Personal Experience: C-PTSD

I wanna talk about a series of issues/symptoms that can arise from C-PTSD, at least how I’ve experienced it. Essentially, childhood surgeries, assaults, etc. that I don’t feel like mentioning. It’s hard to articulate as it’s really all connected so sorry if this feels disjointed or confusing.

When I was 15, I stopped sleeping entirely, only sleeping when my body would crash (usually for no longer than an hour and in classes). It was an escape method I admit but I didn’t choose it. Figured the traumatizing stuff couldn’t affect me if I wasn’t awake to experience it (what a mistake that was, esp considering the surgery issue). Over several years have passed and it’s worse. I get so worked up when set off sometimes that I stay awake up to 72 hours, just trying to handle the buzzing and constantly looking over my shoulder. I now have hypersomnia, usually showing itself after intense sleep deprivation. We’ve discovered that when I’m set off, I just can’t stop going no matter how exhausted I am. Occasionally, I can’t stay awake longer than 6 hours. It really depends on what sets me off that time. We’ve collectively agreed that there’s nothing really to be done about it at this point (if something was going to work, it would’ve by now) so I don’t really expect to hold a job again. My nightmares are usually pretty bad and I’ve more than a few times slammed my partner into a wall in my sleep. We both have PTSD so things admittedly get difficult. One wrong move, either of us are gonna be messed up for a bit. Lovely guilt issues too since neither of us have great memory.

I found myself, during the last few years, hiding in the garage habitually to avoid noises in the home, drinking and smoking for hours. Or I found people willing to get plastered with me in places I could control so I wouldn’t have to think about what I was feeling. Honestly it felt like I was going to shatter if someone so much as looked at me wrong.

The thing is, I got to this point of self-medication because of medical trauma. I can’t walk into a medical building, especially if it has that smell, without panicking. I got asked to do a rather invasive test recently and I burst into tears and cold sweats, scratching my arms as hard as I could. Didn’t do it. I still get calls about a blood test I was asked to do in 2013. I see blood donation signs, the little bandages, and it takes everything I’ve got not to vomit. I really really detest blood drives. Eventually, I got fed up trying to fight doctors about specific treatments. They found me difficult to work with because I have a tendency to vanish if asked to do anything invasive or needle based. Everyone around me treats me like I’m being childish.

So I smoke and I drink. Keeps the nerves at bay, allows me (somewhat) to sleep. Also manages to keep the rage outbursts I’m prone to tightly locked up. At this point, I’m well aware where it’s coming from and what I need to do with it, it is just a matter of actually feeling it. And not exercising it away, which was my childhood coping mechanism. I recently moved into my own place so things aren’t as bad now. A solid chunk of triggers are gone simply by changing environment and people in my living space. I still heavily smoke but drinking I’ve lessened for my own good. I never wanted to be like this but if it keeps the pain out of my arm and it can turn off that constant over-analyzing and hypervigilance, then I’m gonna do it. Admittedly, I’ve only been aware of my trauma for about 3 years so I’m having quite the delayed response to it. I like to think I’m starting to heal but bad days happen.

Shrink’s note: Thank you for sharing your personal experiences.

Submitted by watcher-evervigilant

#PTSD #Somatic #Trauma #submission #insomnia #Triggers #medical #needles #self medication #alcohol #hypervigilance #personal experiences

scriptshrink

Anonymous asked:

How to do I write a character with Insomnia? Like some general guidelines on what to do and not to do.

Here’s a few guidelines:

Keep in mind that there are multiple kinds of insomnia.
Initial insomnia (sometimes called onset insomnia) - the character has trouble falling asleep.
Middle insomnia (sometimes called maintenance insomnia) - the character has trouble staying asleep, frequently waking up during the night.
Late insomnia (aka terminal insomnia) - the character wakes up a lot earlier than they meant to, and is unable to fall back asleep.
Long term insomnia has really negative effects on your character’s body and mind.
Insomnia is frequently comorbid with, or even a symptom of, other mental disorders.
Medications are not a cure-all.
Your character can build up tolerance to hypnotic medications quickly (some in as little as three days!) and while they do make you sleep, the sleep you get is not as restful. These kinds of medications can also be addictive.
Over the counter sleep medications do not work for insomnia - they can make you drowsy but do not actually affect how much sleep you get.
Melatonin isn’t addictive and can be slightly/moderately effective, but it’s best with people doing shift work or dealing with jet lag, not as a daily thing.

Hope that helps!

Disclaimer

#Anonymous #asks #Insomnia #sleep #sleep deprivation #medications #tolerance #psychopharmacology #how do i describe #comorbid #comorbid disorders #this is not psychological or medical advice #this is writing advice

scriptshrink

Anonymous asked:

I want to write a character (in the Percy Jackson Universe) that has extreme trouble falling asleep. However, they are a child of Hypnos, God of sleep. What illnesses would prevent them from sleeping? Insomnia or Nightmare disorder maybe? And (if you want), how would his sleep problems interact with the fact that their dad is the god of sleep?

Major Depressive Disorder has insomnia built into the criteria. Insomnia is also a possible symptom of a manic or hypomanic episode, as part of a Bipolar I or II diagnosis.

While not in the criteria, some anxiety disorders may prevent your character from sleeping because of their constant worrying. OCD could also work if your character is driven to perform time-consuming compulsions before they can go to sleep.

There is also a prion disease called fatal familial insomnia that causes insomnia; however, the lack of sleep caused by this disease is universally fatal, usually within one year after beginning to show symptoms.

In addition to insomnia or nightmare disorder, I have a bit of an unorthodox thing to suggest: central sleep apnea. Basically, the character’s brain forgets to tell their body to breathe while they’re asleep. While it doesn’t initially prevent someone from getting to sleep, it does mean that the character would be waking up frequently and not getting restful sleep. This may or may not work with your story, but I thought it’s a neat, unusual idea.

As for your last question, honestly, I have no idea. However, a certain proverb comes to mind: “The shoemaker’s children always go barefoot.”

Hope that helps!

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Anonymous asked:

I'm writing a character that doesn't sleep until she literally can't stay awake and passes out from exhaustion, because she's afraid of sleeping. Are there any conditions that cause this and if someone is aware of the problem, how can they help her?

Oh, boy, Anon. You have finally given me an excuse to talk about one of my favorite diseases.

So there’s this thing called “Fatal Familial Insomnia.” (FFI) In short, you stop being able to sleep. You go crazy. Then you die.

There are four stages to this disease:

4 months - First, the character gets chronic insomnia. They start getting paranoid, develop phobias, and begin having panic attacks. They start experiencing severe physical symptoms (excessive sweating, constipation, etc.)
5 months - The character begins having hallucinations and their panic attacks get much worse.
3 months - The character rapidly loses weight and is completely unable to sleep.
Over the course of the next 6 months, the character develops dementia, becoming completely unresponsive and mute.
Then they die. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

There’s no cure. Taking sleeping pills doesn’t work. In fact, being sedated makes the disease worse, and shortens the time until death. The only thing that’s even slightly helped someone with this disease is spending nights in complete sensory deprivation chambers. Even then, they still died within a few years.

FFI is an incredibly rare disease, and it’s only found in about 40 families in the world - hence the “familial” part of the name. Only about 100 people in the world today have tested positive for this disease.

So what causes such a horrifying thing?

Prions.

What the fuck is a prion, you ask?

Well, it’s something that can spread an infectious disease, just like bacteria or viruses. But prions are different in that they’re made from something that’s usually normal inside the body - a protein - that has just been made wrong. And it begins to spread its wrongness to other proteins. These proteins basically begin to eat holes in your character’s brain.

Yes. LITERAL HOLES.

Some prion diseases are fairly well known, such as Mad Cow disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, kuru, and scrapie. But FFI will always be my favorite.

This is probably not what you wanted, but I will take any excuse I can to talk about this disease. >_> Prions are terrifying and awesome. But mostly terrifying.

Even still, looking at the symptoms experienced by people with FFI, who have severe, long-term insomnia, might help you writing your character. If that still isn’t what you’re looking for, I should have the Demystifying the DSM for Sleep Disorders (including insomnia) early-ish next year :).

Get some sleep, y’all. WHILE YOU CAN.

For more info:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160118-the-tragic-fate-of-the-people-who-stop-sleeping

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-prion-love-story

#Anonymous #asks #prions #fatal familial insomnia #insomnia #this is not psychological or medical advice #this is writing advice #characterization #rem #sleep #ffi #diseases #best of scriptshrink

scriptshrink

Anonymous asked:

What does a character have to undergo for them to have constant nightmares/insomnia ?? I'm writing a script for a comic and it needs to be limited to reality, sadly, and the characters are around 17 so I don't know much about what could affect them to get these sleeping disorders ?

Technically? Nothing. Nightmare disorder doesn’t require trauma (although it certainly helps). So if you don’t want to have a trauma in your character’s past, you don’t need to include it. Your character could just be extremely unlucky.

The Nightmare Disorder could even be the cause of their insomnia - the characters could have no problems falling asleep (aside from anxiety about possibly having nightmares), but when they wake up from said nightmares, they’re too freaked out to go back to sleep. So they’re just laying there in the middle of the night, unable to sleep at all.

I’ll go into Nightmare Disorder in a future demystifying the DSM-V, but that one might take a while to get to! In the meantime, wikipedia has a half-decent overview of the topic.

#Anonymous #asks #nightmare #nightmare disorder #insomnia #trauma #this is not psychological or medical advice #this is writing advice