I really hate going to bed at night, any advice?

Get some therapy to discover the underlying anxieties that you seem to be suffering..”..a hollow empty lost feeling inside of me” is a poetic but classic description of depression.

Depression overview

Aw, I’m so sorry you’re experiencing this. Did you lose someone you love, to trigger the feelings of lonely? Can you get a dog or a cat, if you don’t already have one?

Make friends with the night. If it helps you bridge this time, keep music or tv playing very softly in the background. I am very often alone, too, so if it helps…you at least know you’re not the only person who is alone.

Okay, I just read your profile, and wanted to say that I think you’re a very brave person. It takes courage to reach out ( courage that I am often lacking). I hope people have some good suggestions for you.

@GoldieAV16 thankyou that did help knowing I am not the only one! There is a hungry stray cat hanging around our building lately,and I quite like him or her, she or he is lost. I might make a new friend. Thank you for your kind words.

Dear Shippy, I have been in that place, too, where I want to sleep, but I don’t want to close my eyes and give in. I’m very lucky to have a knowledgeable and kind therapist whom I could confide in. She quickly got to the heart of the matter and told me that I was scared of losing control.

Sleep takes us in, but we don’t know what’s going to happen while asleep. I was trapped in the fear of losing control to dreams, to the bogey man, and to all sorts of strange night things. Mostly, it was an extension of the fear of losing me.

I was afraid of falling asleep and waking up as some other person or something alien altogether.

Talking about it to a therapist helped the most. I hope you can get some relief by writing about it here. I truly hope you can reach past the fear and luxuriate in blissful sleep.

@Hawaii_Jake yes that is it, losing me, like sinking into a black hole where I have no control and I am gone. How did you manged to get passed that? If I may ask?

First, talking and writing about it helped the most. Talking to a therapist was great. She really put things into perspective for me. She had the knowledge and expertise to do that. I highly recommend talk therapy, if you’re in a situation where you can do it.

I wrote about it in a journal a lot, too. That was for my eyes only, so I didn’t have to fear what others might think. I put my fears down on paper, and they slowly began to lose their power.

Fear does not like to be put out in the open. You are doing a wonderful thing for you by asking this question. My fears did not go away overnight by talking and writing about them, but they did go away.

@Thank you

It sort of depends on how you want to approach it. It sounds like at times you will not be able to shut your mind off and that will keep you awake. Aside of talking to a Dr and getting something to help you sleep, find things that you can be productive doing and use your mind in that productive way.

I am just a night owl and only undersand the sleepless because I feel like my day is usually not complete. There are certainly enough people out here to exchange.

@Shippy, I know you don’t have the funds to see a therapist right now. I remember you telling us that in other posts. It actually makes me cross that people cannot access help when they need it. I hope that situation will change for you soon.

In the meantime, I love @GoldieAV16‘s idea of getting a pet. Especially if there is already a needy little creature who has come into your life, feeding it and taking care of it might give you another focus. I hope so. As you say, at least you will have another living creature to cuddle and care for.

Also, as @Hawaii_Jake writing is such a valuable way of getting your thoughts out. I think writing can be its own form of therapy. It will also help pass the time when you aren’t sleeping. Perhaps try not to focus on sleeping or not sleeping but use the time while you are awake meaningfully? Set yourself tiny goals. A list of things you want to write about that have happened in your life? Books you have to read. To walk to particular places in your location. To visit sites in your city you have meant to visit. Hopefully this will help you to shift the focus from yourself and how you are feeling, to other things. It won’t replace therapy and I am not suggesting it will help you to feel less depressed, but it might help a little. Worth a try. Keep talking to us too.

@Shippy : I really like @Bellatrix‘s suggestion of setting tiny goals. When I was in my worst depression, I had to do that. One goal for one day. Some days my goal was just to brush my teeth. I had to keep it that simple. I like all of @Bellatrix‘s suggestions for how to fill your time.

@Hawaii_Jake yes totally; brushing my teeth was a goal and also to shower. Sometimes it took the entire day to get in there! I have improved so much, I have been out and about (not as much as I should but small goals). Visited friends and also seen clients for my web site business. Small things knock me back or I don’t know I’m supposed to be a rapid cycler so maybe it’s that. Had a bad few days, but take it one day at a time. I thank you all for being on Fluther it has really helped me too.

The solution is simple: Don’t.

I was born a nightowl. I get my best energy at 3am, which means my circadian rhythms are diametrically opposite those of the daylark majority. Even as a child, I’d hide under the blankets until the sun came up, reading with a flashlight, because I just wasn’t tired at night. There is evidence that being nocturnal is genetic and can be inherited, which makes sense from an evolutionary perspective; there is a survival advantage to the tribe if a small minority remain awake, energetic, and on guard while the rest of the tribe sleeps. If you just aren’t tired at night, then don’t sleep at night.

On the other hand, if you’re genuinely tired and just can’t fall asleep, as someone who occasionally experiences insomnia, I have an excellent solution which works 100% of the time: stay awake. If you simply stay awake long enough, the insomnia will be cured, every single time.

However… it seems from reading between the lines of your question that this isn’t really about sleep at all, but about the dread of being forced to lie motionless with your thoughts clear and lucid. I have experienced severe, crippling, and untreatable clinical depression all my life, and I know well how it feels to be alone and terrified and utterly without hope. The problem is that those feelings are right and you know it. The world is a harsh, dark, dismal, unpleasant, brutal, lonely, horrible place.

Repeated clinical studies have shown that people who are depressed show marked superior judgement to those who are not depressed. For example, depressed people are much better at judging whether a given shape will fit a given hole than those who are not depressed, who err constantly on the side of optimism. This suggests that depression is really just the removal of a filter which makes the world appear irrationally pleasant and fair to everyone else.

To be forced to see things as they really are in a world of fools and mealy-mouthed pollyannas with rainbows and unicorns shooting from their quivering assblossoms is a terrible thing. The reward for enduring this is suffering and pain. While this might not seem like much of a reward, bear in mind that existential choice is always, by definition, painful. Those of us who see the world as it is, and who stand unflinching, gazing into the Abyss, have made an existential choice to do so. No animal can do it. The vast majority of the population will not. In the case of animals they are driven by the flesh to avoid pain, and in the case of people they lack the Will to bear it. Only the great haters, the “arrows of longing for the other shore,” as Nietzsche put it, have the strength to bear the burden of lucid perception. Don’t be afraid to lie in bed and feel the weight of loneliness and despair in your heart; accept it. Let the pain burn away what is common in you and reveal the Overman who fearlessly strides where angels fear to tread. You won’t be happy, but you will be great.

@SmashTheState That was just…awesome.

@SmashTheState : I am glad that works for you. My depression was only solved through therapy with a trained professional and medication prescribed and monitored by a medical doctor.

Left to myself and being isolated from society at large and professionals especially, I can only imagine how much worse the nightmare would have become. Even with the help it was horrid enough.

Depressed people are at much greater risk of attempting suicide. I know that reality firsthand.

@Shippy : If you can find any way to do it, seek professional help. You don’t have to feel depressed. It’s not necessary. There are treatments available. There is not one single member of Fluther qualified to treat you online. You need to see someone in person.

@Hawaii_Jake Unfortunately I cannot afford it at this time. I would be first in line I can assure you. It is hard yes, and when I could not get bathed and dressed, I’d go hungry. As I had to go out and buy food. I think hunger is my main motivator to keep moving. But yes I am battling. I take it one day at a time.

@Shippy : You keep on doing that one day at a time. When I was extremely depressed, I had to set myself very small goals as I mentioned above. First would be brushing my teeth, and then it might be to get something to eat. (I hated eating when I was severely depressed.) Going shopping was torture. I had to concentrate on precisely what I was doing: driving, parking, walking into the store, and getting the things on the list. I had to follow the list to the letter. I couldn’t deviate.

It was quite sad. There was no room for joy. I have that today. Writing in a journal is a great idea, as well as taking care of an animal. I have a friend whose cat really helped him through depression.

Anxiety means your mind is creating danger that does not exist in reality 99% of the time. It is your body poised in the “fight or flight” mode, but, in reality there are no lions, tigers and bears scratching at your door. Our minds are powerful “tools” but they have a tendency to make up stories that are simply untrue. Yes, talk to your doc or therapist, maybe take a mild sedative and put on some soothing bedtime music, or a cd of an inspirational/spiritual speaker.

Eckhart Tolle has some very good works and a soothing voice to listen to as well.
You may need some intervention for depression, but in my experience from some years ago, I truly believe, short of brain chemistry issues that depression/anxiety is a GIFT!
It is a calling from deep within you that you are needing to make some changes in your life.
I called my experience with this about 10 years ago, my “nervous breakthrough! :-)

People tend to try to mask and medicate against the soul and psyches calling to grow and change. In many instances depression and anxiety are the growing pains that proceed a big breakthrough in consciousness and a co-corresponding “shift” into new and better territory, both within and without. :-)
What we resist persists…don’t resist, surrender! :-)

“Throughout Barton’s long, difficult and staggeringly successful life, she self-medicated through service, her diaries reveal, using the most intense, bloody work imaginable to keep the “thin black snakes” of sadness from closing in.” from a very good article about Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross in the US. I suggest you read it, @Shippy.

Get a job like myself where you have to perform physical labor for 10 to 14 hours a day for 5 to 6 days a week. Trust me, you will look forward to sleep after this.

I have the same problem. When I close the blinds at night, I get this empty, dreadful feeling. The night is supposed to be a peacful time, but when I lie down to sleep, my mind goes into overdrive, dredging up all the worries and regrets that I didn’t have time to think about during the day.

Since this problem has been with me for most of my life, I’ve developed an arsenal of coping strategies, including:

1. Reading—This gives me something more pleasant to think about before sleep.

2. Relaxing music

3. Melatonin supplements—Use sparingly, as your body can develop a tolerance to them.

As the others have said, talk therapy is probably the best long-term solution, but I fully empathize with being unable to afford health care. In that case, look to friends for support. Just having someone to talk to can help to ease your fears.

@lonelydragon Thank you

Consider leaving a lamp on.