sleep anxiety!!!

[qacific]

hello i’m fifteen years old and i’ve been dealing with severe anxiety and depression for a few years now. the last few years i’ve been dealing with the fear of dying in my sleep and i’ve been struggling to find the fine line between intuition and anxiety. tonight i was extremely tired and began to doze in bed. it was so strange how tired and sinking i felt. i had been fine and sleeping well until i had a thought that i was going to pass in my sleep. upon the stress of current events, my anxiety has been getting bad again. i feel so out of control. i’m not living my life. i feel so disconnected from the world. i feel that time is slipping away. i feel that i’m going to die young and i spent my adolescence miserable and sad. these feelings have presented me with a lot of physical pain. my stress has given me an unimaginable fatigue. i began to worry about how tired i feel. i began to fear sleeping because of the way my body would feel so drained. it bestowed such a crazy amount of fear into me i can barely handle it. i can’t sleep, so then i stay awake and become even more tired and sluggish and then it makes my anxiety worse because the more tired i feel, the more my anxiety increases because i feel more likely to slip away. what’s even more ironic is, i am also aftaid that i’m going to die of lack of sleep but i won’t let myself sleep because i don’t want to die in my sleep. i’m caught in a vicious cycle. please, if you have an advice, help!

[Hopeful-Tinkerbell]

Lack of sleep is worse for you sweetheart. You are so very young. Unless there is something bad I don’t know about you are guaranteed not to die in your sleep. Is there? I’m a mom and grandma and it breaks my heart reading your post. It sounds like something very traumatic has happened to you to cause this severe phobia. Are you otherwise healthy? Obviously anxiety but in general? If so sleep young one! Sleep. I’m a firm believer that you can’t sleep too much. I love naps! Your body is begging for it. I worked in the rescue squad and intensive care of the hospital 14 years. I’ve never once seen a 15 year old go to sleep and die. Especially without other very significant problems. You’re safe!

Have you spoken to your parents about your anxiety and fear? You can’t do this on your own. Trust me! I’m old and I can’t. It hard to give too much advice without facts but I assure you that you are safe. You have slept every night of 15 years basically and you have died in your sleep zero times out of 15 years. That should tell you something sweetie. You can do it! What you can’t do is deal with all of this all alone. Please talk to your parents or a trusted adult that can help you. You have serious fears for a very young child. Please get help addressing these fears. What if you set an alarm? 15 minutes for a couple naps, then 30 minutes, then an hour slowly increasing the time. You will be okay. I promise. I hope you get some help and some sleep! Much love. I’m here a lot if you need to talk. It’s 3:07am here. I may go to sleep soon. Here for now!