((Alisha))

The symptoms you are describing are symptoms of PTSD. Doesn't your T know about this diagnosis?

The difficulty sleeping, the struggle to need to get to early appoints because of the lack of rest, the challenge you have when you have to interact with too many people in one day, that all comes with PTSD. Even the question of "why am I not like I was before" is something so many with PTSD keep asking.

With the sleeping, you have to learn how to calm down and shut down at night again. It took me a long time to learn how to do that myself. Actually, what I do is I leave my TV on and try to find something I can put on that is like a documentary that I can listen to so I drift off to sleep thinking about that and not the other things that come up in my mind that keep me awake. I know they say it isn't good to fall asleep with the TV on, but honestly, it has been my salvation to distract my brain so I can finally drift off, and if I dream it is often about what I was watching rather then some kind of night terror. Some people read before they go to bed with tires them and distracts their mind enough so they can just roll over and sleep, my father has done that for years.

You have to learn "new ways" to self sooth now and "manage" the PTSD symptoms. Every once in a while when I have the questions you are asking I look up PTSD again and there are all the symptoms I am experiencing that I just need to work on and learn to better manage instead of constantly just being crippled by them and unknowingly feed into them.

(((Hugs)))
OE