Comments | little_details: ANON POST: psychological effects of sleep deprivation as child abuse

kutsuwamushi in little_details

ANON POST: psychological effects of sleep deprivation as child abuse

Aug 30, 2010 11:24

I'm writing about the more long term effects of a now-adult child abuse victim who suffered severe sleep deprivation an average of two to three times a week roughly between the ages of eight and twelve - kept awake an average of twenty-something hours and then allowed sleep only when it was disrupted by noise and light in the room where he slept, ( Read more... )

~medicine: starvation/malnourishment, ~medicine (misc), ~torture, ~psychology & psychiatry (misc)

Comments 12

anonymous August 30 2010, 15:42:52 UTC

Not sure about childhood, but I can tell you about my experience as a 30-year-old ( ... )

cakeordeath44 August 30 2010, 15:59:06 UTC

Jesus Christ. I'm so sorry you went through this anon, andi'm glad things are looking up.

dangerduckie21 August 30 2010, 15:56:30 UTC

Paranoia - yes, this is believable. I had massive issues sleeping in high school because of anxiety-related insomnia and would became very paranoid after several days of limited sleep (3 hours or less a day). Eventually he will start hallucinating as well and this could feed into paranoia.

As far as sleep habits, what will happen is that he will be subject to microsleeps, which means he will fall asleep without warning for short periods of time even while the torturer is trying to keep him awake. Also, he will go into a REM state within a minute of falling asleep whenever he's allowed (as opposed to the normal couple of hours).

Lack of deep sleep can lead to physical problems but I have no idea how it would combine with malnutrition.

cyberninjasio August 30 2010, 16:00:01 UTC

I took part in a sleep deprivation study in college, so I can tell a bit of what I recall if that helps. Of course, I wasn't a little kid, so I'm sure things will be different for your character because developing minds probably would have different reactions than a college age adult's ( ... )

anonymous August 30 2010, 17:05:06 UTC

I.e., is it believable for him to suffer paranoia/suspicion of others when someone keeps him from sleepI think so, but this is based on my own experiences, so everything here is subjective to experience and ot hard/fast rules ( ... )

zeecoldwater August 30 2010, 17:50:51 UTC

My most common sleep-deprivation hallucinations include thinking someone is standing just out of the range of my peripheral vision, thinking I saw a figure more just inside the range of my peripheral vision and so on. And my sleep deprivation is nowhere near the level your character is experiencing.

As a fun addition, sleep deprivation can cancel out the effects of my meds, so I get double the paranoia!