Does anyone else worry and going to sleep so much that it's hard to go to sleep and stay asleep. Or how does ocd affect yalls sleep. I just found out that I had it after years of battling thought about my health and other things in my life now I'm obsessing over sleep.what makes it worse is when I have a clear mind after distracting myself I revert back to the slave mind and it feels again like a weight is in my mind.
It sounds like your “worrying” at night is rumination. If you’re having trouble with not thinking so much about what you’re worried about then you’re likely allowing your mind to drift into ruminating. Allow your thoughts to flow but the moment you feel like you’re paying attention to figuring it out, trying not to think about it, or even letting your mind wonder about the topic in general, you’re ruminating which is a compulsion and will keep you in a cycle. Distraction is good but when you’re going to sleep, actively try to direct your thoughts to something pleasant and calming (not thought suppression but giving yourself something else to think about)
Yes
Yes. I am sometimes afraid to go to bed, since I associate going to bed with being alone with my thoughts (and thus, alone with my OCD)…… Also, My OCD scares me into thinking that I’ll: A.) Not get *enough* sleep and then —> fear of having to go through the next day feeling really ‘off’, ‘manic’, and just ‘out of it’ (and then being hyper aware/hyper focused on *those* sensations the whole day). B.) Get *too much* sleep, not hear my alarm clock, miss an important appointment, and then —> fear of having to go through the next day with feelings of guilt, shame, like I’ve ‘wasted’ my day/was not productive enough (and then being hyper aware/hyper focused on *these* sensations plus possible reactive depression).
I very much worry about if I am going to bed at the right time and getting enough sleep and it ends up messing with my sleep. I get really stressed about falling back asleep if I wake up in middle of night. What I've found helpful is to ignore the intrusive thoughts that there is a "right" number of hours and I just try and sleep when I'm tired and wake up when I need to. It's hard at first because objectively we need a lot of sleep but sometimes just pushing through a few days to prove OCD wrong is worth the fatigue instead of convincing yourself you will have a bad day bc you slept less instead of just trying to push through
Thank u it's been like this for a month now and I'll keep my self distracted all day then I lay down and the worry comes again but your right it's just thoughts and I don't need to give it the attention it wants.
It started when I became an adult, and started receiving my mental health diagnosis. I hyper fixated on each and every action I did and how it could be related to my diagnosis’s. It then lead to fixation to my physical health — making appointments and seeing every specialist I can to rule out every possibility. I currently have been suffering with obstructive sleep. I woke up the past few days with severe pain from the lack of sleep whilst believing I was oversleeping. Luckily my fit watch tracks my sleep cycle and it turns out I am not receiving any sleep. I had an extreme panic attack — bursting into tears on the phone with my mom wondering what this case might be. She told me it could be sleep apnea and that a simple sleep study could figure this out. However, knowing my family history I made appointments to every specialist I can to make sure it is nothing serious. The unknown of health can be scary to me. Watching my mother suffer with her physical health chronically since I was a child lead me to be very conscious and aware of how my body is functioning. This morning was one of the worst moments of physical pain. I should just take one step at a time with the sleep doctor instead of taking measures to see every specialist that could pertain with this issue. However, that is very hard to me. I don’t want to ever wake up in the pain I was this morning. Does anyone else suffer with health-related OCD? And if so, how do you find a sense of ease during moments like I expressed?
I started dealing with OCD when I became fixated on health issues, particularly the fear of contracting a life-threatening disease. If I experienced any kind of medical symptom, no matter how small, that even remotely hinted at something potentially fatal, it would drive me crazy, and I couldn’t stop obsessing over it. Then one day, I started having intrusive thoughts about accidentally hitting someone with my car, and I would end up driving in circles to check if I had. Eventually, I found myself overwhelmed by a flood of new obsessive thoughts and compulsions. One day, while I was at the park, a squirrel came near me, and for some reason, I felt like it attacked me. I Googled it and learned that squirrels could carry rabies, which spiraled me into a deep fear of rabies. I became consumed with the thought I received a bite from a squirrel, raccoon, or bat any time I’m in areas that trigger me. It started off only being inside then transferred to even being in my own home. This made me obsess over every physical sensation in my body, compulsively checking to make sure nothing was wrong. One compulsion that I hated the most would to be putting rubbing alcohol on me to make sure that I had no open wounds. Every day feels like I’m walking around in a fog of anxiety, constantly worrying that I won’t even make it to old age. Sometimes, it gets so overwhelming that I just want it all to end. It stresses me so bad at times to where my brain feels like I’ve been studying all day.
My OCD has been terrible the for the past two weeks. I have a fear that I will never be able to get out of the thought loop. I am hyper aware of my thoughts and it disturbs me. I haven’t been able to eat for 10 days. I force myself. I haven’t been able to sleep for more than a couple hours. Then I wake up and ruminate for a couple hours, until I’m exhausted. I’m also afraid I’ll never sleep well again. And I’m afraid I’ll never eat and enjoy my food again. I’m afraid I’ll never be able to stop thinking about this enough to enjoy my family ever again.
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