Ep 28. Gemma's Hope Story: "I'm so far removed from sleep now..."

You will LOVE this interview with Gemma.

 

Not only does she have the most engaging accent ever, but she also shares her raw and unfiltered journey through insomnia.

 

Many of you will resonate with her story and find solace knowing you're not alone.

 

Gemma went from being a lifelong lover of sleep to fearing she was going to lose her mind. She dives into:

 

• How insomnia blindsided her
• What kept in lingering
• What lead to a reset and what caused a relapse
• Her path from sleep obsession to sleep freedom

 

When you're going through insomnia, you can feel like a whole different person. You know it's not who you really are, but you don't how to get out of it.

 

Tune in to hear how Gemma found her way out and why you can, too.

 

Subscribe to The Mind. Body. Sleep.™ Podcast:

Apple | Spotify | Google

 

Work with Beth:

👉 Learn About the Mind. Body. Sleep. Mentorship

👉 Start the Free Insomnia Course Here

Full Transcript Below:

 

🧡 Please rate and review the podcast in your favorite platform!!

 

About Beth Kendall MA, FNTP:

For decades, Beth struggled with the relentless grip of insomnia. After finally understanding insomnia from a mind-body perspective, she changed her relationship with sleep, and completely recovered. Liberated from the constant worry of not sleeping, she’s on a mission to help others recover as well. Her transformative program Mind. Body. Sleep.™ has been a beacon of light for hundreds of others seeking solace from sleepless nights.

 

DISCLAIMER: The podcasts available on this website have been produced for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. The contents of this podcast do not constitute medical or professional advice. No person listening to and/or viewing any podcast from this website should act or refrain from acting on the basis of the content of a podcast without first seeking appropriate professional advice and/or counseling, nor shall the information be used as a substitute for professional advice and/or counseling. The Mind. Body. Sleep. Podcast expressly disclaims any and all liability relating to any actions taken or not taken based on any or all contents of this site as there are no assurance as to any particular outcome.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

 

How Gemma Went From Fearing She Would Lose Her Mind to Total Sleep Indifference

Beth:

Hello everyone, and welcome to the podcast. Today I am super excited to be sitting down with the lovely Gemma, who is another MINDBODY sleep mentorship alum. And I am particularly excited about today's chat because Gemma joined the mentorship about a year ago and then [00:00:30] graduated three months after that. And I really haven't had a chance to talk to her much since then. So welcome, Gemma.

Gemma:

Thank you. Beth. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm really so super excited to speak to you about where I am now and the hope my story will help some of your listeners that you can get through it and that you can come out the other side. [00:01:00] That's why I really wanted to come and chat to you today,

Beth:

And I'm so grateful you did, because I know you're in, is it Sydney or Brisbane?

Gemma:

I'm in Sydney.

Beth:

Sydney, okay. I know there's three time zones in Australia, but I know it is pretty early there right now. Yeah,

Gemma:

It's just like the start of my workday, so we're absolutely fine.

Beth:

Okay. Good, good, good. Okay. Well, even more of a Thank you for coming on the show. It's such an early hour, and I have zero doubt that you are [00:01:30] going to help a lot of people just by being here. Okay. Tell us your story. How did insomnia start for you and what was life like?

Gemma:

Okay, sure. So I am 40, and when I was in my mid twenties, that's when I thought insomnia started for me, [00:02:00] when still going through my insomnia journey, it's like a ridiculous story. But I loved sleep when I was in my late teens, when I was in my early twenties and at university I was famed for my ability to sleep anywhere on the couch, on the floor of my flat with my flatmates at uni. I [00:02:30] purposefully scheduled my uni schedule so that I had no early morning classes. I just was basically a koala.

Beth:

A koala. Did you say a koala? I love it.

Gemma:

Yeah. So I could just sleep all the time, wherever, whenever I loved it so much. The feeling of being in a soft, warm bed to meas just like my heaven. And so when I reached my mid and I kind of [00:03:00] now upon reflection, there had been some warning signs throughout my childhood, but as a teenager and certainly into my early twenties, there seemed to be absolutely not a single issue and sleep, and I were besties. And then I'm not even joking completely out of the blue. One day, I had been on a date with my partner at the time, [00:03:30] and we had gone on a day date and we'd gone to do, go out for lunch and have some cocktails, and we really went all in on the cocktails and we ended up having a bit of a late night.

And I woke up the next morning and I was hungover and historically sleep off when you'd overindulge the night before and you'd just kind of move on with [00:04:00] your day. So we got up, I think I actually tried to do some exercise and then came back and was like, okay, well, I need to sleep off this horrible feeling, this awful, this awful hangover. And so I got back into bed and I lay there, and then I just had this racing heart situation and this like, oh my God, I can't sleep. And to me felt like it had come out of the blue, and it just seemed [00:04:30] so stupid because it was self-inflicted, and I shouldn't have had that many drinks the night before. And I just started this self flagellation. And then for some reason, I honestly don't know what was going through my mind, but I was like, I have to get through this horrible feeling and I have to have this nap, so I'm going to go to the pharmacy and buy some over the counter sleep pills, and then it's going to be fine, [00:05:00] crazy behavior. So I did that and then took the pills and then just felt way worse wading through tranquil or something, but not asleep. And then it just sort of marched this bizarre spiral into a couple of days of not being able to sleep at all that night. And the fear that I had that I was losing my mind [00:05:30] was I was properly petrified. And so in the end, I went to the doctor and I got a very heavy duty sleeping tablet.

I'd also not slept for two nights. So there is no wonder now to me that I did sleep that first night that I took the sleeping medication because my body eventually would've found its way to sleep. [00:06:00] But so I took that and that worked, and that seemed to have provided a reset to me for a couple of years. And then, oh, no, sorry, it was months at that stage. And then I had found myself back where I was again, not being able to sleep randomly when I was on holiday with my friends. And that period [00:06:30] of time went for, I'm going to say about a fortnight, obviously it's quite hazy. It was about 15 years ago, but it kind of went on and on and off. When nights I would sleep, I was back home at the stage, and then nights I wouldn't. And in the end, my mom flew over from New Zealand.

I'm originally from New Zealand, if you can't tell by the accent, but my mom flew over from New Zealand because I'd kind of positioned it in my head that I was losing my mind, [00:07:00] and I have very close family and we love each other a lot. And to hear her daughter freaking out like that to her was like, I need to go and see what's going on here for myself. And she arrived and I couldn't even cry when she arrived because I was just so hyper aroused and so wired [00:07:30] and erratic that when she arrived I was so grateful. And she was like, I'm going to make you all this food that you're going to eat and it's going to get your head. I need to nourish your body and therefore will be helping your mind. And I was grateful, obviously, but just a robot. Thank you for coming, mom, basically. That's amazing. My mom dropped everything four [00:08:00] hours to come and take time off work just to make sure that I was okay, and I couldn't even really feel anything towards that. And I was like, shit, this is bad if I'm not feeling this.

Beth:

I remember your mom was really supportive as you were going through the program.

Gemma:

Yeah, yeah. Well, she came back again last year when it reared its head again. She's a wonderful woman. [00:08:30] So she stayed for a week, and by the end I'd felt like things were back on track. And I think it was just the comfort of her being her presence and coupled with the sleep medication that I was taking, it just felt a bit safer for me than the fear that I'd previously been feeling. And [00:09:00] from there, she left. And then typically a couple of days later, I started feeling terrible again and not sleeping. And at that point I just thought, oh God, who am I? And what am I doing? So I ended up just really at that stage thinking that I would never get better. And so [00:09:30] I actually moved from Sydney and I went back to New Zealand and I went back to my family home for a couple of months and felt like I just needed to get my life back on track because I'd become so obsessed and beholden to sleep.

My story, our stories, they're quite similar, and that we'd tried everything we went through, we'd [00:10:00] really gone through the trenches of it. And I did get through that period of time, and I'm going to say it lasted for say three months, and then I moved back to Sydney and I picked my life back up again. And it always in the back of my mind was this fear around it ever happening again, and that it could just grab me at any moment. And there seemed to be no reason to it. I didn't understand what was happening. [00:10:30] So of course, because I didn't understand what was happening, I didn't know if it could come at any moment. And so I lived in a kind of constant fear of it, and it didn't happen again for many years, almost a decade. I had no issues with my sleep.

[00:11:00] My beloved father passed away when I was in my late twenties. And obviously that was just one of the most heartbreaking thing that's ever happened to me. And selfishly during that time, I thought to myself, God, imagine if I get back into insomnia again because of this grief, and then not being able to support my sister or my mom and me spiraling, this is such a horrible [00:11:30] thing. And now that I understand, and by the way, I slept absolutely fine throughout that almost like I was in a coma because I was grieving so hard. And now from what I know now, of course I slept fine because sleep was the last thing on my mind.

Grieving my dad was what was on my mind and my family. And so that makes perfect sense to me now [00:12:00] that I've been through your program and now that I understand how sleep works. So throughout that next decade, everything was fine. I also had a baby five years ago, so almost six years ago. Again, fearful that sleep might be disrupted because of that and really nervous about whilst being pregnant, that was the thing that I was the most nervous about, [00:12:30] and just not being able to parent because I was that zombie that I still had deep trauma about that three to six month period when I was in my mid twenties. I just was super nervous about it coming to pass. And then again, it was fine when I had the baby because the baby was my primary thought, not the baby is my son, Raphael. [00:13:00] And so I was thinking about RAF and thinking about the things that come with being a parent for the first time. And so I wasn't thinking about my sleep as much as I thought I would be. And so typically it was absolutely fine. And then last year happened.

Beth:

Okay. Let me just backtrack a little bit. [00:13:30] I know so many people are going to relate to everything you just said and talking about that initial circumstance, like that hangover and why that was such a traumatic experience because when you don't understand what's happening and why, and it's so confusing and how quickly that seed of fear can get into the mind, and then you talked about how you understand now how getting on medication and doing all [00:14:00] those things and then something like that works, and that can actually sometimes backfire in terms of how that plays out in the future for insomnia. And I loved how you said in there when you were describing it, and that comes from the education and the understanding that you have now, but you said, my body, looking back, my body would have just reset on its own, and that's just it. But I think [00:14:30] what really makes that period of time so traumatic and makes us fear it for years after is just the confusion around it.

Gemma:

Yeah. I had no understanding of it. I

Beth:

I was the same.

Gemma:

I had an interest in the way the mind works and that kind of thing, just being a bit of a type A kind of personality that is [00:15:00] quite ambitious and wants to achieve good goals and all those sorts of things, and just being quite extroverted and having this quite anxious personality. I was interested in the machinations of that, but it never really played out into understanding what was going on with my sleep or what I thought. I just thought, oh, this is who I am. I'm just such an anxious person that's really [00:15:30] trying to overachieve that as a result, I've been dealt this burden of insomnia that could rare its ugly head at any moment. So just always be aware of that monster in the corner. Plus it was embarrassing where it came from a hangover over, so people would be like, oh, you have sleep issues. Where did this stem from? And as if I wanted, and I'm obviously doing this right now on this podcast because I think it's really important to, because it might [00:16:00] often be a really trivial trigger for something.

Beth:

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. It can be a single thought, literally just a single thought, sometimes.

Gemma:

It can be like, I have a presentation tomorrow at work, and it could be anything. I can't. Anything. Yeah.

Beth:

Yep. Definitely. Yeah, no, I don't find that unusual at all. And at least maybe you had a good time. I don't know if you have any...

Gemma:

Yeah, I'm [00:16:30] sure. I mean, not obviously not that good of a time that I was still prepared to leave him and our relationship to move back to New Zealand. Some fear was really, really rearing his head even worse but worse. Yeah. No, I did. We did have a good day.

Beth:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so take us back. So you were saying, and then about a year ago. Yeah. What happened then? Yeah.

Gemma:

Oh man. [00:17:00] I'm happy to tell this because I feel so removed from it, but talking about it, I can't deny. It doesn't just automatically bring up these feelings. It was so horrible, and I just want, because it was just such a horrible time and I'm out of it now, and so that's why I'm here today to talk about how, just to hopefully give hope [00:17:30] to other people. So about a year ago, I was on holiday with my son and his father. We're really close friends. We have a great relationship. And we were on holiday in New Zealand and I was sleeping in the same bed as my son at a house. And the house had really, it was on the road, it was really noisy. There was lights [00:18:00] from the lounge coming. There was a sky, like a light between the wall of the bedroom and the window between the bedroom and the lounge, and it had light.

It was basically like I was trying to sleep in daylight, and obviously I was thinking, God, imagine if I got this insomnia again on this vacation, that would not be good. I want to be enjoying this vacation. I'm like, in New Zealand, we haven't been in Asias. It'd been covid. It was so exciting to travel again. There was old [00:18:30] friends I wanted to catch up with. I wanted to show my son New Zealand, all of these things. It was high stakes in my head about enjoying this holiday and yet having that cloud of what could and Sonia do here. And so sure enough, I did not sleep that second night that we were there, and it just [00:19:00] man, the next couple of nights of not sleeping. But of course I had any person that has gone through insomnia for a long period of time will attest to this.

Of course, I had all my bag of tricks, which had variety of different, I had to take it with me as my safety net, and it had a couple of different types [00:19:30] of medication, some magnesium spray, earplugs, everything like that. So I wheeled out the cavalry to try and help me while I was on holiday and to varying degrees it worked, but the holiday was a bit of a mess and a write off. And I came back to Sydney. We'd been away for almost three weeks, and I just worked myself up into a frenzy [00:20:00] and was not in a good spot, and I could feel myself spiraling back to that feeling that I'd felt a decade earlier, again, fearing that I was losing my mind.

So I came back to Sydney again, back on the sleep medication most nights. And then I think [00:20:30] I had, I'd come across your newsletter at some stage whilst I was on the holiday and had booked, booked in from memory, a coaching call with you. But then I started to sleep on the second stage of the holiday when I was at home, and I grew up with my mom. And so I canceled the call and I saw, I was like, I don't need this. You're fine. I'm fine. I'm okay, blah, blah, blah. And then I got back to Sydney and things started to [00:21:00] swiftly go back downhill again, which I couldn't understand. And so that's when I first reached out to you, and I just remember thinking, I don't think this is going to work, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway because I've got nothing to lose. And that's when I met you and I became a member [00:21:30] of the MINDBODY sleep community. And yeah, I'll always be grateful that I met you, Beth, because I wouldn't be out the other side had I not gone through that. Through your program. It changed my life.

Beth:

Oh, Gemma, thank you. You know what that means to me. Yeah,

Gemma:

I know it means a lot to you, and I've got tears in my eyes at the moment, but it means so much more to me.

Beth:

I'm tearing [00:22:00] up. I get very, very sentimental because my students are everything. So I'm so glad. I'm so glad we crossed paths and we got to work together. And so what was the turning point or what were some of the concepts or ideas that started getting you on a better track with your sleep? I can tell just [00:22:30] when we were talking prior to hitting record, you're like, well, I barely prepared. I'm so far removed from this now. But maybe just talking about it a little bit, and I hope that is cathartic. It will just provide so much. I know that, but what were some of the things that kind of stuck with you? I know you send me these little notes every once in a while from my emails and you're like, oh, this one is spot on, or This is so true. But yeah, if you could think back and what [00:23:00] some of the concepts you got that started turning things around for you.

Gemma:

Yeah, of course. And just to kind of preface that this to anyone that is listening, I really wanted to come on here and talk about my story, but in all honesty, I didn't prep that much because I don't think about sleep anymore, and I don't think about what that was like. But that's not to say that when I spent some [00:23:30] time before I jumped on this podcast with Beth today, I went through my emails to her and they are the most unhinged,

Fearful that she's never going to be okay. Again, kind of essays that whoever's listening to this that's feeling like that, they would write something like that [00:24:00] and they do write that stuff and that you're never going to get better. I feel like. I promise you, the stuff that I wrote to you, Beth was crazy. It's not crazy. I don't like that. But at the time, I felt crazy. I felt like I was never going to be okay again. I would write them at all hours of the night. It would just be a stream of subconscious thought [00:24:30] about, is it okay if I took this medication? I only had three hours sleep and I was supposed to, I usually have eight hours sleep on it. I'm like, what's happening to me? Why did I just really a bit manic? And now we are on a different playing field? But your question was what was the turning point? And I have to say, I really needed the full 12 week program, and I needed to hear from you, which I did very frequently [00:25:00] of trust the process. It takes time to rewire your brain. It doesn't happen overnight. There are nuggets throughout the course that are like, I'm not a swifty, but I Taylor Swift, that fans, I read that she always delivers them Easter eggs in each subsequent album. I like her music. I definitely don't want to put myself in that.

And they love [00:25:30] finding these Easter eggs. They mean something from before. And I felt like the program was like that for me. They was like, now there's nuggets of it that I now can grab onto and remember things that started to make sense to me. It all stems from letting go of the fear and understanding hyper arousal, I think, and why [00:26:00] your brain is doing what it's doing. And it just did take that full 12 weeks to really nut into what all of that means, what neuroplasticity is that you don't have to be afraid of sleep. There was also, the turning point was, [00:26:30] and I'm not sure if you still do this, so perhaps you can put it in notes or something, but there was an episode where, or maybe even a module where you talk about that you'd come across somebody doing a podcast about chronic pain, and they kind of talked around that concept of thinking you are in chronic pain [00:27:00] thinking that you, do you know what I'm talking about?

Beth:

Yeah. Well, I think a lot of my approach is based on, I might have talked about Alan Gordon and his approach to chronic pain, and I used a lot of that with chronic insomnia. So maybe it was something around that.

Gemma:

Well, I think I

Beth:

Might have, oh, I remember posting a podcast episode. Yes, yes, yes. I'm going to fish that up again because I think the mentorship would like to [00:27:30] listen to it. I can't even remember what it was, but I think it was all Gordon.

Gemma:

And I'll hunt it down too, because it'll no doubt be in my email, but you will frame this sub out chronic pain and sub in the words insomnia and your guidance and their understanding of pain together. The pair of you let that podcast, [00:28:00] plus you are framing it in the world of which I was operating, it was about fear and it was about understanding what you are afraid of. And now, yeah, now I am not afraid of not sleeping.

Beth:

Yeah. Wow, wow, wow. Okay. Gemma, let me ask you, I was looking at some of our notes or some of the notes I made during our calls [00:28:30] right before the call, right before this call. So let me just ask, what are three words that you would use to describe your current relationship with sleep?

Gemma:

Three words. That's so hard because I don't think about it. Okay.

Beth:

That's great. That's great. I mean, because you honestly,

Gemma:

You're so Okay, fine and happy.

Beth:

Yes. And I think the fact that you answered like that is so spot on. I had a client [00:29:00] recently I was talking to, I was like, now that I think about it, if somebody asked me that question, I wouldn't know how to answer because there is not even a relationship with sleep because it's just sleep. 

Gemma:

Exactly. Had you asked me to, and I think you probably had, I did the three words I had to describe, or I would've been anxious, terrified. There would've been real hyperbole around fear. All words that I would've [00:29:30] said about how I feel about sleep a year ago would've been literally terrified and fearful and anxious.

Beth:

They were, it was terrified, exhausted, hopeless, disappointed, desperate, and failed. I know. I know. I, I get that. And I was looking at some of the beliefs I was writing down. My brain is broken. I'm such an anxious person. I'm never [00:30:00] going to be okay again. Yeah, I know. So look how far you have come.

Gemma:

So much. Look how far I've come.

Beth:

I know. To reach this level or just kind of to not even be able to come up with words about sleep because it's just sleep.

Gemma:

It's just sleep. It's just sleep. Your biology will do it.

Beth:

It knows what it's doing.

Gemma:

Knows what it's doing. It knows what it's [00:30:30] doing. Your body knows what it's doing. Your brain just gets in the way at the start, but it won't have to be like that forever.

Beth:

Yes. So let me ask you the question — my signature ending question here is what were some of the silver linings that came from insomnia for you?

Gemma:

Well, look, that was a horrible time, and there's no denying it. And I really did think that I was [00:31:00] properly losing it. I did think that it was, the joy had been sucked from my life and all seriousness, and it was horrible. I couldn't really work properly. I love my job. I couldn't parent properly. I love my son. I couldn't be a friend to people much. I was so inwardly facing. So it was a really painful time. And [00:31:30] I can't say I'm so glad I went through it because I freaking hated it. But the silver lining is that I feel like that's the last time that that will happen to me, because now I don't care if I have a bad night's sleep anymore, and I can't ever imagine caring again because I know. So the silver lining is that I understand how my [00:32:00] brain works, thanks to you and your program.

I understand neuroplasticity, I understand rewiring. I understand what hyper arousal is. I, and so when you understand it, that's when you start to distance yourself from it. The other things that I'm glad that I know now is this economy around sleep and the capitalization of sleep. I really critically think now when [00:32:30] it comes to that sort of stuff, like sleep trackers and weighted blankets, magnesium spray, lavender, having entire aisles dedicated to sleep articles popping up saying that we need seven to eight hours sleep. All of that stuff I grabbed and took to be gospel or that we all need that it is true, and that you need, and you should be wearing an aura ring [00:33:00] so that you can $500 worth so that you can see how many hours. Why do you need to see how many hours you slept last night? Why do we ever think that we need that? You do not need that. It matters how you feel the next day, not how many, and you can feel okay on any insomniac will know that you actually can be incredibly productive on one hour sleep or two hours sleep. Or even thinking to yourself, I don't think I did sleep at all last night. You [00:33:30] can still do your job. You can still drag. You become the master of masking it and getting on with it.

So just don't feel like you have to have that specific period of time of sleep. And the wellness industry has a lot to answer for in that and going through the program as the silver lining to knowing all of that stuff.

Beth:

Yeah. [00:34:00] Amazing. That is powerful. The capitalization of sleep could really be a book title. It really could.

Gemma:

And someone would,

Beth:

Maybe I should write it.

Gemma:

I think you should. I think there's no better person to help people on their sleep journeys than you, Beth. So yeah, people that are listening today, I would just, and if you are thinking, I don't know if this program will be right for me, [00:34:30] coming from a person that did not think that they were curable and curable as in inverted commas with my bunny ear fingers, because it's not a disease and it's not something you need to be cured from. And you might be thinking that now, but give the 12 week program a go and trust the process.

Beth:

Amazing. Gemma, thank you so much for really being a part of the program [00:35:00] and this podcast. It really is such an honor to work with all the people that I do, and please do keep sending me those little notes along the way because you always have the best emojis and you always make me laugh. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening. This is the MINDBODY Sleep Podcast. I'm Beth Kendall. Be well. Bye for now.