For years now I’ve had an issue that occurs only occasionally, almost always when I’m sleeping and suddenly get jarred awake.
The issue is that I will be half asleep but half awake and I’ll start getting wretched ruminations and anxiety about various different topics- generally topics that I’ve experienced most recently, like conversations I may have had with people the previous day.
I started noticing this happening when I had my first child and would get jarred awake during the night because he’d make a sound in his room. I’m curious if any of this happens to you guys. It seems reasonable to attribute this to my adhd because, while I’m fully awake during the day I’ve been able to control my anxiety by telling myself the thoughts aren’t reality but when I’m half asleep in bed that’s not so easy to do and the anxiety becomes very real and it can ruin a nights sleep.
The reason I attribute this to my adhd is because adhd is a failure of my brain to be able to regulate focus and I’ve always had an issue with hyperfocus and it seems like these ruminations are my natural hyperfocus messing with my head. It’s like the the horrid anxiety thoughts will circle around in my head and there’s not much I can do in that state of half-asleep/half-awake to jar it loose to move onto something different no matter how hard I try.
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cjnolet
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Maybe it’s stress, some people pick their nail some get acne. Idk. Maybe also, your subconscious is trying to tell you something. Maybe it’s something that’s bothering you and you need to take action on it? But stress definitely I feel like that’s my first thought that comes to my mind
First, congratulations on your new son. You should talk to your doctor about this since he/she has your medical history. He might need to change your dosage. However, it is typical for new fathers to not sleep as well as they did before baby. It makes you a good dad. Your subconscious is telling you there is a little one here now and he will need you at times. In another aspect, anytime your sleep patterns change you will also experience changes due to lack of sleep. From what I understand, and I may be wrong, if your REM sleep changes dramatically it is the equivalence of sleep deprivation. You are not getting the adequate sleep that your mind and body are used to having. I suffer from insomnia. I have tried everything except sleeping pills non OTC. I couldn't get them prescribed anyway because of my depression. With how hot & humid the NE has been, my eyes and body get tired after missing 48 hours of sleep. When I finally do fall into REM sleep, I dream the way you do. There have been times that I had to ask my boss if something happened in the few prior days and the answer would always be no. And that is how realistic those dreams can feel. I would definitely, at least call and talk, to your doctor so he/she can determine if you need to have your medication dosage increased now that your son has arrived. After all, you worry about your son & mommy more than you know or even think you do.
Thank you for your advice! I also see that the way I worded “my first child” may have been a little misleading without providing further detail on my part. I have 3 kids. In fact My wife and I just had a daughter 2 weeks ago. When I was referring to my first child , I meant my 9 year old. This weird nighttime anxiety started around 9 years ago, when my first son was born. At that time, I had just begun my bachelors degree as a transfer student (had just finished my associates at the community college) and my, the girlfriend now wife, and I didn’t plan to have a child during this time.
Such is life. But I did what any ambitious person who knew they were about to be a father would do. Especially since my wife wasn’t educated, I had to go out and seek internships and get a job going to that my new little family could get out of my girlfriend’s mother’s house and live our own life- raising our child the way we need to. I started an internship at $15 an hour as a software developer while I was full time at school. I was working 12-16 hour days to show them I was the guy for the job and within 2 months I had turned it into a $40k per year job. In 6 more months I was making $50. Within a year $95, then I doubled it over the next 5 years. Anyways, needless to say, that was an extremely stressful time in my life but my girlfriend and I were able to move out within a year and get our own place, which added more stress.
I swear, the stress never went away. We now own a beautiful home and have 3 kids and we are married. I decided to get a masters degree and now a PhD. Now I’m also leading teams, working to overcome my anxieties in public speaking by joining the toastmasters club, and naturally I’m an entrepreneur so I’m constantly thinking about and working on technologies that I feel canbetter the world.
I’ve become addicted to stress. Some would say it’s becuase I’m adhd and my brain is tireless. I’ve been often referred to as a “machine” by people. Maybe that’s the “like driven by a motor” part of my combined presentation? The fact is, therapists have tried to convince me in the past that I must be running from something in my past but I think it’s just the way I’m wired. I was reading computer programming books at the age of 8 and learned how to program on my own by dis-assembling old programs I was interested in learning.
The night thing is very weird. I don’t think I just randomly pop awake. I think it happens when there’s a sudden noise (like one of my kids taking in their sleep, or thunder, or my wife rolling over and making a noise in her sleep) but once I get sprung awake it’s almost as if my mind goes into overdrive ruminating on everything negative. I might be hyperfocused in a conversation I had with someone the day prior and interpreting the conversation in a more negative way than I had previously.
I do also partially agree with you that I think my subconscious might also be telling me something. Like something deep about reality vs my impulsiveness. Since I’m impulsive ADHD I don’t always think enough before I do and say things- even as an adult in his mid-30s! So sometimes it leaves me in this state in the middle of the night ruminating on the “between the lines” reality of social situations hay I may have been involved in and didn’t decode properly when I was in the moment experiencing them. Sometimes it might be something someone said in a meeting and a response I gave them without thinking through the “real” meaning behind their words (as opposed to what they actually said).
The social disconnect in my impulsivity is something that deeply worries me a lot. When I was a kid, I was always hyperfocused and in my own head, visions, and imaginations and even though I’m not on the autism spectrum, I would often miss just enough of things people said and did because of my issues focusing that I would often perceive the “between lines” of their words and actions incorrectly. And at that age, kids are mean.... they make sure you know your flaws.
Anyways, as an adult people are nicer about it and in our culture it’s not always acceptable for adults to point out when other adults miss social norms, so the other adult is now left with no feedback to better themselves. I talk fast, I’m inpumsive. Some people have called me a heinous, others have called me an idiot.
I can say confidently that much of these ruminations and anxiety I get in the middle of the night are worries that I wasn’t parsing someone correctly when interacting with them- whether a coworker or acquaintance or school mate or professor, it’s generally someone I don’t know or trust completely.
hi Cjnolet. I'm not sure if the 'jarring awake' thing is related to ADHD but I'm almost certain it does emanate from anxiety. I understand what your mean about the hyperfocus though - that def doesn't help once you are awake. I've experienced the jarred awake thing many many times and almost always when dealing with something stressful (and thus for me anxiety-causing). I have mentioned it to medical doctors and they just stare at me....crickets. I myself don't have ADHD I am subscribed to this forum for my family: husband (undiagnosed), 27 year old son (diagnosed at age 6) and 30 year old daughter (diagnosed at 27).
so what I do is pray or read for a bit to calm down, also redirect my thinking to positive stuff. Unpleasant Thoughts and such in the middle of the night ALWAYS loom larger than life - this I know to be true and it always helps me to remember that by light of day, it won't seem like such a big deal.
I agree, I think it is the anxiety. Since the adhd diagnosis it seems easy to attribute everything to it, lol. My psychiatrist told me that anxiety with adhd in adults grows like rings on a tree, often becuAse it think the differences we notice early on between us and the neurotypical often compound over time until the symptoms become unbearable and we seek help.
I am a stress ball most of the time. I think I am the poster child for the “restless and always moving as if driven by a motor” symptom, except in my adult years that doesn’t mean I’m pjysivally bouncing off the walls like I did as a child, it means I’m always deeply involved in something- like projects.
I work as a contractor for the department of defense and even though I’ve made a very lucrative career out of it so far, I’m ready to move on and been very stressful. On top of that, I just found out my masters coursework has transferred over to my PhD program which means im the spring I will be ready to apply to candidacy and begin on my dissertation. This also means I’ve lost 3 years of research and need to make that up over the next two semesters. On top of that I’m watching friends of mine (who decided not to go for their phds) succeeding in their business ventures and I’m in my mid-30s now and he prospect of “wasting my life away” by making bad strategic decisions in my life horrifies me. Though I will say, I’m in my mid-30s but I look like I could pass for being in my 20’a still.... as many have told me, anxiety often arises from persisting yourself in the future where depression often arises from persisting yourself in the past. I’m not quite sure how true that is, but typing this reply to you just made me realize where I stand on that spectrum, lol.
But I agree 100% with you about stress. I believe I’ve become addicted to it. That or the way I’m wired does it just because I’m so restless and impulsive.
Also, things I’ve done to try to manage it:
- reading (which sometimes backfires because I’ll read until 7am when I hve to go to work and realize I lost 6 hours of sleep!)
- chamomile tea and melatonin
- music and meditation nature sounds
- alpha waves, beta waves, isochronic tones, anything that might help ground me
- meditating.
- tiring myself out with exercise
- telling myself it’s not real
One problem that arose out of this destroyed my relationship with my father. My father and my relationship was strained for years as a result of choices I made as a teenager. He remarried and when I had kids I felt over time that his new wife was pulling him away from my kids. I never could talk to my dad about things like that. He was unconfrontable by me. So it sat in my gut and just sat and sat. One night during these anxiety ruminations, my dad was spinning through my head and I finally wrote him an email. Except rather than writing what I should have, the ruminations went on and on and on until the email was really filled with rage and emotion and all the things I’ve ever wanted to tell my dad. He didn’t respond well and the ruminations went on for weeks, so did the emails. And the emotion got worse and worse in the emails until I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore.
After a year of this, my grabdfsther texted me to tell me to reach out to my dad. My dad got colon cancer and didn’t even tell me. I immediately took my kids to see him and I could tell he was disgusted with me and didn’t dven want me there.
Long story short, my dad passed away in 2015. These ruminations ruined my relationship with him. I got to apologize and make up with him a week before he passed but it’s a hard thing to think about. I started seeking help shortly after and that’s when my diagnosis of adhd came.
These ruminations, to me, become dangerous when they begin distorting my perceptions of reality. I start to think people are saying things about me. I start to think things that just aren’t true. I’m sure the anxiety isn’t necessarily related to the adhd but I think it does make it worse.
first off, so sorry to hear about your dad. Yeah family relationships can be so difficult sometimes...
second, never never think the "wasting life away" thoughts! Good Lord, dude you have accomplished so much already in your young life. Going for your PhD!! If you were my son I would be so very very proud of you!
third, maybe when you experience these ruminations, talk them out with someone you trust, it might help give you perspective.
And last, make gratitude part of your daily thinking. Even the bad stuff in our lives have shaped who we are, and how we pass that on as we raise our children.
I don't necessarily relate my middle of the night anxiety with ADHD, but for me it definitely gets worse when I'm stressed out. I find that any time I wake up in the middle of the night I'm more susceptible to catastrophizing and anxious thoughts. I assumed it was related to the way the brain functions when sleep is interrupted. I agree with the suggestions to talk to your therapist and reduce stress, but I also suggest you create more emotional safety/stability in your life.
Working on your PhD is stressful, so you need to take care to set aside time when you aren't involved in work or study or demands on your emotions and decision making. Meditation isn't easy, but it does help.
However, not every method of meditation is useful for everyone. I can't stand guided meditations, for example, so I had to keep looking until I found something that worked for me, which happens to be Vipassana. It's not easy to be still and do "nothing" (when I could be reading more or writing more) and I often avoid it, but then I find myself overwhelmed with anxious and angry rumination when I need to sleep.
I wonder if you've ever seen a neurologist? These episodes could be some kind of seizure. They could give you a 24 hour eeg to test for it
I’ve had these same experiences while falling asleep as you describe, ever since I was a kid. But I have no idea why this happens. Sometimes it wakes me up and I can’t sleep for hours. I take meds but I think a sleep lab could be good. I’ve never done that myself but have often thought about it. Anxiety is related to ADHD. Also think about it this way, most people are only interested in themselves, so even if they are for example saying something about you, they soon forget and start saying things about other people.
That is true. In fact my wife reminds me of that all the time. My mind thinks so often and so fast that it's often attempting to draw connections between unconnected events, usually drawing conclusions that people might be plotting against me. I think it's my general lack of self-confidence in social settings sometimes (not always picking up on sarcasm, not knowing how or not responding fast enough to other people's whit, etc...) that really makes it worse. What makes it worse, still, is when it gets so bad that I end up broadcasting my lack of confidence to the world by doing and saying little things to attempt to confirm my suspicions.
I'll start pondering things like "When this person said X to me, were they making fun of me? Did they talk to another person who filled them in on something?" It gets bad because I end up becoming paranoid and sour towards people and then it just starts to make me question everyone around me (except people like my wife and kids). In fact... this particulr problem is what spirred my getting the help that led to my adult diagnosis in the first place! It's wasted so much of my goddamn time and I could accomplish so much more if my damn brain would shut the eff up about stuff like this.
You may have RSD, rejection sensitivity dysphoria. It's not really paranoia but a feeling of being rejected real or imagined. it is very common in people with ADHD and you are definitely not alone there. look it up and read about it, if yo feel like it.
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discouraged :(
I’m struggling a LOT
Anyone diagnosed with Sluggish Cognitive Tempo? Do you have my cyclical sleepiness issues?
Did meds make a difference to a lifetime of unread books and clutter? 
Today I’m struggling with ADHD and life 
