unnatural exhaustion

its our third day of something like a shut down caused by sleep/exhaustion.
we do small things, then exhaustion comes like a wave and drowns the consciousness, we lose all strength, there is enough time to find a safe place to lay down. we dont sleep, more like trying to rest but the exhaustion wont go. with long hours of rest we barely find enough strength to prepare food before we crash again.
it feels a little bit like dissociation, the way everything gets foggy and we get drowned out. but the usually grounding skills dont work, they actually make things worse.
it kind of feels like a migrane too. intense pressure on the head, and it helps to keep things dark and use ear plugs. well, it doesnt stop anything from happening, but it keeps it from getting worse.
we are not really sleeping well at night and most of the rest we get over the day is while staying awake. there is this constant nagging thought of "i cant go on" that fills the head.

Mike says its not real narcolepsy. but we are not sure what it is. does anyone here experience similar things that are dissociative in nature but look a lot like narcolepsy?
we have tried grounding, we have tried to change meds, we have tried isolation and rest but nothing seems to make a big difference. does anyone have a fresh idea how to get out of this?

From my experience it sounds like depression. However i also have never had narcalepsy so my advice won't be to vaild. If its anything like depression though i'd do try and use music. What id do is find mysic that matches your mood then get each song to be slightly more and more postive until its something happy. Ive tried its notna sure fire thing. If not that eat your favorite food, sleep and let it try and subside. If you feel strong enough counter your negative thoughts. Keep on keeping on birdsong your stronger than a lot of people. You got this!

not depression. no negative thoughts or feelings.
sound seems to make it worse. i am trying to avoid every kind of stimulation cause it seems to make things worse.
we have had this happen before, usually after an EMDR session, but it always just lasted for a day.

Sounds similar to what happens to me sometimes. I get enough sleep the night before, have plenty of energy and then bam, I can't keep my eyes open, I feel foggy and all I can think about is sleep. It's just sudden with no reason for it, I could have gotten good sleep, not be tired at all. Usually at work though, so I can't exactly lay down and take a nap. Don't know why. Maybe I'm just getting too old.

this happens to me. nowadays I might need. 30 minutes or a couple hours. I get it. it isn't sleeping. but it is a shut down rest mode.

this happened real bad when I had my nervous breakdown. the docs call it stress exhaustion. just take it easy. if you can eat, sleep, shower, it's a victory. give yourself another 4-7 days without too much worry or judgement.

there are inside things going on. it's ok. it gets better. it passes. you feel better after than you did before. *promise* it's ok to rest if that's what you need.

might be different than what you are experiencing, but i went through something unusual recently. my eating and sleeping were fine though (from what i know). i didn't feel depressed or stressed, but this exhaustion just would not end. it was like a type of dissociation but not at the same time. it wasn't really linked to any specific alter but seemed to be some kind of other system wide function that just was there. i think it has lessened after a few weeks..though i don't recall how long it was for to begin with just that it was something not normal or something that had happened before. never figured out what it was about...though i suspect it was some kind of system change on some deeper level.

I have moment's like this where I feel like crawling under a rock & staying there.

Not quite as chronic as what you have described (I feel like it, but I can almost always tick the 2 boxes of eating & showering)

Today I had a very short lived chronic episode where I had to lay on the ground & stay there for almost an hour. My body was asleep but my mind was awake.

My understanding is that it is a sign of depression (even if you don't FEEL depressed)

thanks everyone for sharing!!

in need of a plan how to work against this we decided to treat it like somatization of intense feelings that might have been triggered after the trauma session.
like taking a mental pressure and pain and pushing it into the body until the body feels it but the mind is free of it...
we try to make us cry over small things. either the exhaustion does change a little with time or this is helpful. idk

keep being patient. the inside is recalibrating so just trying to shut out external stimulation. it's like maintenance. when you clean your computer and reboot?

that's what it feels like for me. depression lay down and tune out is waaaay different than system shut down for internal maintenance and calibration. this doesn't sound like "i am so depressed I just want to hide until all my problems go away".

maybe this is a turning point? the session was a big deal. maybe there is some big processing going on?

Ding ding ding ding ding! My head is saying, we know this, we know this!
I get the same thing, absolutely OVERWHELMED with exhaustion, that can last days or weeks at a time. My T says that "keeping the system going/hidden" is extremely taxing on the body. This can lead to such extreme exhaustion, especially when things get "stirred up" on the inside, when parts are upset, having reactions to some trigger, etc.
Also, have you asked if what you are feeling is "yours" or someone elses? The 'somatization' might actually be someone else! I am finding that MOST of what I think, feel, and experience is being influenced by someone on the inside. There is usually one person fully present who I am the most strongly affected by, but now I also know that 9 of them are almost always present with me all the time!!!! ('dolfo & the girls!) And this is what gives my head a heavy feeling, buzzing feeling, occasionally a headache, and weird things with my vision. It can be blurry, sometimes 2-D, "milky" or distorted, and this all depends on "who" or "how many" are looking through my eyes at one time.
All of this I have discovered by simply ASKING my alters! I can't hear them yet, so I hold a pendulum and ask, " Who is this? Why am I feeling _______?" Then I go into a series of yes/no questions or have them spell a word if I need something specific.
Last week Jilay came forward for the 1st time, with a mosquito bite that has been itching and driving her crazy for 40 years! (Yet I feel nothing???) Once I determined the location, I put Caladryl on it and blew on it until it went away, and do you know what? I have'nt felt that angry/frustrated/ furious feeling I've known my whole life ever since then!
I pays to help the insiders resolve their issues!