Guilt over sleeping

[depressioncanfucoff]

I wonder if this or something similar is a thing some of you relate to.

In the recent weeks I couldn't sleep. That's not really anything new, I dealt with insomnia before for prolonged periods, but this is different. Before, it always was just the matter of not being able to sleep even if I try, like the usual lying in bed for hours without sleep type of insomnia.

But now, it's way more psychological, I don't feel like I deserve sleep, and going to bed feels like admitting defeat. And when I don't sleep, I feel weirdly accomplished, like not sleeping for days somehow makes me a better person? Maybe it's a self destructive thing.

Anyhow, do you have any experience similar to this, maybe some advice to overcome this?

 

[ForgottenAgain]

I'm not sure it is the exact same thing but I have experience of dealing very closely with someone that has insomnia. We've been trying to dig at the problem and so far this is the theory that we have for his case:
He associates relaxation with boredom, waste of time, "Just waiting to die" and sleeping requires relaxing and slowing down so, in a way, sleeping is the enemy.

This came from him spending more than half his life with a toxic home environment that required him to get angry constantly. Whilst a happy person feels neutral as a baseline, his "normal" is being angry and being angry makes you active mentally - it's the opposite of being relaxed. This is why he doesn't even yawn, he needs to spend 24h awake to yawn and yearn for sleep.

Now, this is very specific and may not be your case at all, but I thought giving this example could help you examine yourself and your life so you can figure out where the "not deserving sleep" comes from.

Do you feel like you're wasting time if you sleep? Are there things you want to do and if you don't sleep do you feel like you're more relaxed about doing them? Like you suddenly unlocked more time?

This person I talked about also has a gigantic fear of death, always feeling like every day is one day closer to death and that sleeping is just expediting his demise. You being in a ctb website may be the opposite of what you feel but I think it's an interesting thing to consider. Sometimes we may want death and at the same time feel like we haven't lived enough yet so need to make use of every hour and minute that exists.

 

[depressioncanfucoff]

I'm not sure it is the exact same thing but I have experience of dealing very closely with someone that has insomnia. We've been trying to dig at the problem and so far this is the theory that we have for his case:
He associates relaxation with boredom, waste of time, "Just waiting to die" and sleeping requires relaxing and slowing down so, in a way, sleeping is the enemy.

This came from him spending more than half his life with a toxic home environment that required him to get angry constantly. Whilst a happy person feels neutral as a baseline, his "normal" is being angry and being angry makes you active mentally - it's the opposite of being relaxed. This is why he doesn't even yawn, he needs to spend 24h awake to yawn and yearn for sleep.

Now, this is very specific and may not be your case at all, but I thought giving this example could help you examine yourself and your life so you can figure out where the "not deserving sleep" comes from.

Do you feel like you're wasting time if you sleep? Are there things you want to do and if you don't sleep do you feel like you're more relaxed about doing them? Like you suddenly unlocked more time?

This person I talked about also has a gigantic fear of death, always feeling like every day is one day closer to death and that sleeping is just expediting his demise. You being in a ctb website may be the opposite of what you feel but I think it's an interesting thing to consider. Sometimes we may want death and at the same time feel like we haven't lived enough yet so need to make use of every hour and minute that exists.

Well, it's partially the "unlocking more time", but not quite. It feels like an achievement in itself I guess. Not sleeping feels like I somewhat even out the time that I waste during the day either in bed or any way else. Which does make sense, I'm not any more productive at night, but it feels that way.

Also a smaller portion of it is fear I think. Before sleeping is when I feel intrusive thoughts get the worst, so trying to avoid that a bit is a portion.

I gotta say that while yes, I do want to ctb, I do fear death, like a lot. Not necessarily the concept, but the event. I did try, around a month ago, and that's the most terrifying experience I ever had in life.