Posted by Dinah on April 2, 2002, at 19:07:47
In reply to Re: Involuntary naps, posted by Noa on April 2, 2002, at 17:21:25
Thanks for all the responses. I've been thinking about it. I would think it wasn't physiological because it is so clearly tied into emotional excess. But I'll ask my pdoc when I see him in a couple of weeks. I rather think it is somehow tied into my skills in dissociating.
I don't remember how long I've been doing it (my memory for things like that is bad - it always feels like I've done what I'm doing now forever - mood state dependent memory). But I was enormously surprised a week or so ago when my therapist told me that no, not everyone has them.
I also find them extremely inconvenient at times. When I'm trying to drive. When it scares my son. When it severely interferes with my work. So I would like to learn how to control them.
But overall I like them. They work better than medicine. If I am upset and take a Klonopin, when the Klonopin wears off I'm still upset. But when I take an involuntary nap, when I wake up I've likely almost forgotten what I was upset about. I might remember what I'm upset about, but I see it from a different and more detached perspective. It's not like regular sleep. There's something about it that blanks my mind. Perhaps not the most mentally healthy way of dealing with things - but it works.
Unfortunately I can't reduce the stress in order to rid myself of the naps, because the things that cause them are usually internally driven. And I can't have my therapist help me ground myself before leaving therapy because I have time-released upset. I'm usually fine if a bit detached when I leave his office and then implode later. We're working on that and making a bit of progress. And of course therapy isn't the only thing or even the major thing that causes involuntary naps. I've tried my favorite grounding techniques, but they don't seem to be able to stand up against the involuntary naps. Those naps are POWERFUL.
I just read this post over and realize that it doesn't make much sense. I think my idiosyncratic use of language is getting in the way of expressing myself clearly. And I've been working really long hours to try to catch up on the mess I've let myself get into. So my thinking isn't all that clear. (My lucky employer!!) Oh well. I'm not going to try to revise this post. I'll probably just make it worse.
Anyway, thanks again. I will print out my post and some of my responses and see if my pdoc thinks I need to look into it further. My therapist doesn't seem to know any cognitive behavior techniques to deal with it, because he just hasn't seen many (or any - he didn't make it clear) people who do it. I'll try to pin him down on that too.
It's kind of hard to do research on things like CBT techniques, because I'm pretty sure the official name for the problem is not "involuntary naps" and I just have no other words for it.
Sorry. This is long. And rambling. And not terribly coherent.
poster:Dinah
thread:21250
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020325/msgs/21348.html