insomnia acting up again plus new behavior

I used to have a pretty gnarly sleep schedule. It was like clockwork, it went by the week on the dot. One week I'd be sleepless almost entirely if not actually. The next would be normal or constant waking up in the night, but hours being decent. Then the third in the cycle would be practically comatose. I'd be in a daze for my waking hours and sleep almost the entire week. Some days being close to 20hrs.

They tried Tom's of medications but once I left school it corrected itself over time and went to lesser extremes. Maybe I'll have a day or a few weeks where all I want to do is sleep or nap but I can control it and push through. Other times I'd have difficulty falling asleep but eventually get there.

Even when I started working and a new relationship. It was pretty much like a normal sleep schedule. It was fantastic. All of a sudden, possibly stress induced (life, adulting lol nothing I can do to avoid the potential stressors unfortunately), the insomnia portion has started up again. Leaving naps to be desired and being wide awake until 3am, only to rise and shine at 5-6am.
It's become pretty consist at this point. Occasionally I amazing able to nap but that is very rare with my busy life lately. Work has me up on my feet most of the day, then it's to childcare (not mine) and pet care. After they're settled I'm off with the SO to do people things.

But something has started to happen that never happened before him. About a year or two into the relationship I've started to talk in my sleep? If that's what you want to call it. I'm not passed out. I'm aware I'm doing so. It's like I'm in the process of waking up from a dream, but my eyes and body haven't adjusted to reality with the exception being my mouth. So my brains final dreaming moments slip out from my mouth if that makes sense. Then the SO will either respond or I'll jolt awake realizing I've spoken in my "sleep" And feel embarrassed. Telling him to forget the whole thing, nevermind it all. Go back to sleep it's nothing.

Is it just stress or possibly it's own thing? Not going back on the 20 meds they tried before. Stuff made me undead. Ick.

Hi Anyme,

I have never had a ton of trouble with oversleep, but I can relate to the first two weeks of your cycle and the insomnia you're describing. Ironically, after a long stretch of normal, the past few nights have been like this for me. Last night I went to bed at 3, woke up around 6, tried to go back to sleep, hovered between awake and asleep for an hour, and ultimately gave up between 7 and 8.

I can also relate to the odd behavior, to a degree. I have bipolar disorder, and sometimes my sleep can be attributed to being hypomanic. Some of those nights I don't go to sleep at all... But at the most stressful point in my life thus far, I had constant, rapid mood swings and a lot of strange, almost psychotic, behavior. (It eventually did peak at a psychotic episode) I would often have these lucid or waking dreams where I was coming out of the dream and started talking or acting out before being fully awake. I would be remotely conscious of my surroundings, but it was like my brain was slow to realize I was waking up. It is exactly as you described except a little more than just my mouth.

Sometimes these events would last several minutes before I was snapped out of it by something. Once I had a whole conversation with my SO, talking like a child and believing they were a fish and we were in a forest, even though a part of my mind knew that the imagery and circumstances didn't match up. Another time I was somewhat sleepwalking. I went outside to go on some adventure (we lived on several acres in the woods) and only fully woke up when my SO grabbed me and shook me. The difference from sleepwalking, though, was that I was semi-conscious and I could remember it.

The whole thing is kind of hard to describe, especially in terms of the confusion and internal conversation that I was having with myself during those moments. Like you, things got better when I left school, but occasionally I will have similar occurrences (to a much lesser degree) even to this today... I'm definitely not saying that you have bipolar or are nearing a psychotic episode, but perhaps it has to do with your level of stress. There was a lot of intense turmoil in my life at that point. I believe that when paired with the bipolar and other issues, it just became a vicious cycle and a downward spiral into the rabbit hole...

But maybe it's just your subconscious way of reacting to your increasing stress-load. I have found that when I'm stressed enough, and I push it away without confronting it, my subconscious stuff starts to leak into the open. That's when I can't hide it or fight it anymore and my SO starts to notice. I'm terrible at taking my own advice, to be honest, but I would suggest trying mindfulness techniques. Try to take just a few minutes here and there to slow down, relax yourself, and meditate. In those moments, actively confront all of your potential stress (even the good), and have an honest conversation with yourself about how these things make you feel. Just start with that: total acknowledgement. Then reflect and think about ways you might relieve those stressors. If you can't get rid of them, what can you do to ease the pressure on your mind a little? Do you have an outlet like taking a bath or doing a favorite activity that is just yours? Even if it's five minutes it might help. And then talk to your SO about it. Confronting stress out loud, even if it seems trivial, could be a huge relief, and you might be surprised by how much he can help.

Anyway, sorry for the length of this message. It's a lot to read but I really hope it all helps. Feel free to ask questions or PM me to talk about it.

Best,
-Breeze

I never had any major problems staying asleep, my trouble was falling asleep. I did have an issue for a short period with disruptive sleep, but I connected that to the sleeping pills. I did have trouble staying asleep for a time hear and there when I was experimenting with those crappy, horrible, doctor prescribed sleeping pills. Sleep disturbance is ironically a side effect of many of the sleeping pills. Sleeping pills are NOT the answer folks.