Can't sleep - Alters keep me awake!

Hi.

I haven't slept for the whole night... T_T My alters kept me awake with their chatter. Why do alters have to be most active at 12am-4am!!?

Most of the alters sleep like babies for the whole night. They go to sleep around 10pm, children go to sleep around 7-8 pm. Those who don't want to sleep yet, keep company to me but they seem to fall asleep pretty soon.

And then there's the new alters. New alters seem to favour late night hours when they introduce themselves for me and I often find myself writing their info to my cellphone until it's 4 am! Sometimes it's the older alters that give me new information about themselves. And this pattern has continued for two weeks! O.o I take naps at daytime and that has messed up my sleeping pattern. But at least I get some rest.

For some reason I get embarrased when I even talk about this. I have tried asking my alters to leave me alone and bother me after my sleep, but they simply don't want to leave! At the same time they have asked me to rest and sleep as much as I need to and not to bother myself with their memories. What the...!? Really!? Sense? Anyone?

I would be glad to get some advices on how to shut up my alters. Sounds cruel, but I need to sleep! I can't help my alters and they can't help me if the body is too tired to work. Also, the memories we've been handling are the most painful ones I've ever faced. I use all my energy just to stay up and working and I really need my sleep! D: These are really hard times and I can only rest properly, without hearing the chatter, when I'm awake.

I'm kinda surprised how well I've managed this long. One of my alters is suffering of narcolepsy and I've been wondering if she could borrow me her skill. xD Would be most needed!

The new book I have been reading has a section on that....

"Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists "
http://tinyurl.com/amazon4tylas

There are a lot of ideas in the book, but sounds like the have the little ones and most under control.

Try preparing all parts of yourself for sleep
parts that are active during the night perceive that as their time. This activity is a sign that you are not giving yourself sufficient personal time during the day. If you can communicate and negotiate with these parts and allow for some regular personal time during the day, you may see a drastic decrease in activity during the night.

Ever try exercise? Or a cowbell?

I agree with him. Run around the house a few times, or on a treadmill, or in place. Whatever! Break a sweat, so that you'll be EXHAUSTED. And if you've ever tried talking to someone whos dead tired before, you know what it sounds like: A drunk musician trying to hum Freebird using nothing but the squeaking sound their shoes makes.

If that made ANY sense to you, you need sleep.

Hi tylas.

Thank you for the good book tip! I got really interested of it since the reviews sounded very good. There's so little good information about DID in my country so I decided to order the book. I was super lucky and found the book from my country's online book shop! Should arrive in few days!

Thank you for the other advices as well even though I didn't quite catch the personal time-part...

After I submitted my first post, I got two new alters that had sleeping problems. They told me that they were behind my insomnia and after talking with them a bit, they started helping me. Last night was already better and instead of loud chatter, everyone whispered! We were all much more relaxed.

I'm eager to go to sleep tonight because I've been really tired the whole day... I usually take naps to cover my sleep deprivation but today I didn't, so that I would be tired enough at the evening.

I'll post here tomorrow and let you know how things went.
Thank you again!

Awesome!!!!

Hi everyone!

Well it seems that my insomnia is starting to be a n ex-problem. Yesterday night it took me few hours before I fell asleep and after that I woke up twice which followed by falling asleep again. So my sleep wasn't the most continuous one but at least I slept more hours than before.

Wohoo! All of us are now adjusting to this new situation - not to be active during late night hours. It is slightly stressing to some alters since they have to keep all the chatter inside them for the whole night. At the morning things are even more chaotic than before but that's just because everyone's letting out the chatter they hold in during the night.

So we have to rebuild our system again! My alters are now redesigning and changing our "inner home" while I'm doing nothing. ^^; They don't let me do anything because I'm distracting them, as they put it. I'm really not used to do nothing especially when I want to do something, so it will be challenging for me to adjust to this. I feel like I'm a bad leader for not doing anything...

Nooo, you're certainly not a bad leader! You're one of the best I've seen! You just have to understand that leaders have to step aside at times and rest. You have to understand that we can handle things with super care! We're no that dumb that we couldn't handle things inside here - you're not the only experienced alter in here, buddy. So step aside and let us do the work! Just chill and go for a walk if it'll make you calmer.

Well, that'll explain it.
I have big issues with trusting anyone, including my alters, so I'll just have to get used to these "leap of faiths" I often do with my pack.

-- 29 Jun 2011, 12:22 --

Hi NicS.

Thank you for the tips. And I do get the idea of the drunk musician - I can almost feel it!

I just posted a little update: things are starting to get better. Exercise would be helpful but I guess that we can do well without it too.

Awesome!!!

Exercise each day, eat healthy and take care of your body. This helps every human feel better and sleep better.

I also make relaxation tapes that help to put me to sleep when my mind wont quiet. Just search for hypnosis script and choose one that works for you and record it onto a recorder. It works great.

That way you get to sleep and sounds like you are starting to handle the staying asleep part!

Yay!

tylas wrote:Awesome!!!

Exercise each day, eat healthy and take care of your body. This helps every human feel better and sleep better.

I also make relaxation tapes that help to put me to sleep when my mind wont quiet. Just search for hypnosis script and choose one that works for you and record it onto a recorder. It works great.

That way you get to sleep and sounds like you are starting to handle the staying asleep part!

Yay!

Hi tylas.

I just got the book today! Yayyy! I really need to start taking care of my body and eat healthier food as you adviced. I've gained few pounds... -_-

Sleeping isn't a problem anymore. We all go to sleep at night and I allow my alters to talk with me until I fall asleep. They don't keep me awake anymore and everything's peaceful on that field.

I'll have to see if I those relaxation tapes and such would be useful. I listened one song from your other post behind one of the links and it did calm down my little ones. They liked it!