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walkitoutFor a few weeks now, I’ve been trying to get A. to get up consistently before 9 (or at least before 10) even on weekends, in an effort to regularize a bedtime of midnight. It is not working, and it really broke down today. Over a week ago, I gave up on getting her to bed, and just insisted on her being done with her night time routine and out of the bathroom by midnight because hearing the water keeps me awake. I’ve also been asking to have light’s out in the upstairs hall and keep doors to rooms with lights on closed. Also, not working at all.
But I have been able to fall asleep around midnight more consistently, only to be awoken by her at 1, 1:30, 2, 2:30, usually asking for something for constant burping and/or reflux. But most recently, she was distressed and wanted to sleep with me. Obviously, this doesn’t work any more. I snore. I move. She finds it intolerable and wakes me up. We can usually manage in a shared hotel room with a noise machine and two beds or a king sized bed, but not on a queen. We talked for a while, and eventually she went to her own room, but this is 100% not sustainable. She had a short day today, but I didn’t realize it, and I had two meetings anyway so I couldn’t sleep very long. I thought I was going to throw up when I got up at the usual time I was still so exhausted, and that’s really unusual for me.
I felt angry. I wanted to punch her. I had lots of really horrible thoughts, all the result of me not protecting my need to sleep, and the paranoia that I get when I don’t get enough sleep. We talked about it, and I talked to K. and J. (who I had scheduled calls with), and I somehow got through the two meetings (one of which was enjoyable, but the other of which was its own special form of hell, a throwback to those early meetings when no one was listening to me). I also talked to the group at FF, and A. participated in that as well.
Lots of theories and suggestions. I’m committed to the idea that the core problem is rumination, but I still don’t really understand why rumination happens. My latest theory is that rumination is actually a weird form of agency, and the repeated, detailed internal recreation of traumatizing experiences is in an effort to find some way that you could have done some thing that would have made it turn out different (NO, that does NOT work and don’t do that). That at least gives me some ideas about how to go forward on this. I think more exercise and meaningful activities are probably crucial too, but one of the biggest problems is just that the arrangement of responsibilities means I’m on call in the morning and in the evening and that just is not sustainable any more. It was fine when she slept 12 hours most days, but not when she’s down to 8.
But I have been able to fall asleep around midnight more consistently, only to be awoken by her at 1, 1:30, 2, 2:30, usually asking for something for constant burping and/or reflux. But most recently, she was distressed and wanted to sleep with me. Obviously, this doesn’t work any more. I snore. I move. She finds it intolerable and wakes me up. We can usually manage in a shared hotel room with a noise machine and two beds or a king sized bed, but not on a queen. We talked for a while, and eventually she went to her own room, but this is 100% not sustainable. She had a short day today, but I didn’t realize it, and I had two meetings anyway so I couldn’t sleep very long. I thought I was going to throw up when I got up at the usual time I was still so exhausted, and that’s really unusual for me.
I felt angry. I wanted to punch her. I had lots of really horrible thoughts, all the result of me not protecting my need to sleep, and the paranoia that I get when I don’t get enough sleep. We talked about it, and I talked to K. and J. (who I had scheduled calls with), and I somehow got through the two meetings (one of which was enjoyable, but the other of which was its own special form of hell, a throwback to those early meetings when no one was listening to me). I also talked to the group at FF, and A. participated in that as well.
Lots of theories and suggestions. I’m committed to the idea that the core problem is rumination, but I still don’t really understand why rumination happens. My latest theory is that rumination is actually a weird form of agency, and the repeated, detailed internal recreation of traumatizing experiences is in an effort to find some way that you could have done some thing that would have made it turn out different (NO, that does NOT work and don’t do that). That at least gives me some ideas about how to go forward on this. I think more exercise and meaningful activities are probably crucial too, but one of the biggest problems is just that the arrangement of responsibilities means I’m on call in the morning and in the evening and that just is not sustainable any more. It was fine when she slept 12 hours most days, but not when she’s down to 8.