3d ago
46 and I've started dreading going to bed. Which sounds dramatic but here we are. Every night, somewhere between 2 and 4am, I'm just... awake. Wide awake. Heart going a bit. Mind immediately on something awful. Then I lie there for an hour or two and finally drift off right before the alarm. The thing is I genuinely can't tell if it's peri or just the relentless stress of having a 15-year-old and a job that's got worse since they restructured. Both? Neither? My body having some kind of breakdown that's entirely my own fault? I've got a GP appointment coming up and I already know what's going to happen. She'll ask how long, I'll say a few months, she'll mention sleep hygiene, I'll nod and leave feeling stupid. The symptoms sound so vague when I say them out loud. Tired. Anxious. Waking up. It sounds like being a normal middle-aged woman to be honest. So I've been trying to think about how to actually describe it. Not just "I'm not sleeping well" but like... the quality of it. The fact that it's the same time every night. The anxiety that shows up with nothing attached to it, no reason, just this low hum of dread. Started going out for a walk after dinner this week. No idea if it'll help but I needed to do something that wasn't just lying in bed catastrophising about lying in bed. First two nights I slept the same. Third night I got until nearly 4 which felt like a win. Anyone else struggled to explain this stuff to their GP without feeling like they're being a bit wet about it? x