Night time is the worst time

Old 03-05-2010, 06:09 PM
  # 1 (permalink)  
Not all better, getting better
Thread Starter
 
tyler's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: The Beautiful Inner Banks of NC
Posts: 1,702
Night time is the worst time

I don't know why nights are so hard for me. It seems like once the sun has set the demons come out. Night time is the only time I ever drank, except for some Sunday afternoon football, but that was social. As far as the numbing, drinking to escape by myself, it has always been at night. I will lay awake at night for hours beating on myself for past wrongs, of which there are many to choose from. I send emails to my ex, blowing the tinyest "slight" way out of proprotion. She's about the best ex you could ask for, and was the best wife too. But at night my brain gets muddled about stuff and I sometimes lash out.

Just about every theripist I've worked with over the years has questioned if I had some kind of sexual tramua in my childhood years. I always thought this to be absurd, but a few years back had some snap shot memories come back to me in a polarity therpay session. It really freaked me out, I still don't know if it was real or not. I was pretty messed up at the time, getting drunk every night, high all the time, not a good period in my life. But at the time it was a very real experience and I'm still not sure what to do with it. If it is ever brought up in a therpy session, I get very anxious to the point of having physical tics and spasims. I just don't know if it a box I want to open up. I think about it and if I try to explore it I get so freaked out I stuff it all back inside. Maybe whatever happened happened at night? I don't know. All I know is I can have a perfectly good, even great night, then after 6 or 7 it all starts coming apart.

I've never really brought any of this stuff up on this forum before. It's embarassing to discuss and I don't like to think about it anyway. But I'm starting to think it is something I need to address. I've posted on another site that is for this stuff, but I just don't have the same comfort level I have here. Anyway, just wanted to put it out there because my son is coming up to visit in about an hour and I'm feeling like $hit. I had a great day, felt pumped up after work, and now it's all gone. I'm sure I'll feel better when he gets here, I hope so anyway. Thanks for listening.
tyler is offline  
Old 03-05-2010, 06:15 PM
  # 2 (permalink)  
RIP Sweet Suki
 
suki44883's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: In my sanctuary, my home
Posts: 39,729
I don't have any words of wisdom. I just wanted to give you a hug. (((((TYLER)))))
suki44883 is offline  
Old 03-05-2010, 07:10 PM
  # 3 (permalink)  
Guest
 
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Virginia
Posts: 182
Thank you for sharing that! Several therapists I've been to also thought there was some history of sexual abuse, but I don't remember any. I blocked a bunch of years of my childhood completely out though so it's possible. I used to obsess about it, but a few years back I decided I wasn't going to let it bother me as much because I may never know what really happened. If I was sexually abused there's nothing I can do about it now. All I can do is move forward with life and make my present a decent place.

I made that sound easy and it wasn't. I had a lot of help from a great therapist.

In any event, the level of anxiety you're dealing with sounds miserable and crippling. Some people have great success with recalling blocked memories with EMDR therapy. If you were abused maybe you can bring it to the surface and deal with/process those emotions. Maybe you'll find out you never were abused!

Good luck to you in any event and keep your head up! I hope that a visit from your son was able to put a smile on your face
FuzzyFatSacks is offline  
Old 03-05-2010, 07:19 PM
  # 4 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 4,682
Tyler the night time was the worst for me, i know exactly what you mean! It was only the last couple of years that i started to drink more during the day. I spent a long time drinking how you have done.

I hated the night with a passion, all the fear came at night. I would find myself pacing up and down driving myself crazy about what i had done over the years and what i had not done, time wasted, what sort of person i was...trying to watch films or listen to music but not being able to concentrate on anything. Blaming everybody in my life where there was no cause for any blame, asking why won't someone help me?

When i was younger, late teens and early twenties, i used to stay up all night a lot...until i was so tired that i had to go to sleep. I went through a stage of panic attacks and going to bed at night praying that i would not wake up. I started to cut myself on my arms for a while, got into a routine of drinking alone watching movies, taking the bottle of wine round the corner of the street, smashing it, coming back with a piece of glass, slicing arms on outside then wiping with toilet tisssue and going to sleep...lovely days for my mother!

I don't know where it comes from, but i never associated it with drinking weirdly enough, i mean yeah i drank but so did everyone else.

So fast forward back to early thirties, and the days i would not drink and went out at night and it was fear everywhere i went...so i would have a night on the booze, then next night off and try and go and meet a friend in town, be too scareed to even meet them, totally uncomfortable etc and it was always at night...never any fear, well less, during the day...i always thought it was maybe because i always got in trouble at night and maybe thats what it was? But i remember, now, that i have always hated the night, as far as i can remember as a kid and this was way before drinking started...

Even now i find it hard to sleep without a background light on of some sort or the laptop screen at least...

The pacing and the remource and the inability to relax have gone and that went when i did the steps, there is a secular way to them too i think...maybe there is another way to do this, but just letting you know that this is when it all got better...

Hope you get some peace:-) And yeah not something i normally post about either...
yeahgr8 is offline  
Old 03-05-2010, 08:29 PM
  # 5 (permalink)  
Not all better, getting better
Thread Starter
 
tyler's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: The Beautiful Inner Banks of NC
Posts: 1,702
Thanks everyone. My son arived and we had a good time, but now he's asleep and I'm alone with the demons again. Not drinking anymore, so that's a good thing at least.

I can really identify with your post yeahgr. I have a very hard time sleeping without my fan. It's an old box fan, from Kmart. I've had it for about 30 years, and run it just about every night. I even take it with me on trips, if I'm driving. Part of it is the noise cancels out other distractions, but there is also a certain calm it gives me. I started using it when I was about 12 years old, the same time I think these incidents may have happened. I've got only spotty memories of before then, but my memory is pretty hazy in general. Turns out all that $hit our parents told us about drugs and alcohol killing brain cells was true!! Hate it when that happens.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, but I do appreciate the support. Thanks all. Take care. I think I'll try to go to sleep now.
tyler is offline  
Old 03-05-2010, 08:41 PM
  # 6 (permalink)  
RIP Sweet Suki
 
suki44883's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: In my sanctuary, my home
Posts: 39,729
I have a very hard time sleeping without my fan. It's an old box fan, from Kmart. I've had it for about 30 years, and run it just about every night. I even take it with me on trips, if I'm driving. Part of it is the noise cancels out other distractions, but there is also a certain calm it gives me.

OMG! Me, too! I absolutely cannot sleep without my box fan. I run it every night all year round. I've had to replace them occasionally, and I absolutely hate that they are making them "whisper quiet" these days. I want it loud! LOL!
suki44883 is offline  
Old 03-05-2010, 09:48 PM
  # 7 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 26,425
tyler,

I come from a background of sexual abuse pre-alchohol...alchohol saved me from that for a long time, but then put me in positions for more abuse....eventually my "answer" was killing me...

I always reemmbered some of my past, but I fluffed over it for many years sober...

The bottom line is that we deal with that stuff when we feel safe enough to do so and not before...alchoholism saved me from suicide at 16...when i had to give that up, denial (not intentional) and minimizing (believing my lies to myself) protected me for a period of time.

Eventually thru a support group we don't mention I felt safe enough and protected enough to actually look at that stuff....and when my life is full of fear and i feel unsafe....that stuff gets set aside till I am again in a place to look at it with usually a new perspective.

Its a fine line, I don't need to push for more to be revealed to my concious mind....but i also can't run from it when it becomes apparent because to do so would be a trip back to self deception and denial of reality that ends for me in a drink.

I try to just relax and let the process happen....ok...I don't do that too well, but thats what i am for and most of the people around me are very supportive of my path through this.

Sometimes the feelings that people have from sexual abuse come from other more subtle abuses, or sometimes expereinces that had to happen (like being in a hospital isolated from your parents at a very young age for months on end for one...).

You'll find out what the fear is and learn to deal with it as you progress in your recovery and everyone here will be here to encourage you through the process as it develops for you.
Ananda is offline  
Old 03-05-2010, 10:03 PM
  # 8 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 4,682
Ok guys that is freaky! Mine are fans too! I am in a Hotel at the moment and i can't sleep without the fan on, y'know the aircon unit thing that blasts out air from the wall...also in Gibraltar there were fans on all of the ceilings and they made this super clicking noise when on full pelt...looked like they were going to fall off the ceiling they went so fast...

It was that bad i saw a girl for a few years there and on some nights i would sleep in the spare room because i had to have the fan...it drowned out the normal background noises like a cat outside, the sound of a car engine etc which would wake me up or annoy me...

When it got too bad in Barcelona last year i would also have to have the telly on playing a fav sitcom in the background, sometime with the sound on sometimes off...

Thanks for posting tyler, because i really haven't thought about this before, it's got so it's just something that i do...huh?! I don't know what to do about it, i'll mention it to my counselor next week!

One more thing, i wasn't sexually or physically abused as a child but i was emotionally abused (wow thats hard to say as a guy isn't it!)...there is not a lot i can do about the child back then, i have made my amends and forgiven, so it's more...for me anyway...about y'know dealing with things today and i did through the group ananda didn't mention, hehe, and counselling...and reading i guess...little by little one foot in front of the other stuff:-)
yeahgr8 is offline  
Old 03-05-2010, 10:32 PM
  # 9 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 26,425
ok...time to fesss up....i run the overhead fan all year....drives my family batty......

It isn't just the noise, but also the feel of the wind on my arms...somehow it makes me feel safer...silence in the night and lack of air movement...i feel sufficated and scared...

wow....


dang...now i think i might have trouble getting to sleep :rotfxko
Ananda is offline  
Old 03-06-2010, 05:32 AM
  # 10 (permalink)  
Not all better, getting better
Thread Starter
 
tyler's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: The Beautiful Inner Banks of NC
Posts: 1,702
Who would have thought a Kmart fan would run for 30 years??!! Especially when it runs at least 8 hours a day 99% of the time!! That's a lot of hours on the old thing. Guess they just don't make 'em like they used to.

I used to be a constant sourse of frustration and annoyance to my wife when we were still married. Not sure what I'll do if I ever get into another relationship. Strangly, my uncle who was also emotionally and physically abused as a child also slept with an extremely noisy fan. Hmmm, might be onto something here!!
tyler is offline  
Old 03-06-2010, 06:29 AM
  # 11 (permalink)  
Member
 
MidwestSheRides's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 148
Re: Night time is the worst time...

I'm right there with you Tyler...I'm scared sh%tless of the dark, everything changes and all bets are off. I never know if it's going to be 1 more good, sober night or a start to another binge where I can't predict when it will end. I find myself taken to random driving at night, sometimes several hours away...because it's not home and I don't know what else to do.

I've got the fan running at night in the bedroom as well, since I was a teenager. If you want loud, Suki, you need to go with a commercial fan (big and blowy and loud).

Interesting to read about the possible link to abuse. A few years ago, a therapist recommended to me the EMDR therapy Fuzzy mentioned because I was having such a hard time talking about it.
MidwestSheRides is offline  
Old 03-06-2010, 06:45 AM
  # 12 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 4,682
OMG i forgot about the drives!!!! Yeah i used to do that on the nights i didn't drink (a few years ago now admittedly), i would get in the car and drive about 50-75 miles, i think it was because it was something to do that would kind of relieve the constant 'thinking' in my head, also have the music blaring...maybe trying to get away from me, dunno?!

I remember in Spain when i was mid twenties they even used to poke fun at it, where's cliff is he not coming out tonight...hes gone on one of his drives...wow i seriously forgot! And always the fantasising of better days, just anything not to be living in that moment...thanks Midwest!
yeahgr8 is offline  
Old 03-06-2010, 07:04 AM
  # 13 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 4,682
Went over edit time...

I've probably told this before but...

When i was 30 (38 now) i made some money in London and left the job, moved down to my home town, rented an unfurnished house for 6 months...to sober up...i went to a nice furniture shop and bought all the furniture, all the electrical equipment, massive telly, spare bed for spare room...i was all set to be normal now!

I had a small blackboard that i would rest on the mantlepiece above the fire place with 1-28 written on it...the goal was to get to 28 days without drinking, i got it from that film 28 days with sandra bullock of all places! Anyways never got there...

I remember i would always get so far then crack and order a taxi to the casino (25 miles away) and off i would go for the night, i was so happy at the start of these nights, all dressed up, beers in the taxi over (gave them big tip!) just like james bond?!...then back to day 1 again and the horror of the night before.

Looking back it was total isolation between trips out, i literally would hardly go out at all, except for drives and to get food...nothing...the day after was horrendous it was like i was having mild panic attacks all the time and these would last for 2/3 days, like suddenly getting up and walking around feeling like i was unable to breathe and doing something quick to take my mind off of it...then, as we have said, the night time would come...i hated the night man!

I remember having a talk with the housekeeper (i know!) in the kitchen, this poor lady who was cleaning my house to make ends meet, telling her how much money i had left and i didn't know what to do with my life...could she tell me what to do...she looked quite annoyed (not suprisingly) and said you could pick up the envelopes when you open your post and not just throw them on the floor for me to pick up...cue another resentment!

One of my favourite songs through all of this was papa roach - last resort, always the last time i would do it...

OT i know but good for me to write it down:-)
yeahgr8 is offline  
Old 03-06-2010, 07:43 AM
  # 14 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 26,425
year..i actually made 7 years sober once...but i did it by almost intirely isolating...work and home...gardened, read, meditation and spiritual stuff to fill the time....I was the hermit in the cave as much as a person can be in today's world....

These days i'm pretty tempted by that...I mean it was the truest happiness I had in my life.....

but..I did it by ceasing all contact possible with the outside world which for me was full of scarry people who would hurt me.....

It was beautiful time...but...one of my biggest fears today is taht I might end up back in that life.....I don't wanna only be happy if there are no people in my life....

I really think I missed the trip!

sorry rambling this thread has opened me up
Ananda is offline  
Old 03-06-2010, 08:35 AM
  # 15 (permalink)  
Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude
 
Zencat's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Oxnard (The Nard), CA, USA.
Posts: 13,687
Tyler it sounds like not knowing...or maybe it can be better said, not remembering if you were traumatized as child or not, would be just as distressing as being able to remember such trauma.

I know that my childhood traumatic experience changed the course of my sexual/gender and personality development. I've come across similar stories on the web and have spent a good deal of time in therapy understanding the progression of the trauma throughout my life. I'm guessing you already have learned about some of the adult symptoms of childhood trauma. Thus being able to see how having those symptoms can point to having experienced trauma even without a clear memory of the trauma. As you probably already know the mind dose a excellent job of repressing trauma memories especially in childhood. Whatever the case, trust the experience your having with this situation because it is causing real problems.

Ah...running a fan at night or day to sooth or drown out the silence. In my experience it really helps to calm my mind as well....particularly when I lay down to go to sleep. I been thinking about getting some books on CD to play at bed time...some meditative kind of stuff. I'll have a look at the library and see what they have.

I'm hoping and pulling for you Tyler...that you can manage well the stress your experiencing. Keep developing and refining those coping skills that can ease this stress.
Zencat is offline  
Old 03-07-2010, 05:15 PM
  # 16 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 26,425
well sht..hope i'm not hijacking...but...

last night i stayed at moms house (yes where the abuse occured) and I slept ate and according to mom was very noisey and vocal in my sleep....I just new i woke up with an empty container of cinnimon rolls next to my bed and feeling tired lol

Alls well, cause on the way home i had one of the most defining golden moments of the last 25 years of my life...maybe my whole life...

out of the chaos can come some since of peace and harmony

sorry..i'm being wierd but i'm still sorta blown away!
Ananda is offline  
Old 03-09-2010, 07:17 AM
  # 17 (permalink)  
Member
 
allport's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: north yorkshire, england
Posts: 1,891
Ha who knew that not being able to sleep without some noise was so common?

I use the TV or audio books rather than a fan (I live in the chilly north), since I sleep badly anyway I tried the common advice to have a completely dark and quiet bedroom and I didn't sleep for a week.

I had to keep getting up to check the windows and door because I kept 'hearing' people outside trying to get in (the adult version of monsters under the bed I suppose).

Every counsellor or psychotherapist I have seen has seemed to think there must have been some kind of massive trauma or abuse in my childhood, I have been asked about it by more than a few friends too.

The weird thing is there was no trauma of any kind (bar the usual teen angst), when I was a member of AA I did a very comprehensive step 4 which included (by my sponsors request) a total life history which also included asking other members of my family for their memories and I have a good recall of my life from a pretty early age and why I am the way I am is a mystery still.

This is partly why I am set on behavioural treatments for my many problems, I spent a lot of time and energy doing counselling etc and searching for root problems and it just didn't help.

I am not dismissing this route, for those who it helps it is great, but for me I think it is a dead end.

Sorry I am rambling now nice thread Tyler.
allport is offline  
Old 03-09-2010, 08:38 AM
  # 18 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 26,425
lots of sense there alley.

I use a two pronged approach....

it can be useful to understand the past
it's absolutely required I be able to deal with the present

Behavior mod, counciling, looking at the past, looking at the present, not just understanding..but implementation....

mostly the past helps me to begin to see underneath my outside appearance to see whats going on inside...gives me a clearer picture of what my mind is doing so i can move forward when that mind is just plain looney tunes
Ananda is offline  
Old 03-11-2010, 09:17 PM
  # 19 (permalink)  
Not all better, getting better
Thread Starter
 
tyler's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: The Beautiful Inner Banks of NC
Posts: 1,702
Staying up late...binge eating...trying to fill...something, I'm not sure what, but it never gets filled. Better than drinking and getting high, but still sick.
tyler is offline  
Old 03-12-2010, 08:47 AM
  # 20 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 26,425
tyler (hug)

Time take time....i know it sucks...but your recognizing what you are doing....thts the start of wanting something different...which will lead to actions that lead to change (hug)
Ananda is offline  

Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are Off




All times are GMT -7. The time now is 02:51 AM.