@Captain24 - you don't have to feel you deserve care, I know you do 😉. I appreciate that you are open to receiving our care even though you don't feel/think you deserve it. 😊 I know that isn't always easy, esp with past negative experiences.
I saw your response around the sleep posts after I posted. I get now why you were worried. But it totally did not come across (to me) as one-upping. I read it 100% as relating and supporting - in the way that most of us do here with lived experiences. 😊. The fact you were so worried that you might have been seen as one-upping shows how caring and empathetic and well-intentioned you are. 😍. Reading your post made me melt empathetically for you - because of the pain and worry you felt, but also because of how caring and concerned you were. You would be an amazing friend, with a heart like that. 😊
🔎Hmm sounds like the meds aren't the insomnia cause, if changing/reducing hasn't helped and its never caused problems in the past. 🔎. Stress can definitely do it, and lets be real - you've have a lot of stress lately! (not your fault!). SI and anxiety and ruminations / negative-self-talk are all so exhausting and stressful.
I'm curious - when you are tired, but you don't go to sleep - you push on to stay awake... what does it look like afterward for you when then do want to get to sleep?
I call this "overtired" myself. For me, when I am overtired I almost always get insomnia. If I push through that initial sleepy-tired barrier, I reckon it would be 90% change of insomnia for me. 😑😓. Sometimes I don't even realise consciously that I'm at that "sleepy" stage, and so I don't realise when I go past it until its too late. 😳
Re: creepy workmate stalker
Super proud you were honest with them and said "yes" when they asked if you were scared!
Do you recall how they responded to that? Did they apologise at all??
I'm sorry people didn't pick up on your clues when you were younger. 😓. I might be overly-sensitive to people's queues like that, because I too can relate to them. When I was in school I had a number of 'clues' go unnoticed too. Sometimes even comments or short conversations with teachers that somehow didn't trigger their warning-bells to ask if I was OK or refer me on?? From what my friends who are teachers (30's) have said, I think teachers are at least given a bit more training/awareness about these things now?
I did have one teacher pick up on some clues, but at the time I was not responsive to how she raised it with me. But a year or two later I was less shameful about my depression and I was able to apologise for my stone-wall reaction and thanked her for her care (and her mentioning it to the school's psych, although I was already regularly seeing them - but she didn't know that at the time of course). She was the only teacher who ever pulled me aside to ask if I was OK. I was actively suicidal through my entire high school years - all at the same school. I even had one teacher for 4 years in a row, about 7 hours of class with them per week. They never realised I had severe depression or SI; they just thought I was a moody/cynical teenager. They were one of my best/favourite teachers though -- so they had plenty of clues dropped!
Not meaning it as a one-up either!! Meaning it as a "they weren't ignoring it because of anything wrong with you". You did your best to try and safely call for help, and it fell on ignorant ears. 😢 But you deserved to be heard; if only they had understood and been more observant.
I hope your mum's nice and helpful and supportive "mode" continues for a long while longer. I can understand feeling the fear of "when will normal mum mode return?" 😥
