Prisoner of my own brain.

I always felt I was more anxious than the normal person then I was diagnosed with Anxiety. But it wasnt until 3 years ago that a new symptoms manifested from my anxiety, Insomnia! I have been suffering on and off from this painful bouts of spells called insomnia. The past 1.5mos have been rocky and this week has been misery. Laying in bed begging God and my brain to give me just straight 4-5hrs sleep but sleep never would come. And when it did it would be 1-2.5hrs and if I am lucky 3-4hrs broken. I have anger anxiety towards my neighbor ever since she slightly ding my new used car. I politely ask her to be mindful when opening her car door yet her attitude was negative and worse she scratch it again an hour after I had asked nicely. This hurt my pride and trigger my anger anxiety but I suppressed my emotion and reason with myself that it is not a big deal. However, my brain will not seem to accept it and the more I hold back the worse my sleep got thus exacerbate my anxiety. I truly don’t want drama because my cousins knows her mom but my brain is torturing me! It is now to the point whenever I see or hear her I automatically feel anger and one time I was outside and she kept staring at me and I had to do everything in my power not to say $#%^ to her. holding back my tongue is making me lose sleep and crippling me. I hate even looking in the mirror seeing my dark circles as a reminder of my struggles with my anxiety and chronic insomnia. I dont want to resort to pills cause I went that route before and it made things worse. I just want to learn to let things go and I have been trying and Lord knows I am doing what I can to tell myself its not a big deal. I even tried smiling but she just gave me a resting bitch face. That hurt my pride even more and made me dislike her even more. I can’t keep sleeping 1-3hrs anymore. I feel like Im going to go crazy. Im the problem not anyone else cause if its not her itll be someone else. I need God’s miracle on this. The weight is getting heavy for me to bear now. My fear and relationship w/Jesus is the only thing keeping me sane but the lack of sleep is essential for our body and brain to repair itself thus I don’t know how much longer I can keep living this way. I tried eating right, meditating etc you name it but still my anger and anxiety makes me obsess about the situation and causing me to lose sleep. I barely even sleep before this. I average 5-6.5broken sleep but for a true insomniac 5 hrs straight is heaven. Anyone can relate or give any feedback will be much appreciated. Thank you. God bless.

Hi there,

It sounds like you've always had some anxiety and moderate difficulty sleeping but these issues with your neighbor are exacerbating both issues. I, too, have anxiety, insomnia, OCD, and I feel emotions very deeply (including anger). I average 5-6.5 hours of broken sleep per night currently, but when it was bad it was 3 hours of sleep a night for me. I recently started seeing a therapist to help me recognize my obsessive thoughts and to gradually learn to accept them (rather than fear them, engage them, or try to shut them out). I also just started a DBT therapy group that focuses on learning how to tolerate and accept feelings of distress, while also seeking to find mental calm. I really recommend seeing a therapist if you're not already, and I also recommend using the app Headspace. It guides you on meditation (something I never found to be effective until I got the step-by-step instructions from this app). It sounds like you've tried to deal with your neighbor politely to no avail and now when you see your neighbor you're filled with rage, and also some guilt (since you mentioned you don't want to cause drama). I don't recommend taking the low road and letting your anger get the best of you in your future interactions, but maybe there are reasonable actions you can take to ameliorate the problem and offer you some relief. For example, could you contact local police about her hitting your car? Another part is acceptance. Excuse my french, but some people are just a**holes and you can't always avoid that in the world. In my experience with a**holes, it always helps me to vent to others about it. Could you tell your cousins what's going on?
Also with the sleep, I do really feel for you. Sleep deprivation is not fun but you will survive. As long as you aren't going multiple nights in a row with literally zero sleep, you will feel unwell but you won't die. I've also learned that accepting the sleepiness and exhaustion is better than mentally "fighting" with it and being anxious about it. I used to obsess about my lack of sleep most of the day; no wonder I couldn't sleep at night. I know it's difficult but just try to take each day as it comes and go to bed at night with the mindset of "tonight, I just will try to relax", rather than "I need to sleep tonight, or else *insert horrible thing that's going to happen to you here*". In the meantime, know that there are lots of us here who have been where you are and who feel your pain!

Thank you for taking the time to read and give me feedback. I Agree some people are just complete assholes and it just sucks when all I want is to be left alone. The neighbor situation ultimately led to a moment of conflict because she was agressively staring when I was passing by her. I did my best to avoid confrontation but it had to be done. She is a big girl and perhaps didnt think I would defend myself since I am a lot thinner than her. Anyway, I just hate that I have to deal with people like her. And I obsess about the situation. Idk if its a cultural thing but I notice its mainly mexicans who does this and seems like its always the bigger girls who starts drama. How did you deal with “assholes” in the past?