If I Knew Then

One of the main reasons I finally decided to reach out for professional help was because of my sleep. I’ve always been the type of person who sleeps really late and still rallies for work in the morning, but I reached a point where that wasn’t the case.

Right before reaching out to a psychiatrist I had been having a lot of problems with my sleep. I had horrible insomnia that would cause me to toss and turn until dawn, or sleeping only a couple hours at a time. On the other hand, I was also experiencing the opposite effect. I began spending my weekends sleeping all day. I would wake up around 10 am, eat, and go to sleep, then wake up a few hours later and repeat.

For someone that cherishes their sleep this may not seem like a horrible scenario, except it was. My lack of sleep was making me super irritable and quick to upset. I was having a hard time enjoying my job and finding the necessary energy to go out or even run errands. On the other hand, sleeping all weekend ate up a lot of my time, leaving me rushed to finish things I had to do over the weekend, and straining my friendships by not responding for days at a time.

I reached a point where I couldn’t recognize myself in the mirror. I was miserable and tired, and the little energy I had left was taken up by erratic mood swings. My change in behavior was so evident that I even had several coworkers comment on how I didn’t seem to be myself, and the truth is, I wasn’t. I was showing up late to work, barely interacting, and when I did, I had to peel myself out of my seat.

When I reached out for help I was nervous to see if this would be the solution I needed. I had tried everything to sleep at that point, and I mean everything. Hydroxyzine, melatonin, herbal supplements, essential oils and more. Nothing was working even a little. After sometime I was offered trazodone by my doctor and it has changed my sleep for the better. I’ve been able to fall asleep a bit easier and stay asleep at night. That’s not to say that I don’t have nights that are still hard, but thankfully they are far and few between.

A lot of times I gaslight myself into thinking a lot of my symptoms are made up or not as serious as I find them to be. Sleeping poorly was one of those cases. I dealt with it for a really long time, convincing myself that it would change eventually and that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Except it was. It affected every aspect of my life and my happiness, even impacting those around me.

Listening to yourself and trusting your intuition is so important when dealing with mental health. At the end of the day, we are our biggest advocates and we need to prioritize our needs.

And as beautiful as Sleeping Beauty may be, we don’t really want to sleep like her, do we?