I recently had a follow-up appointment with my sleep doctor to go over how my sleep has been and how my CPAP machine has been working for me. Now, I know that my sleep habits are…interesting… to say the least. But it is a different experience having a doctor tell you that.
First of all, I will say that my CPAP machine is working exactly as it is supposed to work, which is nice. The problem I have is that my anxiety and depression love to mess with my sleep schedule. My depression will make me just want to lie down wherever I am and sleep for days on end. On the other hand, my anxiety sends thoughts racing through my head, making it sometimes so difficult to fall asleep.
The result is a sleep schedule that is anything but regular, and which often sees me crashing out of sheer exhaustion on the couch, struggling so much to get the energy out of my depressive depths to go the fifty or so feet from the couch to the bed. Because for me my depression can make a distance of 50 feet the same as 50 miles. And I know that I am not alone in that sense.
When sleep meets psych it can be off-putting, to say the least. Yet the silver lining that I can draw comes from the fact that I have doctors for both. And the coordinated care I get from both doctors means that my recovery, however slow, does move forward. This is one of the reasons I am posting this, to remind others that recovery is possible, both from mental health conditions and from sleep issues. All you have to do is be willing to have our sleep demons meet your psych ones.
The Dark Tales Project 