I can't fall asleep
I've had serious trouble falling asleep since I was 11 years old. I'm 34 now.
When I smoke weed, I can pass out pretty easily in 5 or so minutes, though I can't go to sleep particularly early. For some time I was smoking 2 or 3 days a week. I was then struggling to fall asleep on sober nights, but I'd get there usually. The struggle was caused most significantly by restless legs - a relatively new problem in my sleep troubles.
Then I recently got caught up smoking daily for about 5 weeks. WELL, tonight is night 3 of no weed, and it has been fucking hell. (well, tn has been pretty okay so far, but its only 1:50am)
My first sober sleep was after an unwanted all-nighter & eventually slept 10am-5:45pm. Then last night was another unwanted all-nighter, and I slept about 10:15am-2:45pm.
I've been unreasonably exhausted - like so tired I feel like I'm going to doze off when I blink. But I lie down and can't fall asleep.
So when I try, I get into that space between awake & asleep - where I'm juuust about to drift off. There's this moment where I kind of lose touch with my body. And then this intense feeling jolts through my body, and settles in my legs - restless, anxiety, fear, idk.
I can lie there through a few rounds sometimes, and I keep getting close to sleep again & again, then being jolted awake.
You've probably experienced something like it before - about to fall asleep and your body twitches.
But its not a physical twitch but an insatiable urge to just MOVE my legs.
And once this feeling gets going, its a horrible feedback loop. My mental state is already bad before the jolt. Then the jolt makes it worse. And then they feed into eachother until I'm ready to have a panic attack - until I have an almost uncontrollable urge to just SCREAM.
So I just have to get up. Go for a walk. Play a game or watch TV or eat something. It can take several hours before I'm able to even try again, due to how panic inducing it is to just think about lying down in bed after such an attempt.
I've quit weed probably 5 or 6 times before. It has always fucked my sleep during the transition. It does pass. I'm better equipped for the hell of it this time than I ever was before. I'm accommodating myself. I know what my body needs. I know what my mind needs.
But it still is horrible. I hope it passes quickly. It was only 5 weeks this time. Other quits came after several months of daily use or even years of daily use. The restless legs have never been this bad before. The panic has. The inability to fall asleep has.
And really, in the past, the inability to fall asleep was more about being wide awake, my mind being stressful and noisy. That stressful mindstate is happening too. But I'm able to manage it sometimes. Others, not. The thing where i, like, dip slightly into sleep and then jolt with restlessness is new. Or relatively new. And so intense.