go away once the cause is appreciated.
But the body and mind are not separate entities so this best chemistry issue does affect your thought processes, ability to function and emotions... So mental health support is a valid intervention because the healing process will benefit from a body and mind approach.
You're not eating anyone's time.

Wasting 🤣

Your situation is so very similar to my own teen years ago. Relentless with almost zero support.
I also thought I was not a deserving case for support.
I did need it though. I was so far down in the pit I couldn't even see the pit.

I'm afraid I've no help to offer @somethingdifferent1 but sending solidarity. It's crushing. My DS has awful sleep for a few weeks, good for a couple of weeks then up and down all night for weeks at a time again. Due to a medical condition also. Nothing prepares you for it. Please speak to your GP and see if they can offer help.

Aw so sorry op, how about hired childcare in your own home for a few days? Could a night nanny help perhaps? Can dp take time off work to look after your baby at night for a few nights? You sound in a sufficiently worrying state to warrant some intervention imo.

@SoCunningYouCanStickATailOnItAndCallItAFox @roughtyping @maddening thank you for the kind words/suggestions/support. I feel a bit more relieved to know there does seem to come a point when it's no longer reasonable to just expect someone to plough through like it's nothing.

@maddening I've never looked into a night nanny (I'm not sure we could afford it depending on the cost), but in any case I think my anxiety of how DC would cope with it would equally keep me awake. I know that sounds pathetic but because I do so much of the childcare, DC is of an age of currently gets strong separation anxiety from me so I don't know how it would go. I'm in that vicious cycle of being anxious because of tiredness, but the tiredness is intensifying the anxiety.

DP needs to take a day holiday or sick leave or pause their Masters, you are unwell and need support

Or someone in the day - you are leading up to going to work anyway so it would not be a bad thing.

Or dp take time off to give you time off?

Yanbu at all, at all, at all. I have had the odd bout of insomnia from time to time but recently suffered a prolonged experience that went on for about 5 months and it was dreadful. I found magnesium helped.

@somethingdifferent1 my son is 7 now, I started being listened to last year and he was prescribed melatonin which helps at the start of the night. We had years of horrendous sleep before that. 'All babies are bad sleepers' etc 🙄. Don't be fobbed off.

My thought is that your sleep deprivation is causing your intrusive thoughts. Do you think you would sleep well if baby didn’t wake you? Or are you anxious and this is stoping you sleeping. If it’s the latter, I think you’d benefit from seeing the doctor and potentially get some sleeping tablets to get a couple of good nights ( if someone else can help with the baby).

I remember this. At one point I was under investigation for double vision which turned out to be my eye muscles being so tired they weren’t keeping my eyes straight 🤔

What did help was splitting nights with DH. I literally went to ‘bed’ at 5pm for months and months and would get some solid sleep 6-11/12pm while DH manned the fort until night wakings. It’s terrible isn’t it.