I was laying here in bed in the dark listening to my heart beat - It's 3:18 a.m. Thoughts have been ruminating through my head at light speed, as if caught in a temporal loop with no awareness of their repetitive state. I was repeating spelling every letter in the alphabet, phonetically of course; "A -- a, B -- bee, C -- see (or sea or cee). Last night it was word association: twitter, bird, jay, Murry, pal, friends, introvert, inside my head, song, big wreck... Totally f#&*ed up or what!?
Is this my fate? Am I destined to live a life where panic and obsession rule my life? I swear, just when I thought things were going good, "WHAM!" their back again. I hate the feeling of anxiety, but I sometimes think the obsessive thoughts are worse. Obsessions exhaust my mind usually at night when I should be sound asleep. No wonder I am feeling tired, cranky and not rested this past week.
I am trying not to invest too much emotional attention to this matter yet because this might only be a passing phase. (For anyone who has been reading my blog entries over the past year you may recall me being absent for some time due to panic, anxiety, and OCD.) Perhaps my mom was right; she would often tell me I had a restless soul, after many sleepless nights in my teen years were spent cleaning and re sorting my bedroom or stay up until the wee hours clicking away on my old green Hermes typewriter (remember those?).
So here I sit...
Can anyone tell me how do you sooth a "restless soul"?
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9 comments:
I have infrequent bouts with my monkey mind and I've just learned to resign myself to it. I end up doing something "productive": laundry, clean out files, update iPhoto. Those things that should be done but I don't want to do in "prime productivity" time. Sorry you are restless. Hope you get some sleep soon!
What is it about that hour between 3 and 4 in the morning? I often lie awake and ruminate and worry and obsess then, too.
I hope you are just in a passing "phase" as you say...
Sometimes, I actually try to wake my husband and he talks me out of my anxiety-ridden thoughts and calms me down by just hugging me(but we can't do that all the time, either).
3:00 a.m. wakeups are the worst... if I get a series of them, the thing that puts them away is getting up and being productive. Laundry at 4:00 a.m. sometimes sucks, but it's better than worrying that I'm not sleeping. I haven't had them in a while... but I know the cycle.
Hang in there, Jack, xoxo
oh hunny, i hear you. this happens to me too. and no, i don't have a quick fix for this. time......
Yes... when it goes on too long it seems the laundry soothes me as well. Get up... throw on a load... fold a load. Shake the squirrels from your mind. I find it helps to turn the tv or radio on to put something in my mind other than my own thoughts. It's scary in there... scariest in the middle of the night. Good luck finding rest my friend.
Hi, my name is Carole, and I have a thinking problem.
Why is it so hard to turn off the machine at night? Those cogs and wheels turning endlessly, sometimes they screech and churn and other times they turn so noiselessly and proficiently.
I once had this lucid dreamy moment when I was hovering above my body when suddenly I could see, actually SEE my thought process as little neon streams of lights. As they began to form they pinged inside my head at the speed of, well, neon light :P searching for the other half that would complete each thought.
I got up, went to pee, thought...how cooool, then got back into bed to listen to the noise inside my head.
(I know, totally certifiable, right?)
I've had so many of those restless anxiety filled nights that now I just get something out to work on and focus my mind and energy on something worthwhile. I don't know how you make it stop.
Oh Jack, I totally understand. As a young girl I faced a few tragedies right in a row and they really shook my little world. I found myself slowly falling into a sadness, a consumption of darkness that wasn't my inherent personality. But one thing I knew for sure was that prayer worked. I challenged God every day to help me see something beautiful even when it was so dark. I think what happened then was a retraining of my mind to rest itself on happy things, force it to really look in a different light then what I wanted too. So I made it my personal mission every day to find that ONE thing and journal about it. I called it my "happy thoughts journal". Whether it was my aunt having a baby, a little bird by my window, a rainbow after a never ending rain storm or a new blade of grass after a long winter. I found it. I made myself find it. Even now, after all these years I make an attempt every day to do the same, especially when I feel those old feelings coming back of despair or anxiousness. I knew that I had the whole world to love and discover and I had other people out in the world like me who faced uncertain sadness because of situations that stole happiness from them. I knew that I wanted to conquer this anxious mind, this whole in my heart this sand in my picture. And I did! I'm thinking of you during this time and lifting you up in prayer like I did myself so long ago. Keep heart!
Hugs!!!
Emily
Ack, the true witching hour in my mind...insomnia for whatever reason is terrible (thank heavens for the internet and pretty blogs)...although recently, while thinking on some similar thoughts I wondered??? As hard as it is, what would it be like to be one of those folk who don't query quite so much...
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