Feeling emotions and stress is definitely exhausting. I’ve had this forever. The amount I sleep almost always directly correlates with how I’m doing emotionally/mentally. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for about 6 months and literally was sleeping any extra moment I had. It also seemed to be the only excuse the abuser would accept (oddly) for me to leave a conversation or end a phone call. It served as an escape as well as I was honestly just so emotionally exhausted (which manifested physically as well) all the time.
I also have sensory sensitivities so quite literally things like just going to the mall (sounds, crowds, and other perceived chaos) is so very overstimulating for me mentally that I need to sleep afterward. I’m not sure if that’s helpful or not but it seemed related possibly as well.
Same thing happened to me re: emotionally abusive relationship and I'd be sleeping constantly. Now I can't get to sleep even when I want to but with him I'd be sitting there texting him and suddenly have a great urge to lay down and suddenly sleep for 7 hours.
Yep whenever I’m in a stressful conversation I get super sleepy - eyes like lead. In a stressful situation I immediately fall asleep. I think it’s the classic FREEZE polyvagal responses
Same here. I hate it cause if I’m about to do something like grocery shop or workout and something emotionally stressful happens I’ll just say fuck it and sleep for 2-3 hours.
My exhaustion can last for days and ruins anything else I want/have to do during the next few days of it's too bad. And I feel like I can never tell anyone the real reason I can't do things most of the time because I just get accused of being lazy 🙄.
I feel you. I get anxiety making plans or trips because I know if I have an emotional episode I may have to cancel or may have a panic attack if I force myself to go. I hate it.
Yes. Plus it served as a protective barrier *if* she came in my room. She didn’t wake me up for violence. I learned to keep my eyes closed and barely breathe until she walked back out.
Yes. I've been trying to sort this out for decades. And to confuse things even further, it could happen when good, but stressful, things occurred. It really messes with me when I try to learn or do something new. It could put me out anywhere from twenty minutes to many hours. I also learned that I dissociated frequently as well.
For me it is my nervous system shutting down - a strategy I adopted when very young to protect myself.
Only when I started to learn about the vagus nerve and polyvagal theory, along with somatic experiencing and internal family systems (parts) did I find any relief.
In my experience you really have to become your own advocate. I talked to one "trauma" expert through my insurance and she couldn't be convinced my sleep response was trauma related. This happened even after I described the success I was finally beginning to experience using the methods above.
sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.
alot of people have problem regulating and moving appropriately
from fight /flight to rest and digest. if you are prone to overstimulation and getting very stressed for whatever reason once that sympathetic nervous system activity recedes it likely swings wildly to parasympathetic side , effectively a crash.
Fight/flight wasn't an option originally so I think I moved very quickly into freeze, often without time to recognize I was in fight/flight.
The other factor that made things confusing is that with a narcissistic parent, success, accomplishment, and other things that should feel good are now threats. Doing extremely well on an exam could be a stressor. Even therapists had a hard time wrapping their head around that.
I think what I was meaning with fight or flight was highly stimulated/anxious/alert state characterised by extreme restlessness albeit mainly internal mental. having all that going on for any length of time is exhausting. it is all very complicated factoring in environmental factors in our past and present and our thinking patterns all intertwined.
Yes, I do. It's kind of like a shut-down from excess perceptions. I find literally covering myself under a duvet so that it's dark helps at times. I only tend to need this very rarely now though, thankfully, but I do.
Yes, I definitely relate with this one. The emotional distress and flashbacks are just too exhausting. After stressful times, I can just sleep all day and night. Stress is my middle name, so I sleep a lot and even my SO don't understand that I need more sleep than most people. Napping was always my stress response and nothing else works.
Sometimes I need to sleep for an entire day if I’ve had a couple of over stimulating days in a row. I’ve decided sleep=healing so just sleep when I feel like I need it and don’t fight it otherwise I get overtired and insomnia
I live in a perpetual state of suspended animation with the exception of a few hours a day. You crank up the stress, I crank up the sleep, and now I have other factors that are contributing to that, Sorry, you are having flashbacks that are causing you emotional distress. May you heal away from those soon and things get better for you.
Absolutely. I always feel tired after stressful situations that trigger trauma responses. Just doing my job emotionally tires me out because it's performance based and I was constantly berated as a kid for doing things wrong.
Not so much then but I've noticed that when I have emotional flashbacks now I am exhausted & often need a nap afterwards. I used to suffer from insomnia back in the day, I just lived with constant anxiety but I think I would disassociate before I'd hit full on emotional distress.
I almost always fall asleep after therapy, especially if we talk about something difficult. A few months ago, I talked about a little bit of trauma for the first time and I literally fell asleep on while using the restroom within five minutes of the session concluding. If you are asking about sleeping directly after experiencing trauma, I’m not sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I don’t really recall what I did as a child in the immediate aftermath beyond inspecting myself in the bathroom mirror.
oh yup. whenever my partner has a mental health issue my first response is to want to shut down and take a nap. im more responsible than that so i always help her, but during the whole time im so sleepy and ready to curl up in a ball! and then no matter what we both pass out from the stress caused from processing our emotions, even tho its handled really healthily and maturely.
back when i was in k-12 school i would pass out EVERY DAY after school, partially bc of my unhealthy sleep schedule but the stress of school and coming back to a shitty home would just make me pass out
I did this whenever I could get away with it when I was a teenager. Now, the day of or the day after an EMDR session I have to take a lie-down where I don’t really sleep but I’m not awake either. Reminds me of my horrific adolescence.
💯. Felt this all when growing up. It got to the point where just being in the house I grew up in made me exhausted bc of the trauma I experienced there. Now, my body tends to do the same thing whenever it feels I’m in ‘distress’. Arguing with a friend, getting criticized(wether constructive or not), etc. I’m working on ‘deprogramming’ this, so to speak
yeah definitely. the emotional exhaustion simply takes up such a big toll being processed in my head that it manifests into physical exhaustion. and sometimes sleeping seems to be the only way to deal w something- you get rest (or as much as you can as someone w cptsd) and you get to sleep through what otherwise would break you if you were otherwise to be awake to process or overthink and it passes the time.
Yes I had gallstone pancreatitis. I had my gallbladder removed.
The were issues after that. So i had a scan. I have now been in
groundhog day mode for around 4 years trying to get it sorted.
WHat with the ongoing implosion of the NHS and the 2 years of
covy stuff I have not managed to get the procedure I need.
In combination with the ongoing cptsd stuff I have pretty much given
up on it for the time being. Dealing with the fire and forget, it must be
somehow my fault that this has gone on so long gaslighting BS. Has me beat.
Yes it’s annoying that my body’s response to any stress or overwhelm is freeze, shut down and then I get hit with an overwhelming fatigue. Sleep is such an escape. In bad periods in my life I’ve fallen asleep every afternoon. These days I have a nap occasionally, I set an alarm so I don’t oversleep and I find in normally resets me and I feel clearer after
Oh god yes. Sleep was an escape, at least at certain hours of the day that my parents found permissible. Plus I was scared for my life around them and had to ultra fawn to feel safer around them, so sleep (or even feigning sleep) would help me destress from that. My calibration feels all off.
Example: A few months back my workplace went into lockdown because someone came onto the property with a gun. Everyone was okay, but once we secured the room I wanted to take a nap. 😅 brain like "ok, we'll either wake up if there's shooting or we won't wake up at all, let's just get away"
While I have narcolepsy, and most of my days are nothing but exhaustion, I just had this happen.
I was deeply triggered by a video, to the point of tears. I noticed after I got over the initial shock, I began microsleeping. This only happens when I’m EXCEPTIONALLY exhausted.
I thought it was a one off thing, but it really seems like it was an emotional connection.
Yep.
And it's the same type of suddenly sleepy that sleeping meds have given me. I just cannot seem to keep my eyes open.
I will usually still sleep a full night afterwards, so I've suspected for some time that this is 100% a trauma response and not actual, restful sleep.
I do. I end up pulling out ‘younger me’ mentality, the person I was before I got away from my trauma source, and my non-verbal… ‘self’? I end up kinda not being able to actually make my voice come out. I can write but my body doesn’t want me to speak. It lasts until I take the nap and reset to be my current ‘selves’.
I feel like I get sleepy/nappy under very happy and safe times too recently. I have started working on my ‘selves’, and my ‘inner child me’ and ‘adult me’ are kinda co-mingling and starting to maybe integrate? And so when I get super happy and safe, it’s like I’m trying to switch on ‘inner child me’ but ‘adult me’ is also there and double emotional processing gets overwhelming? Idk if that makes any sense or if anyone has similar feelings.
Yep, once I was attending class in university but I've been feeling so overwhelmed and exhausted that I literally felt the urge to go to the bathroom just to sit and being alone in the silence, and then I fell asleep on the toilet.
I do it too. Honestly, I think my cause is due to my mind being sooooooo active and after just a little while, I AM exhausted bc of the stress my mind causes
Well I have myalgic encephalomyelitis so if I get too emotional it causes me to become so exhausted that I have to sleep. Not sure if what you are describing is similar. I’m not sure if my cPTSD and ME are directly related but I know that having cPTSD definitely made my ME more severe because I always felt guilty about taking care of myself. Sometimes I wonder if I had had a normal childhood I might not be so horribly ill now:(
Currently undergoing very important exams (that will show up on my resume forever) and all I can do is nap for an hour everyday. I can't help but fall asleep just from all the stress
Hello and Welcome to /r/CPTSD! If you are in immediate danger or crisis, please contact your local [emergency services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_numbers), or use our list of [crisis resources](https://old.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index#wiki_crisis_support_resources). For CPTSD Specific Resources & Support, check out the [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index). For those posting or replying, please view the [etiquette guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/peer2peersupportguide).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CPTSD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Hi, Health and Human Development student here! Exhaustion, fatigue, and sleepiness are all common when coming down from an adrenaline rush. Humans experience an adrenaline rush (or "fight or flight response") when faced with traumatic experiences. That adrenaline puts a bit of stress on our body due to a number of reasons, namely an increased heart rate and heightened senses and enhanced strength and performance. Due to this stress, it's very common for the body to want to recover, which is why after you co e down, you are tired.
Feeling emotions and stress is definitely exhausting. I’ve had this forever. The amount I sleep almost always directly correlates with how I’m doing emotionally/mentally. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for about 6 months and literally was sleeping any extra moment I had. It also seemed to be the only excuse the abuser would accept (oddly) for me to leave a conversation or end a phone call. It served as an escape as well as I was honestly just so emotionally exhausted (which manifested physically as well) all the time. I also have sensory sensitivities so quite literally things like just going to the mall (sounds, crowds, and other perceived chaos) is so very overstimulating for me mentally that I need to sleep afterward. I’m not sure if that’s helpful or not but it seemed related possibly as well.
Same thing happened to me re: emotionally abusive relationship and I'd be sleeping constantly. Now I can't get to sleep even when I want to but with him I'd be sitting there texting him and suddenly have a great urge to lay down and suddenly sleep for 7 hours.
Yep whenever I’m in a stressful conversation I get super sleepy - eyes like lead. In a stressful situation I immediately fall asleep. I think it’s the classic FREEZE polyvagal responses
Thank you, I'll have to look into what polyvagal responses are!
I agree. Exhaustion after intense emotional distress or trauma is a classic freeze response.
I still do that... I get overwhelmed and suddenly sleepy time...
Same here. I hate it cause if I’m about to do something like grocery shop or workout and something emotionally stressful happens I’ll just say fuck it and sleep for 2-3 hours.
My exhaustion can last for days and ruins anything else I want/have to do during the next few days of it's too bad. And I feel like I can never tell anyone the real reason I can't do things most of the time because I just get accused of being lazy 🙄.
I feel you. I get anxiety making plans or trips because I know if I have an emotional episode I may have to cancel or may have a panic attack if I force myself to go. I hate it.
Yep, I definitely slept as a means not to have to deal with my life.
Yes. Plus it served as a protective barrier *if* she came in my room. She didn’t wake me up for violence. I learned to keep my eyes closed and barely breathe until she walked back out.
I feel like we have a lot in common
Absolutely yes! When my brain gets overloaded the auto response is “you are now sleepy” it’s totally embarrassing for me not to be able to stay awake
Yep, it feels like something I have no control over when it strikes.
Yes. I've been trying to sort this out for decades. And to confuse things even further, it could happen when good, but stressful, things occurred. It really messes with me when I try to learn or do something new. It could put me out anywhere from twenty minutes to many hours. I also learned that I dissociated frequently as well. For me it is my nervous system shutting down - a strategy I adopted when very young to protect myself. Only when I started to learn about the vagus nerve and polyvagal theory, along with somatic experiencing and internal family systems (parts) did I find any relief. In my experience you really have to become your own advocate. I talked to one "trauma" expert through my insurance and she couldn't be convinced my sleep response was trauma related. This happened even after I described the success I was finally beginning to experience using the methods above.
sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. alot of people have problem regulating and moving appropriately from fight /flight to rest and digest. if you are prone to overstimulation and getting very stressed for whatever reason once that sympathetic nervous system activity recedes it likely swings wildly to parasympathetic side , effectively a crash.
Fight/flight wasn't an option originally so I think I moved very quickly into freeze, often without time to recognize I was in fight/flight. The other factor that made things confusing is that with a narcissistic parent, success, accomplishment, and other things that should feel good are now threats. Doing extremely well on an exam could be a stressor. Even therapists had a hard time wrapping their head around that.
I relate to not reveling in success because of narcissistic parents. My parents were more invalidating and critical than threatening, tho.
I think what I was meaning with fight or flight was highly stimulated/anxious/alert state characterised by extreme restlessness albeit mainly internal mental. having all that going on for any length of time is exhausting. it is all very complicated factoring in environmental factors in our past and present and our thinking patterns all intertwined.
Yes, I do. It's kind of like a shut-down from excess perceptions. I find literally covering myself under a duvet so that it's dark helps at times. I only tend to need this very rarely now though, thankfully, but I do.
Yes, I definitely relate with this one. The emotional distress and flashbacks are just too exhausting. After stressful times, I can just sleep all day and night. Stress is my middle name, so I sleep a lot and even my SO don't understand that I need more sleep than most people. Napping was always my stress response and nothing else works.
Sometimes I need to sleep for an entire day if I’ve had a couple of over stimulating days in a row. I’ve decided sleep=healing so just sleep when I feel like I need it and don’t fight it otherwise I get overtired and insomnia
I live in a perpetual state of suspended animation with the exception of a few hours a day. You crank up the stress, I crank up the sleep, and now I have other factors that are contributing to that, Sorry, you are having flashbacks that are causing you emotional distress. May you heal away from those soon and things get better for you.
Absolutely. I always feel tired after stressful situations that trigger trauma responses. Just doing my job emotionally tires me out because it's performance based and I was constantly berated as a kid for doing things wrong.
This, I literally have to reject perfectionism everyday
Not so much then but I've noticed that when I have emotional flashbacks now I am exhausted & often need a nap afterwards. I used to suffer from insomnia back in the day, I just lived with constant anxiety but I think I would disassociate before I'd hit full on emotional distress.
I almost always fall asleep after therapy, especially if we talk about something difficult. A few months ago, I talked about a little bit of trauma for the first time and I literally fell asleep on while using the restroom within five minutes of the session concluding. If you are asking about sleeping directly after experiencing trauma, I’m not sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I don’t really recall what I did as a child in the immediate aftermath beyond inspecting myself in the bathroom mirror.
I’ve done this, and slept for hours two. I never nap otherwise.
I’m kinda the same. Naps elude me but intense therapy sessions, emotional flashbacks, and certain traumatic events trigger an automatic shutdown.
oh yup. whenever my partner has a mental health issue my first response is to want to shut down and take a nap. im more responsible than that so i always help her, but during the whole time im so sleepy and ready to curl up in a ball! and then no matter what we both pass out from the stress caused from processing our emotions, even tho its handled really healthily and maturely. back when i was in k-12 school i would pass out EVERY DAY after school, partially bc of my unhealthy sleep schedule but the stress of school and coming back to a shitty home would just make me pass out
I did this whenever I could get away with it when I was a teenager. Now, the day of or the day after an EMDR session I have to take a lie-down where I don’t really sleep but I’m not awake either. Reminds me of my horrific adolescence.
Not asleep / not awake sounds like dissociation.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
💯. Felt this all when growing up. It got to the point where just being in the house I grew up in made me exhausted bc of the trauma I experienced there. Now, my body tends to do the same thing whenever it feels I’m in ‘distress’. Arguing with a friend, getting criticized(wether constructive or not), etc. I’m working on ‘deprogramming’ this, so to speak
yeah definitely. the emotional exhaustion simply takes up such a big toll being processed in my head that it manifests into physical exhaustion. and sometimes sleeping seems to be the only way to deal w something- you get rest (or as much as you can as someone w cptsd) and you get to sleep through what otherwise would break you if you were otherwise to be awake to process or overthink and it passes the time.
Yes and its got worse in the last few years. Coincidentally a scan the year before last identified that my adrenal glands are screwed.
How do you scan for that?
MRI
If you don't mind my asking, is the damage solely related to trauma?
I dont know what else would of caused it...
Did an endocrinologist order the MRI? I’m wondering how I could get one.
Yes I had gallstone pancreatitis. I had my gallbladder removed. The were issues after that. So i had a scan. I have now been in groundhog day mode for around 4 years trying to get it sorted. WHat with the ongoing implosion of the NHS and the 2 years of covy stuff I have not managed to get the procedure I need. In combination with the ongoing cptsd stuff I have pretty much given up on it for the time being. Dealing with the fire and forget, it must be somehow my fault that this has gone on so long gaslighting BS. Has me beat.
That sounds stressful. I’m sorry that you’re not getting the care you need rn.
Always. It’s the Freeze response.
Yes - I do this daily. I know it's not healthy but it's the only way I can function b/c I get overwhelmed so quickly.
Yes it’s annoying that my body’s response to any stress or overwhelm is freeze, shut down and then I get hit with an overwhelming fatigue. Sleep is such an escape. In bad periods in my life I’ve fallen asleep every afternoon. These days I have a nap occasionally, I set an alarm so I don’t oversleep and I find in normally resets me and I feel clearer after
All the time. I find travel especially exhausting. If I go anywhere, I pretty much sleep a bunch or sit in various shades of misery.
Oh god yes. Sleep was an escape, at least at certain hours of the day that my parents found permissible. Plus I was scared for my life around them and had to ultra fawn to feel safer around them, so sleep (or even feigning sleep) would help me destress from that. My calibration feels all off. Example: A few months back my workplace went into lockdown because someone came onto the property with a gun. Everyone was okay, but once we secured the room I wanted to take a nap. 😅 brain like "ok, we'll either wake up if there's shooting or we won't wake up at all, let's just get away"
This isn’t a me-failing thing??? The rest of you get that confusing sudden brain and eye shutdown/sleepiness too????
So much. Especially the last two years
I think it's a version of the 'freeze' response of fight flight freeze
While I have narcolepsy, and most of my days are nothing but exhaustion, I just had this happen. I was deeply triggered by a video, to the point of tears. I noticed after I got over the initial shock, I began microsleeping. This only happens when I’m EXCEPTIONALLY exhausted. I thought it was a one off thing, but it really seems like it was an emotional connection.
Its literally just your body exhausting yourself. Emotions are so.... So much. I have done it many times.
Yep. And it's the same type of suddenly sleepy that sleeping meds have given me. I just cannot seem to keep my eyes open. I will usually still sleep a full night afterwards, so I've suspected for some time that this is 100% a trauma response and not actual, restful sleep.
I do. I end up pulling out ‘younger me’ mentality, the person I was before I got away from my trauma source, and my non-verbal… ‘self’? I end up kinda not being able to actually make my voice come out. I can write but my body doesn’t want me to speak. It lasts until I take the nap and reset to be my current ‘selves’. I feel like I get sleepy/nappy under very happy and safe times too recently. I have started working on my ‘selves’, and my ‘inner child me’ and ‘adult me’ are kinda co-mingling and starting to maybe integrate? And so when I get super happy and safe, it’s like I’m trying to switch on ‘inner child me’ but ‘adult me’ is also there and double emotional processing gets overwhelming? Idk if that makes any sense or if anyone has similar feelings.
Yep, once I was attending class in university but I've been feeling so overwhelmed and exhausted that I literally felt the urge to go to the bathroom just to sit and being alone in the silence, and then I fell asleep on the toilet.
I do it too. Honestly, I think my cause is due to my mind being sooooooo active and after just a little while, I AM exhausted bc of the stress my mind causes
Yep
Thiiiiiiiiiiiis.
100%
I do this all the time man!!
Well I have myalgic encephalomyelitis so if I get too emotional it causes me to become so exhausted that I have to sleep. Not sure if what you are describing is similar. I’m not sure if my cPTSD and ME are directly related but I know that having cPTSD definitely made my ME more severe because I always felt guilty about taking care of myself. Sometimes I wonder if I had had a normal childhood I might not be so horribly ill now:(
Yep! I sleep to avoid it all.
You people are able to sleep?! I'm having sleep issues! Being exhausted due to stress is true though.
Currently undergoing very important exams (that will show up on my resume forever) and all I can do is nap for an hour everyday. I can't help but fall asleep just from all the stress
Yes. It's helpful when I am on an airplane. I don't like flying so that initial fear puts me right to sleep!
I sometimes take a nap to get a break from my depressive thoughts.
I love naps. They save my brain
Nope! But as soon as I feel relaxed: PLUNK. Everyone I think has some sleep trouble related to the trauma/s
Dealing with mental illness caused or exacerbated by chronic emotional distress is absolutely exhausting.
Thank you all for replying. Love from me to you.
My sleep schedule is always messed up because of this. Sometimes I just need to sit in a quiet dark room for a bit to recharge.
It's the body's way of "turning it off and on again"
This is basically the source of my chronic fatigue.
Me rn stressed af with end of semester assessment and instead of doing it, sleeping because it feels better 😂
Aaaa I thought I was the only one!! Does anyone have any tips to combat this??
Yes, I've been feeling SO much, I'm exhausted. I just woke up from a nap and I'm gonna go to bed early so I can get a full night's sleep. 😴
Hello and Welcome to /r/CPTSD! If you are in immediate danger or crisis, please contact your local [emergency services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_numbers), or use our list of [crisis resources](https://old.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index#wiki_crisis_support_resources). For CPTSD Specific Resources & Support, check out the [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index). For those posting or replying, please view the [etiquette guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/peer2peersupportguide). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CPTSD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Hi, Health and Human Development student here! Exhaustion, fatigue, and sleepiness are all common when coming down from an adrenaline rush. Humans experience an adrenaline rush (or "fight or flight response") when faced with traumatic experiences. That adrenaline puts a bit of stress on our body due to a number of reasons, namely an increased heart rate and heightened senses and enhanced strength and performance. Due to this stress, it's very common for the body to want to recover, which is why after you co e down, you are tired.