Changed response to stress

[ThisOneNow]

My response to stress has changed a lot and I was wondering if anyone can relate and if anyone has any insights or tips for dealing with it.

I used to be pretty laid back and although I never had a particularly stressful job or life I quite enjoyed a bit of stress - it made me feel active and capable.

5 years ago I had a very traumatic bereavement and have had quite a few very difficult things going on since then. I also have 2 small children so life is full on. Now if I feel any stress Ireally feel like I need to find a dark corner and sleep and love I can barely keep my eyes open. Every minor thing makes me feel like this, like toddler negotiations or minor work pressure. It's making life very difficult. I don't know if it's delayed PTSD or burnout or just fairly normal exhaustion from having 2 under 5 and working.

I would really like to hear if anyone else has felt like this and what they think was behind it and whether they found anything that helped. Thanks

Anyone?

I sleep a lot when going through stress or anxieties. Its like my brain can't process it while also dealing with day to day life so I get the urge to sleep almost constantly until the anxiety or cause of the stress is resolved.

That's interesting to hear. I have wondered if I'm just starting to process everything that happened now, now that the non-stop sleep-deprived baby phase is over with my little ones.

Quite possibly. It doesn't have to be new stress. I slept most of the day on both my days off for weeks when I first started talking about csa with my counsellor. I'd alluded to it before but when we started talking about it in depth, it dredged up quite a lot of trauma. I mentioned it to him at the time and he said it was quite a common way of processing trauma.