first real fight?

**kira** · 01-03-2010 02:59 AM

I'm not sure you'd call this a fight but it's the first time I've cried so long and he's reached the point of not communicating. We got married in august after a very short period dating. I have severe insomnia. I don't sleep at all without pills and before I started taking pills my ability to function was so damaged that psychiatrists diagnosed me autistic before finding I just wasn't sleeping. We also have several animals that need attention and daily care.

Background info done. My husband normally goes to a friend's house 4hours away over new years. 2 weeks before I ask him to make plans if he's going to so can find someone to take care of the animals. His friend is busy. New Year's eve they call to say they are just getting home and we could come out over the weekend. My husband decides he wants to leave the next day. I say saturday instead but call people friday morning to see if it would be possible. Turns out it is but it meant dropping off my sister who had stayed over new years at my dad's, picking up food that the person can handle giving our sugar gliders, giving instructions, dropping off dogs to people, cleaning the house some, and packing in time to drive 4hours.

I pulled it off. Really stressed and just wanting to lay down on my foam bed but we arrive. The bed is tiny, the curtains might as well be nonexistent, there's a bunch of street lights outside the window, and the sun shines in nice and bright first thing in the morning. A little more info.... I have trouble falling asleep, I am very sensitive to light, I wake up at the slightest bit of sunlight. So night one I make the best of it, wake up 3hours earlier than I would have at home but I drag myself through the day holding it together. We play games with me half asleep, I spend some time on the computer while they play 2 player games, and so on. It went ok. My mom did call to say she nearly lost my dog and one of the sugar gliders escaped but luckily she managed to return it to it's cage. So I almost lost my 2 most important pets while gone. Tired, stressed, trying to keep it together.

Finally at 1:30am they say bedtime. I sit down in the bedroom to take sleeping pills and spend about 15mins with my head against my knee trying to keep myself under control but I accomplish it. I try to find a way to cover the window with a blanket to buy me some more time in the morning. I finally think I got something that works. Lay down with the laptop to waste a little time until I'm ready to sleep and my husband lays down next to me on the tiny bed. I told him I really needed more sleep or I wasn't going to function tomorrow and that I was really close to crying from exhaustion now. That's where it all went really bad. He snapped at me that I got half a night's sleep and why am I having so much trouble with that. I just cried. I couldn't do anything else. I was trying so hard to keep it together and so close to crying anyway. He asks if I want to just leave tomorrow which I didn't answer because I wanted so badly to make this a happy trip for both of us with him doing what he wanted with his friends.

Finally I just felt the need to get away from him until I could recover. He's been commenting this whole time on how I could have just stayed at home instead of being supportive and trying to help me in my attempt to make this fun. So I laid down on the floor not intending to stay there but completely exasperated he told me to take the bed and he'd sleep on the floor. After much shifting, pacing, laying down, sitting up, here I am laying on the floor as close to him as I can. He fell asleep completely frustrated with me. I don't think I'm going to get any sleep until things between us are better and he's out cold right now so I can't attempt to make it better. It's 5am already. The sun will be up in a few hours and then sleep is out of the question for me.

What will tomorrow bring? Am I going to have to sit at home lonely because of this stupid insomnia whenever he goes somewhere? Is he finally going to start to think this marriage was a bad idea since I require so much work to involve in his plans? Just how frustrated with me is he? Cause I'm very very hurt by his lack of understanding and snapping at me before I could explain. I'm also very tired and my brain is not entirely working. I feel more lonely sitting here next to him than if I'd just stayed at home bored and half a state away from him but not sleep deprived, stressed, and hurt. I tried my best to make it a good weekend and he hurt me instead of helping.

**rcoreyus** · 01-03-2010 08:53 PM

I think he really doesn't understand how bad lack of sleep is. Some people can sleep whenever they are tired - the idea of "tired but unable to sleep" simply doesn't make any sense to them.

I do understand sleep deprivation and insomnia and I know that they are really really bad - you have my absolute sympathy and understanding.

Sometime when you have slept, you need to try to explain to him. Try to let him understand the idea of tired but unable to sleep. If he understands and still doesn't give you sympathy then you married the wrong guy, but I expect that if he really understood he would care.

**kira** · 01-08-2010 02:48 AM

Somehow we both ended up in the bed together by morning. Neither one is sure how. Our subconscious must have decided for us that this was silly. We woke up in bed with the bright light melting my brain. I laid in bed with my eyes covered until 2pm when the light started to fade some before I spent a little time using my computer. Finally I felt capable of standing and interacting with people. We didn't get a chance to talk until the car ride home but the tension between us had slowly gone away during the evening.

We talked some on the 4 hour car ride but I'm not sure I made much progress. We talked more at home where I told him what happened that night after he fell asleep on the floor and that I was crying until 4am from exhaustion and him acting like he didn't want me there. I think he finally understands how bad I was feeling and how hard I was trying to have a good time but he doesn't know what to do about it. Odds are any future trips do not involve me. It took me days to recover and I'm still feeling photophobic. After very bright sunlight coming in the room at 7am and then the whole place being bright until 5pm my body has been thrown completely out of whack and all I was craving was relief from the light. My sleeping schedule has just now settled down and I can handle room lights without flinching or getting a headache. I can open the curtains after noon but I had to block my face from bright sunset while we were driving somewhere.

**sperosi** · 01-08-2010 12:56 PM

have you had a formal sleep study done?

**sourpuss** · 01-08-2010 01:17 PM

Sorry to hear you're having such a rough time. It sounds awful.
I think the first step you need to take is seeing a doctor and getting to the root of all of this insomnia, you simply can't live like this. And hopefully through the process of trying to treat yourself, your husband can have a better understanding of what you are going through.

I do agree though, that you should stay home next time he goes to visit his friends. It's not worth the headache on you or your husband. Next time he's gone for a few days, schedule a massage for yourself and rent your favorite movies and just have a relaxing "me" weekend. Don't think about it as sitting at home being lonely. (that's just needy and clingy and will only make things worse) Use it as a time to pamper yourself and catch up on some sleep for yourself.

But in the meantime, you should definitely see a specialist.

**CHANDLERS WISH** · 01-08-2010 04:58 PM

I think that you need to be diagnosed correctly.. You were firstly in-correctly diagnosed and I am not disagreeing with insomnia but there may be something else as well, you shouldn't be worried about sunlight, during the day time and having to hide your face from it.... there may be a deep issue there that has scared you that you need to look into.

I assume also this has been going on forever and as you don't exactly know what to do about it, apart from sleeping tablets, your husband is dealing with it also, on a day to day basis, 352 times a year so it must be frustrating for him as well, as you try to be that chirpy wife but probably aren't most of the time.

So, please seek further advice on how to combat this for your santiy and for his.. There has to be a better solution than what you are currently trying.

CW

**kira** · 01-11-2010 03:22 AM

I appologize ahead of time for this post I'm on 12.5 mg ambien cr, 5mg regular ambien, 900mg neurontin, 25mg seroquel, and 20 mg melatonina in prepartion for sleeping soon.

I've been to 3 psychiatrists. I've been diagnosed with endless disorders that don't match. I had a sleep study done which found nothing really except I have trouble falling asleep. A neuralogist ran some tests and sent me to talk to a sleep therapist. They were of no help. I've been following the sleep hygeine guidelines for years and I've come to recognize what helps me sleep and what doens't All together the list of meds I've been prescribed goes off a notebook paper.
Every doctor just tries to find some pill tho throw at me or blame my lifestyle rather than check the state of neurotransmitters and stress hormones to try to find a cause.