To the people that struggled with depression before CPAP

[David1447]

I'm just wondering if you can tell me about your experience.
Suggested questions, you can ignore:

How long did it take you to get better?

Did you ever get mostly cured?

How are you today? I'm here if anybody needs an ear. I know what it's like to have none.

Thanks.

[kteague]

I'm just wondering if you can tell me about your experience.
Suggested questions, you can ignore:

How long did it take you to get better?

Did you ever get mostly cured?

How are you today? I'm here if anybody needs an ear. I know what it's like to have none.

Thanks.

While I never told a medical provider I was depressed or was offered treatment for depression, somehow it ended up as a diagnosis in my medical records. That was prior to the discovery of all my sleep disorders. They couldn't understand why I felt so totally depleted and unable to function normally. I remember answering a doctor that no I'm not depressed, I'm sick. Unfortunately some of the symptoms of sleep deprivation and depression overlap. Whatever their source, my symptoms did improve with better sleep. I've always been an optimistic person but not very high energy for many years since health issues came into play. I don't expect too much of myself these days, but am grateful for having regained more of an overall sense of well being, flashes of motivation, and the energy to pull some things off. I have had people close to me who truly suffered with clinical depression. I don't think that was what was going on with me, but maybe that's denial. Sure hope you are at a good place in your journey.

[David1447]

I'm just wondering if you can tell me about your experience.
Suggested questions, you can ignore:

How long did it take you to get better?

Did you ever get mostly cured?

How are you today? I'm here if anybody needs an ear. I know what it's like to have none.

Thanks.

While I never told a medical provider I was depressed or was offered treatment for depression, somehow it ended up as a diagnosis in my medical records. That was prior to the discovery of all my sleep disorders. They couldn't understand why I felt so totally depleted and unable to function normally. I remember answering a doctor that no I'm not depressed, I'm sick. Unfortunately some of the symptoms of sleep deprivation and depression overlap. Whatever their source, my symptoms did improve with better sleep. I've always been an optimistic person but not very high energy for many years since health issues came into play. I don't expect too much of myself these days, but am grateful for having regained more of an overall sense of well being, flashes of motivation, and the energy to pull some things off. I have had people close to me who truly suffered with clinical depression. I don't think that was what was going on with me, but maybe that's denial. Sure hope you are at a good place in your journey.

Hope you're feeling more energized these days, and may you continue getting even better through the years. CPAP therapy improved my general well-being too.

[sleepy-programmer]

I've cycled between depression, anxiety, and "normal" most my adult life (I'm 35). Two years ago my sleep became much worse and I started having nasty chronic pain. I can't answer how long it took to be depression free because I'm still in the middle of following various diagnosis and treatment threads (I have sleep apnea, TMJD, GERD, and I'm prone to headaches).

I can say this much. At some point during the worst of my struggles last year my depression faded only under one condition: I had to accept my situation. What little control I have I exert of course, like coming here and asking for help, but largely, I have no control over this. It's not my game but I gotta play by the rules given to me. The acceptance was the most helpful for my depression, and this was while I was in the middle of the worst of it. Some days I have no energy, am fully drained, and have to accept that I'm depressed about it. it's totally fine. Anyone would be depressed in my shoes once in awhile. I don't like it but I don't dwell over it anymore either. Saves a lot of mental space for other things.

I likewise offer my ear if you need it. I'm curious why you ask about this, can you elaborate?

[jnk...]

Things I believe:

Many pros who once focused on how mood affects sleep now focus on how sleep affects mood.

When lack of effective sleep is the primary issue that is affecting a person's mood, that is when mood can be greatly helped by improving quality of sleep. This is true for many more people than only those with sleep-breathing issues. And depression can have many causes beyond sleep-breathing.

The word "depression" as a medical term and the word "depression" in the English language of the public are two words that are barely on speaking terms. One is a diagnosis. The other is not. Everyone still seems to use them interchangeably, for some reason. Inexact wording makes for inexact reasoning. That can be dangerous for discussions of life-and-death matters. Not our fault. It's a language problem that needs to be fixed by the powers that be.

A good doc will make sure a patient's sleep is up to par before proceeding down other treatment paths. Call it a differential diagnosis. Call it a comorbidity. Call it whatever the sam hill blazes you want. But any doc who ignores sleep quality does so at his own peril, at the peril of his patients, and at the peril of the general public who may be victims of the accidents that tend to surround sleepy people. This is hard for many docs to grasp, though, since the number one lesson of medical school seems to be that sleep is only a luxury for the weak who don't have what it takes to be a doc. That is because no doc who ever graduated medical school and then completed a residency did so with good sleep hygiene intact. In fact, attending medical school and getting postgraduate training should pretty much disqualify anyone from ever trying to help anyone else see the importance of sleep.

Looking back to my days before CPAP, I can see that I was spiraling toward a dark place. At the time, I had no idea. I am happy to be alive. And I am happy that other lives are saved by CPAP. I shudder to think of the lives lost from so many people not knowing about, or not having access to, the simple mechanical fix for a simple anatomical problem that can damage any life in such a dangerous and painful way.

[realshelby]

Unless you actually have suffered with Depression, you simply don't know what it is. No amount of fancy writing covers it.

It is very, very real.

It is so easy to assume or expect medication to fix it.

There is no doubt at all that my cpap therapy has helped with this. But I don't think I would say I connected the improvement for several weeks.

[jnk...]

Unless you actually have suffered with Depression, you simply don't know what it is.

And even if you have, you simply have no idea what it is for anyone else, either.

That is the nature of any health state and any human experience, whether in this context or not.

Thus, I assume, the OP's request for personal perspectives.

It was good to read yours, realshelby.

[Snoring and Snorting]

I was in the Air Force when my sleep issues started. My, at the time, partner told me I snored but he likened it to a girl snoring; not a real snore but more of a snuffling. I kept waking up in the middle of the night (sometimes just as I was falling asleep, sometimes randomly throughout the night) in a panic. I could not catch my breath, my heart was racing, my hands shaking. My world started to get dark, I started to spiral down and down emotionally. I did contemplate suicide, I decided everyone was against me. I had zero energy and spent most of my off duty time trying to catch up on sleep I could not get during the week.

Things got very dark for me. Being that I was in the military my health care was via a random selection of military doctors; I never had a 'relationship' with a primary care physician. I was diagnosed as depressed with anxiety adjustment disorder. My waking up and lack of sleep was attributed to depression and anxiety. I was given a slew of pills. None of the more than 10 types of medication prescribed ever did anything for my inability to sustain sleep, nor did anything ever affect my depression.

18 months after the first medication was prescribed I went from 115lbs to way over 200. I was booted from the military and placed in a long-term psychiatric facility where my sleep issues were noted but still considered part of my depression. The night nurses often talked about my being awake at bed checks and they could tell from the nursing stand if I was awake based on my snoring.

I lost my military career and basically gave up. I had been a long distance runner but now being up more than 100lbs in weight that was gone also.

I finally hit bottom and decided to throw in the towel on everything; my marriage (he told me I was broken and he no longer respected me), my career (it was taken from me more than me giving it up, but at some point I had to accept it), all of my belongings (husband cleaned me out and left me with nothing, said I did not deserve what I had when I met him much less what we built together).

Through VA funding I went back to school, took a part time job and pulled myself together. I took myself off the medications that had never done a single thing for my "depression and anxiety" and never once kept me asleep (I could always fall asleep but could not sustain it). Once off the meds I started trying to redevelop my physical fitness. I worked hard. Walking, gardening, being active. I slowly built back up to swimming and even running. But my sleep was still an issue and I never got back to where I had been. I struggled daily to do anything at all. Weekends were mainly me laying on the couch exhausted and spending as much time in bed as possible trying to get some rest.

I left the Air Force in 1996 and just this last year, Aug 2018 I finally got my sleep study. While I don't have apnea to the extreme others do, I had my first dream, in about 25 years, two weeks after I got my CPAP machine. My mental health is 100% better than it has been since the early 90's and my weight has begun to drop on its own. I am able to rake, mow, hike and more on the weekends without lengthy breaks for rest. I don't even lay in bed on the weekends trying to 'catch up'.

The length of time from the onset of the apnea issues to my diagnosis caused me multiple health issues; yes, I battled depression, I had huge weight issues caused by the medications and the apnea, I have a heart issue that is not fully explored yet and now I have epilepsy. The doctors say my 'threshold' for epilepsy was lowered due to the extended lack of sleep and since I have had more than one major seizure I will now be considered an epileptic for life. Yay me.

All this pain, all the crap since the early 90's is fading to a memory; each day seems much brighter. I don't mind hearing the alarm clock in the morning after years of lying in bed awake waiting for it to go off it now actually wakes me up. After years of getting up every couple hours because of a 'panic attack' and doing the rounds: pee, get a drink of water, check all the locks and back to bed just to repeat it again in an hour or less, I don't bound out of bed, but I don't call in sick hoping that laying there I will finally get some sleep.

Depression? Nope. Anxiety? Never really had it. Weight? Easily controlled; I was always a skinny person, should never had had the issues, and now in my late 50's I settled in at a comfortable level without struggling (not skinny, but not obese).

I don't like wearing a mask at night, but after 25 years of nightmare I think this tradeoff is well worth it.

I do fully believe that depression can be brought on by sleep deprivation. I also believe that depression should be treated along with any suspicion of sleep issues as if it is not related; there could another separate underlying issue at work in the person's life and not treating it could be deadly. I also believe that once the apnea has been properly addressed it can profoundly impact the depression.

I am also here to listen, chat, share stories and advise if desired. You can mark me down as "been there, done that, survived"

[jnk...]

Helpful stuff, Snoring and Snorting.

However, it is important to note in a public forum that the idea of . . .

. . . took myself off the medications . . .

. . . can be problematic as a concept for certain medications, since my understanding is that medical supervision may be necessary to taper off of them over time in a safe, healthy way that won't do serious damage.

Just making sure no one gets the wrong idea with that.

[Snoring and Snorting]

You are ABSOLUTELY CORRECT! I say, I took myself off, when in reality I consulted with a doctor about how to do it and then did it under those instructions but without actually going in to see a doctor.

I was in Germany and was able to talk to a person I knew that had medical licenses and such that was able to advise me and was a friend.

Depression and anxiety medications should be closely monitored and if withdrawal is to be undertaken it should be done with medical supervision.

I did take three months to break free; it was not a quick process.

[sleepymamadc]

I appreciate everyone sharing their experience here. And so glad to hear Snoring and Snorting that you FINALLY got the right answer for your health problems!

I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea in 2009. Prior to that and since, I've had a few episodes of severe depression (clinically diagnosed) and continue to struggle with emotional regulation. I'm on Wellbutrin and Lexapro. I was on Cymbalta for 10 years and tapered off of it in late 2017 because I was going to try to get pregnant. But being off meds was a disaster and I decided to get back on.

I've been tackling the mental health issues and the sleep issues as completely separate projects - but it's dawning on me that I don't even know what my mental health issues actually are because my sleep is so non-restorative.

I'm hoping with the support of this group to really stick with the trial and error for the CPAP and make it work for me. Then maybe I will know what's depression and what's sleep deprivation.

[David1447]

I've cycled between depression, anxiety, and "normal" most my adult life (I'm 35). Two years ago my sleep became much worse and I started having nasty chronic pain. I can't answer how long it took to be depression free because I'm still in the middle of following various diagnosis and treatment threads (I have sleep apnea, TMJD, GERD, and I'm prone to headaches).

I can say this much. At some point during the worst of my struggles last year my depression faded only under one condition: I had to accept my situation. What little control I have I exert of course, like coming here and asking for help, but largely, I have no control over this. It's not my game but I gotta play by the rules given to me. The acceptance was the most helpful for my depression, and this was while I was in the middle of the worst of it. Some days I have no energy, am fully drained, and have to accept that I'm depressed about it. it's totally fine. Anyone would be depressed in my shoes once in awhile. I don't like it but I don't dwell over it anymore either. Saves a lot of mental space for other things.

I likewise offer my ear if you need it. I'm curious why you ask about this, can you elaborate?

True that, brother. I admire your ability to see a situation as is, and respond in the most efficient manner. This freeing of mental space can free you to be happier sometimes. Thank you for sharing.

Things I believe:

Many pros who once focused on how mood affects sleep now focus on how sleep affects mood.

When lack of effective sleep is the primary issue that is affecting a person's mood, that is when mood can be greatly helped by improving quality of sleep. This is true for many more people than only those with sleep-breathing issues. And depression can have many causes beyond sleep-breathing.

The word "depression" as a medical term and the word "depression" in the English language of the public are two words that are barely on speaking terms. One is a diagnosis. The other is not. Everyone still seems to use them interchangeably, for some reason. Inexact wording makes for inexact reasoning. That can be dangerous for discussions of life-and-death matters. Not our fault. It's a language problem that needs to be fixed by the powers that be.

A good doc will make sure a patient's sleep is up to par before proceeding down other treatment paths. Call it a differential diagnosis. Call it a comorbidity. Call it whatever the sam hill blazes you want. But any doc who ignores sleep quality does so at his own peril, at the peril of his patients, and at the peril of the general public who may be victims of the accidents that tend to surround sleepy people. This is hard for many docs to grasp, though, since the number one lesson of medical school seems to be that sleep is only a luxury for the weak who don't have what it takes to be a doc. That is because no doc who ever graduated medical school and then completed a residency did so with good sleep hygiene intact. In fact, attending medical school and getting postgraduate training should pretty much disqualify anyone from ever trying to help anyone else see the importance of sleep.

Looking back to my days before CPAP, I can see that I was spiraling toward a dark place. At the time, I had no idea. I am happy to be alive. And I am happy that other lives are saved by CPAP. I shudder to think of the lives lost from so many people not knowing about, or not having access to, the simple mechanical fix for a simple anatomical problem that can damage any life in such a dangerous and painful way.

I agree with just about everything you wrote, in addition to it being written very profoundly. I think a lot of depressed people may not know it, but some of their issues could be sleep related. They indeed may never find out, which is grim to think about. I guess that's one of the reasons I wanted to start a thread like this. Get people thinking, and get people thankful. I'm thankful for your reply.

Unless you actually have suffered with Depression, you simply don't know what it is. No amount of fancy writing covers it.

It is very, very real.

It is so easy to assume or expect medication to fix it.

There is no doubt at all that my cpap therapy has helped with this. But I don't think I would say I connected the improvement for several weeks.

The pain of mental illness is that one often thinks because its in your head, you can change it by yourself. This is not only false, but extremely hazardous. I'm sorry you've known depression so intimately. Thank you for sharing.

I was in the Air Force when my sleep issues started. My, at the time, partner told me I snored but he likened it to a girl snoring; not a real snore but more of a snuffling. I kept waking up in the middle of the night (sometimes just as I was falling asleep, sometimes randomly throughout the night) in a panic. I could not catch my breath, my heart was racing, my hands shaking. My world started to get dark, I started to spiral down and down emotionally. I did contemplate suicide, I decided everyone was against me. I had zero energy and spent most of my off duty time trying to catch up on sleep I could not get during the week.

Things got very dark for me. Being that I was in the military my health care was via a random selection of military doctors; I never had a 'relationship' with a primary care physician. I was diagnosed as depressed with anxiety adjustment disorder. My waking up and lack of sleep was attributed to depression and anxiety. I was given a slew of pills. None of the more than 10 types of medication prescribed ever did anything for my inability to sustain sleep, nor did anything ever affect my depression.

18 months after the first medication was prescribed I went from 115lbs to way over 200. I was booted from the military and placed in a long-term psychiatric facility where my sleep issues were noted but still considered part of my depression. The night nurses often talked about my being awake at bed checks and they could tell from the nursing stand if I was awake based on my snoring.

I lost my military career and basically gave up. I had been a long distance runner but now being up more than 100lbs in weight that was gone also.

I finally hit bottom and decided to throw in the towel on everything; my marriage (he told me I was broken and he no longer respected me), my career (it was taken from me more than me giving it up, but at some point I had to accept it), all of my belongings (husband cleaned me out and left me with nothing, said I did not deserve what I had when I met him much less what we built together).

Through VA funding I went back to school, took a part time job and pulled myself together. I took myself off the medications that had never done a single thing for my "depression and anxiety" and never once kept me asleep (I could always fall asleep but could not sustain it). Once off the meds I started trying to redevelop my physical fitness. I worked hard. Walking, gardening, being active. I slowly built back up to swimming and even running. But my sleep was still an issue and I never got back to where I had been. I struggled daily to do anything at all. Weekends were mainly me laying on the couch exhausted and spending as much time in bed as possible trying to get some rest.

I left the Air Force in 1996 and just this last year, Aug 2018 I finally got my sleep study. While I don't have apnea to the extreme others do, I had my first dream, in about 25 years, two weeks after I got my CPAP machine. My mental health is 100% better than it has been since the early 90's and my weight has begun to drop on its own. I am able to rake, mow, hike and more on the weekends without lengthy breaks for rest. I don't even lay in bed on the weekends trying to 'catch up'.

The length of time from the onset of the apnea issues to my diagnosis caused me multiple health issues; yes, I battled depression, I had huge weight issues caused by the medications and the apnea, I have a heart issue that is not fully explored yet and now I have epilepsy. The doctors say my 'threshold' for epilepsy was lowered due to the extended lack of sleep and since I have had more than one major seizure I will now be considered an epileptic for life. Yay me.

All this pain, all the crap since the early 90's is fading to a memory; each day seems much brighter. I don't mind hearing the alarm clock in the morning after years of lying in bed awake waiting for it to go off it now actually wakes me up. After years of getting up every couple hours because of a 'panic attack' and doing the rounds: pee, get a drink of water, check all the locks and back to bed just to repeat it again in an hour or less, I don't bound out of bed, but I don't call in sick hoping that laying there I will finally get some sleep.

Depression? Nope. Anxiety? Never really had it. Weight? Easily controlled; I was always a skinny person, should never had had the issues, and now in my late 50's I settled in at a comfortable level without struggling (not skinny, but not obese).

I don't like wearing a mask at night, but after 25 years of nightmare I think this tradeoff is well worth it.

I do fully believe that depression can be brought on by sleep deprivation. I also believe that depression should be treated along with any suspicion of sleep issues as if it is not related; there could another separate underlying issue at work in the person's life and not treating it could be deadly. I also believe that once the apnea has been properly addressed it can profoundly impact the depression.

I am also here to listen, chat, share stories and advise if desired. You can mark me down as "been there, done that, survived"

I've also had my issues begin mostly in the army. I'm quite a bit younger than you, so this hasn't been long ago and is still, "fresh", so to speak. I remember vividly a day of long walking, and intense backpain and misery. We were to receive a gift, donated by a wealthy father of one of the soldiers - a pocket knife. It looked very nice. That day, my commanding officer looked me dead in the eye and said I didn't deserve it. He handed it to me and continued on his day. I guess I don't blame him, I did perform in a non-ideal fashion during the exercise. I do, however, forgive myself, and know it wasn't my fault. And that's sometimes is a hard thing to do, when shown the evidence over and over again that it is, especially in an environment harsh as the military. Snoring and Snorting, I hope you forgive yourself and thank you for your account.

I appreciate everyone sharing their experience here. And so glad to hear Snoring and Snorting that you FINALLY got the right answer for your health problems!

I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea in 2009. Prior to that and since, I've had a few episodes of severe depression (clinically diagnosed) and continue to struggle with emotional regulation. I'm on Wellbutrin and Lexapro. I was on Cymbalta for 10 years and tapered off of it in late 2017 because I was going to try to get pregnant. But being off meds was a disaster and I decided to get back on.

I've been tackling the mental health issues and the sleep issues as completely separate projects - but it's dawning on me that I don't even know what my mental health issues actually are because my sleep is so non-restorative.

I'm hoping with the support of this group to really stick with the trial and error for the CPAP and make it work for me. Then maybe I will know what's depression and what's sleep deprivation.

They do get confused for each other a lot of the times. If you are here, though, it's possible your mental issues have stemmed from a lack of sleep. REM sleep has an effect on emotional regulation, and while I'm no researcher, I've also had trouble distinguishing the cause of my depression. I never thought I had any issues sleeping. Apparently, most of what I had is just that.
I know you'll get it right. Stick in there. Thank you for sharing.

[realshelby]

Unless you actually have suffered with Depression, you simply don't know what it is. No amount of fancy writing covers it.

It is very, very real.

It is so easy to assume or expect medication to fix it.

There is no doubt at all that my cpap therapy has helped with this. But I don't think I would say I connected the improvement for several weeks.

The pain of mental illness is that one often thinks because its in your head, you can change it by yourself. This is not only false, but extremely hazardous. I'm sorry you've known depression so intimately. Thank you for sharing.

I beg to differ with you about "changing it yourself". In fact, and under Doctor supervision, I have done just that. Cognitive Thinking. I was never on medication. After finally talking with my Doctor about it, he put me on a path of Cognitive Thinking. Reading books on the subject and some online reading. Once you train your mind to pay less attention to the things that were bothering you, it gets much easier. I do feel cpap therapy has improved my position, simply because I feel better if nothing else. Medication is too often a crutch and never actually heals in these cases. Side effects from medication can be serious. I am glad I have gone the route I did. It does take effort and fortitude to gain control.

[Snoring and Snorting]

Along the lines of cognitive thinking, I do something similar but never knew it to be more than my own 'genre' of meditation.

I used to fight with ruminating; my mind would focus on and cycle through the same self-destructive thought processes for hours, days, weekends, weeks, on and on. Considering the fact that our minds are the most powerful muscle/function in our bodies, it is easy to lose control of where our minds wander off to.

I will try to not be flip, but I must inject my own strange sense of humor or I will take my self too seriously and that is never a good thing.

So, knowing my weakness to ruminate in a disastrous self-loathing manner, I decided I wanted to teach myself some control over things. Since I was not sleeping, I could get to sleep but could not sustain it and often lived on about 3 hours of rack time but sleep normally came in 20 minute increments or less intermittent throughout that three hours. After this and waking up for the fourth or fifth time in a total panic I gave up and decided to get up and distract myself.

If I did not I would eventually drag my tired frustrated self out of bed four hours later with my mind in a total twist and my body exhausted. If I did not get up and move around, do some tasks, watch a TV show or go for a walk, my attempts at going back to sleep were plagued by terrible, depressing, self-recrimination focused thoughts. Not the way to start your day!

But controlling my thoughts was not just a problem for the middle of the night; I found that even while driving home, cleaning the house, taking a shower, doing laundry everything I did I would find my mind replaying horrible events, walking through apocalyptic scenarios that had not happened yet but for some reason were the only potential outcomes my mind could conceive of.

This combined with a terrible lack of sleep and no energy for exercise I lost all the good endorphins and all the good chemicals my body normally produces; I went into a terrible depression. With the lack of mind control I had at the time, this became a self-licking ice cream cone; it was self-perpetuating. I could not make it stop. I had no control of my thoughts or my feelings/emotions. When you are running on empty for sleep and physical activity your body/mind will naturally turn towards depression.

I started with trying meditation. I bought tapes, watched videos courses, read books. Have you ever tried meditation? It is f*ck**g hard! It is really difficult to control what your mind thinks of, where it goes and what influences it. I could not do the exercises in the books, I could not manage the things suggested in the programs. I gave up.

Years later I had a short discussion with a friend; he told me about a room he has in his house. It is dark, Spartan (reduces distractions), has a sound machine (white noise, ocean sounds, bird calls, wind; anything to drown out other distracting noises), has one very comfortable chair and no TV or other electronic communication devices. He goes in there once or more a week and does a personal self-evaluation and inventory. He does not try to meditate right off, instead he evaluates his week, day, single event. He takes small amounts of time, small singular events and runs them through his mind. He allows himself to see the event through all lenses; his and that of others. He allows himself to be self-critical and critical of others then he forgives. (I am not so good at the self-forgiveness or that of forgiving others for what can only be called outrageous shitty behavior, but I try). He works through whatever is going on but he does not do this just for bad things, he also takes time to remember good things; the trip to the flower show where he and his wife found a wonderful fountain for the backyard and once they got it set up how much they enjoy it, the visit from the grand kids that went well, the freshly mowed lawn that since it is done his 'honey-do' list is that much shorter. He balances his good and bad inventories.

The main focus of his inventory room is to exercise mind control. He allows his mind to wander, then reigns it in. He gives it a topic, allows it to examine it, allows it to wander off topic and then brings it back under his control. He said it took him years to get to where he feels able to lay in bed on a sleep challenged night and allow his mind to wander. He says he can now do this without fear of lying there all night thinking horrible things; instead his mind tends to that beautiful spot overlooking the rain forest he found on his last trip to Costa Rica; a place he sat in for a while just watching the beauty and listening to the sounds of the forest around him. He then finds himself waking up to the alarm and fully rested for a day at work.

It is not an easy exercise and while I have been trying to develop my skills at it for a couple of years, my real progress has only happened in the last few months after getting the CPAP machine, a change in jobs and removing some rather disruptive influences in my life. It is hard work and harder still I have to make the time to do it. But, at least once a week I give myself an hour to work on my own mind control. When I drive to work, when I mow the lawn, while I am doing a myriad of other mindless tasks I use audio books to keep myself from the self-recrimination of ruminating over my daily failings. But, after lots of practice I can now lay in bed and focus my mind to a peaceful quiet place that helps me get back to sleep. I am not a master practitioner and I make mistakes, but I no longer have to get out of bed to distract my thoughts. I am doing a lot better.

Self-forgiveness is not 100%, but I am working on it. At least I find myself able to focus and shove out the distracting bad thoughts when I need to.

Sleep helps, self-taught mind control helps, self-forgiveness helps; maybe one day when I grow up I will learn meditation....