Sleep it off?

[2iceShy]

Does anyone else sleep off their depression?  Some people drink, some people take drugs.  I do neither.  But when im feeling low, all i want to do is block out the world & sleep.  I feel guilt for this.  Days will go by & all Ive done is sleep, eat and watch TV.  

[White_Rose]

Hello Shy

Welcome to the BB forum. Here you will find many people to talk to and swop opinions on the meaning of life etc. and more importantly on the meaning of depression.

To answer your question, yes I often want to sleep to escape the pain of depression. I once took sleeping tablets, one at a time every four hours or so all day, just to sleep. No intention of harming myself, just wanted to sleep the pain away. I took the TV into my bedroom and spent the day watching TV and sleeping. The I realised I was only running away and never did it again. When I told the psych he was furious with me.

But yes, the urge to sleep and forget, at least for a while, is quite normal. As you say, others drink or abuse drugs. A friend of mine read books constantly, usually Mill and Boon type books, easy to read but taking her mind off her problems. Others do things like furiously houseclean, exercise for a great part of the day. There are so many things available to distract us from our troubles.

Eating and sleeping is nothing to feel guilty about. It's harmless and maybe your body wants or needs the rest. Depression can be exhausting. Some people find it difficult to get out of bed at all even to go shopping for food or to see their therapist. That's when you need to worry.

May I suggest a slight variation to your routine? Try to get out of the house at least once a day.  A walk would be great, but if you can only get to sit in your garden/patio or whatever that's fine. Watching the grass grow may not sound particularly exciting but with a cuppa it can be soothing. You get fresh air and a different perspective of the world. Reading a book or magazine is an added bonus.

The most important thing is to stop beating yourself up about it. It doesn't help and gives you an extra worry to add to you list. Be kind to yourself (and I do know how hard that can be).

Please write in again and tell us how you are going and feel free to ask us anything.

Mary

[Neil_1]

Hi there 2iceShy - clever and cute name by the way;

Welcome to Beyond Blue and thank you for coming here and providing your brief, but interesting post.

In a word, the answer I think is Yes.  And for a long time I was of the thinking of wouldn't it be magnificent to go to sleep and just to continue sleeping.  But as we know this doesn't work and perhaps isn't a healthy solution either.  Why?   Cause we're not really addressing the problem or the issues.  And often times, our mind when sleeping is still just as active and we end up with a sleep that is largely disturbed by encountering dreams.

So yes, while sleep is good and IS MUCH needed for its recuperative powers that the body needs, I think we still need to be working on all the other aspects that we know of in order to combat this mongrel illness.

I would also love to hear back from you 2iceShy, as to what other things you've got happening to assist your depression.

AND also, I'd love to hear from other posters about their answer to this question that 2iceShy has proposed.

Cheers

Neil

[white knight]

Hi,

I agree with Neil. However there are different forms of depression. My wife has the same symptoms as you, when in a down period she sleeps much more, closes herself off to the world. Whereas I'm totally different. My mind goes into mania and a state of melancholy. It's when I write my deepest poetry. When out of that depressive cycle I cant write poetry much at all. It's weird.

As I reminded people here for a while, latest research has shown that when in a depressive state it is not wise to set goals that are likely not achievable or too much positive thoughts. That can lead to great disappointment which in turn can lead one back to depression. Makes sense to do baby steps to recovery.

[geoff]

dear 2iceSHY, or perhaps 2S, being abbreviated for us all, hope you don't mind, but the answers from my good friends are all true, we all differ in how we try and cope with our depression, or could it be to try and hope that it goes away when we wake up, however it won't, but it's always so good to close our eyes and just sleep.

You can write amazing stories or even poetry as Tony has said, because all our famous composers have done the same, creating master pieces of music, drawings, in films or in theatre, because they do the best they ever could while suffering from serious bouts of depression, and has made them to be heroes in history, there's your chance Tony and others.

However as Neil has said ' we still need to be working on all the other aspects' because they are still there and they will still hound us until we can find a way to be able to understand what the problem/problems are, those that have caused and kept us in depression.

Yes I have used alcohol and always slept for years, as Mary has also said, but I can't really call it procrastination not with depression, maybe with having OCD but we aren't talking about this, simply because our mind is active but with depression it's not, we live in a world of negativity. Geoff.

[Chloekat84]

I know how you feel as that's all I want to do atm. Just sleep until I feel better but I know I cant do that with a 2 year old in the house. Ur not alone and don't forget that.