This is the hardest time of year when we have lost someone that was our other half. Holidays suck anyway, so losing your husband so close to the holidays makes it suck times two. I am sorry to be so blunt, but it cut like a knife for me early on so that was the way it felt. I faced my Birthday, Mothers Day, and Fathers Day early on and they were brutal.

The sleep thing....yes I remember it so well. I slept so little the first few months...I was sure it would last forever. It was so hard. I never had the 12 hours strait thing...just the sleep an hour, wake an hour, sleep two hours, wake two hours....all night long.

This lasted for many months. At about 6 months I was sleeping about five or six hours a night. At a year I was sleeping 6 - 7. My sleep is more 7-8 now and I rarely get up during the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep....but I do still wake up too early and have to go to bed early the next night because of it.

Anyway...sorry for my rambling....but I wanted to say that it improves with time. You are at the most difficult time right now. I am so sorry you are going through this too.

Hang in there and be especially kind to yourself.

hugs...
-Diana

Well I'm at four+ months and I still can't sleep. In fact what happens to me is that I don't sleep at all for two nights then I crash sometime during the third day. When I sleep I dream about Berna and I get up very depressed when reality hits.

This grief crap is way to hard for me. Everything is
messed up. Can't sleep or eat right, feel incredible loneliness but still don't wanna be around anyone, don't care about anything. So sleep is the tip of the iceberg for me, and my iceberg just keeps getting bigger.

After three plus months I still can't sleep. Lucky if I get four hours a night. Don't know if it's a phase or just part of my new reality. I think part of it for me is when I do wake up I can't just reach out a hand and touch him or snuggle up next to him. The nights are certainly lonely.

I have slept about 7 hours straight just the past few days. I had been waking up shaking and needed to do deep breathing to relax again but the past few have been ok. Not really sure why, I guess I am still taking the peace I found from that man who said he was a medium. True or not, I needed to feel that Joe touched me again. I will take the peace right now. Also I was told to take a benadryl at night to sleep by my doctor (helps since I have a cat anyway!) Both my cat and I sleep sound together. It is worth a try. YOu need your sleep right now to keep going. Ann

I am, pushing 11 months on the 12th of Jan. and I have been in a sleep funk again. I am like Sal with my sleeping here of late, I may stay up 2 days and then crash, except the i do not have any dreams, or I will stay up all night and lay down in the morning and sleep a couple of hours next day and return to that same routine. I think my body got into this pattern now. When I do go to bed at night, he is not there to cuddle and hold and my heart feels soooo lonely! Then I will lay there and think about him and not sleep, then I say to myself, oh, nuts, i might as well get up and stay awake and see whats on TV or I come here and visit on DS.

Hope your sleep gets better for you and i hope mine gets better for me and i get out of this sleep funk. I hate widowhood too!

Your welcome to rant. your rant made me think about my stupid hours that I am keeping.

Hugs,
recentwidow

The worst part is waking up, because the first thing you remember is she (or he) is gone, and you feel your heart just sink. And that makes one reluctant to go to sleep. Have you tried chamomile tea or melatonin (in very small doses)? It sounds like you are doing the right things with exercise and caffeine avoidance.

Yes, my sleep is still all mixed up even though I still manage to get at least 6 hours. it may be from 3:00 am - 9:00 am or 11:00 pm - 5:00 am or a combination of 3 - 2 hour spurts and like you once in a while it is longer.
I have not tried to get into a "regular" pattern on times as it doesn't matter to me as long as I am getting some sleep
Yes, this grief is hard work and together with the DS family we will do it together.....hugs

Tommorrow will be 2 months since Jim passed and yes, the sleep part is sometimes non existent or very few hours in a night. Last night I woke up screaming from a dream and tossed and turned after that. I am back at work now and thought that would help, but it really hasn't, just makes me more tired because I work 12 hour shifts now on an hour or two of sleep. Sometimes wish I could just shut the brain off. But thanks to those who say there is hope...that some normalcy will some day return.

At the point you are at, it is normal to have your sleep screwed up. I began to wonder if I would ever return to some kind of good sleep. In the early months, I had nightmares, too, so when I actually COULD sleep I was oftentimes afraid to because I just couldn't take yet another nightmare. I was exhausted, which just makes everything else that much harder to cope with.

We've had a number of discussions here about what helps with sleep, and we can revisit those if you want. I can tell you that it took 4 months before I started sleeping 5-6 hours straight. It gradually improved over time and with changes to my routines, my bedroom, and my attitude.

One of the things that does interfere with sleep and causes problems for a lot of the women here is perimenopause - the changes before menopause that cause hot flashes and nightsweats. It's another reason to try and keep yourself physically healthy.

My sleep improved when I started taking a daily multivitamin with minerals and upped my calcium with D intake. Grieving wipes out B vitamins especially - the "stress vitamins." B12 in particular is needed for clear thinking and good sleeping. I take mine at lunch as I find that if I take them at night or with dinner I get amped up and have a hard time falling asleep.

Chamomile tea is good, too, and it doesn't have any interactions with other medications and won't make you hungover either. A lot of people take Benedryl or Tylenol PM which have the same ingredient (diphenhydramine) which makes you drowsy. I can't do that one (makes my ears ring), but most people have no problem with those.

These are the easy and inexpensive ways to put a dent in your insomnia.

It does ease up over time. What you are going through is normal. If it does seem too prolonged and nothing works, please see your doctor for a sleep med. Some people need them for a short time.

Hope this helps. Love and Hugs, Martha

Dear Autumn1019,

First off, let me say that I am so sorry for your loss. The picture of you and your husband is no nice and it says so much.

I just hit my second year without him. What I did during those first few months when I couldn't sleep is go to the kitchen, light a candle for him, make a pot of chicken noodle soup, and read books on grieving. I would read for hours. I couldn't get enough of the books on grieving. I bought some and I also went to the library and signed some out. It really helped me to get through those times that I couldn't sleep.

Hugs to you - take care,

Jahan

In the early days, I was lucky if I could sleep for two hours at a time. Then sometimes I wanted to sleep all the time because it was easier to sleep then face the awful reality. I don't nap during the day no matter how tired, as I don't want to fall into a messy sleep pattern; even now 8 months on, I have nights when I cannot sleep but like grief they are so unpredictable. It's all part of the horrible roller coaster, but it has got better as a whole for me, compared to the early days.

I'm just now at 2 months as of yesterday. I find solace in sleep because it's where I am able to still see my Connan and communicate with him at some point during the night. I hate waking up though, I guess I'm lucky that I have yet to oversleep?

If you can, try going to bed at the same hour every night and getting up at the same time everyday. I've found that if I set my alarm too early, then I stay in bed way later. If I don't set an alarm, i stay in bed too long too. I've found that magic time to wake-up which for me is when the sun comes up through my window and the apartment gets light. Winter is hard because there's not a lot of light. I almost wish it were summer again so I could have more light, but I'm not sure I want summer...

I went 3 months without a good night sleep. I would sleep for two hours at a time and was unable to fall back asleep so I watched TV instead of sleep. My anxiety was pretty bad during the first 3 months and it tended to get worse when I did not sleep at all. My doctor wanted to prescribe sleeping pills, but I refused (when I hear all the side effects on the commercials - I wonder why anybody would take that) so I started trying different things that people told me to do and the things that worked for me are Sleepy Time Tea (available at any grocery store) in the evening, and listening to meditation music to quiet my mind. IT WORKS! it's natural and good for you. I'm sleeping a solid 8 hours now and feel much better. I hope you find some relief, because not sleeping can affect your physical and mental health in so many ways . Hugs! Connie

I have similar difficulties and it was worse the first couple of months. I was my husband's primary caregiver and his meds were every three hours so up every three hours throughout the night. I can't seem to get past that schedule yet but am almost five months into this and I get more sleep and am not as exhausted as I once was. I never could sleep completely through a night before he got sick but I used to be able to get four or five hours at a time. Now I am lucky to get two or three. If I am tired during the day I lie down for a nap. As I am not working it is easy for me to do that. Just rest when you can and don't worry about time frames. I think it will slowly come back for you. Hugs, Gail

I am so sorry for your loss. It has been about 5 1/2 mo. for me since my husband died. My sleep is screwed up at times. I just watch a little tv and get up early. I have taken tylenol pm and has helped. Don't worry about ranting. Thats why we are here. It helps to vent and have others who understand. Take care of yourself. Hugs, Terry