Please Go To Sleep

Sleep is both my nemesis and best friend. I had absolutely no idea something as simple as falling asleep at night would become the bane of my existence before I got sick. We've settled into a rather symbiotic existence at this point, but the amount of work it took me to get here is astounding. A rather enlightening experience on Tuesday night reminded me how awful not sleeping is, and what a mess my life quickly becomes without it.

I shut the computer off and went to bed at 2 AM, like a good girl, even though my mind was racing and I was anything but tired. After an hour of laying there amping myself up I got up, figuring trying to force my brain to shut down was having the opposite affect. Another hour and I wasn't any better off, but at this point it's 4 AM and my visions of a productive Wednesday are rapidly disintegrating before my eyes. So I got back in bed and tried to force myself to sleep. After another hour passes I'm so exhausted-hyper that anxiety is kicking in. Trying to sleep with anxious vibrations coursing through my limbs is a joke, but I didn't really know what to do. I hadn't had insomnia like that in quite some time and was, of course, terrified it was sneaking back into my life. I know full well if I can't sleep I can't have anything resembling a quality existence.

At 5 AM a bright idea popped into that racing brain of mine, and I got up to make sure I had indeed taken my arsenal of sleep aids the night before. Low and behold, I hadn't! While taking enough pills to knock out an elephant at five in the morning isn't my idea of a good time, I was crazy relieved there was an actual explanation for my viscous attack of sleeplessness. I took my meds and within a half hour was out like a toddler after a day at the beach.

While all of this insanity had me jumping in and out of bed I remembered the acute misery sleep disruption brought to my life in the beginning. See back then I had to work the next day, so there was no taking sleep meds at 5 AM and switching off the alarm. There was only me, exhausted, trudging through a day at work and praying for my shift to end. More often than not, one night of insomnia, followed by a hard days work, would kick a cycle into gear that wouldn't end for days. After four or five nights of not sleeping I literally became too exhausted to knock out. My freakin' brain wouldn't shut off, and it was only a matter time before I collapsed from utter debilitation because of course, not sleeping made the pain so much worse. Not sleeping made everything worse! This little reminder on Tuesday night was yet one more experience to show me how far I've come, and how passionately I intend to hang on to my progress. 

Thanks for joining,

Leah 

Sleep, Where Are You?

Here I lay, trying to sleep. I've counted all the sheep in the pasture, backwards from 100, an entire rosary and mentally landscaped the backyard of my dreams. It's very pretty, with fountains and rose gardens and organic vegetable patches, and lots of green grass for the pups to get their jollies on. But alas, my brain just won't shut down. I almost dozed off once, but I didn't. I even pretended my husband's snoring was ocean waves crashing into the shore. I attempted to meditate and it made my brain hurt, trying to think of nothing. I came out to the sofa, theorizing I was putting too much pressure on myself and needed a change of venue. Nope, no sleep. The longer this goes on the more hyper I get. The more frustrated and uptight and bent out of shape. Which does sorry little to help me sleep. 

No, by the time six hours had past I was worked into quite a tizzy. I saw tomorrow flash before my eyes. Headache, bitchy, exhausted, miserable. Then I started in on the victim dance, not wanting to have a headache or be bitchy, exhausted and miserable. I've got quite a bit to do tomorrow! Which is today, but doesn't feel like it, because I've been awake for so freakin' long. The victim dance conjures the bitterness dragon, because shortly after that I got all mad at my life in general. The way my under eye bags look packed for a month in Europe after a night like this. The terrible memory of how quickly these ramped up central nervous system induced nights of insomnia would take me down when I was working. And then I stopped and got a grip.

I will survive tonight. Chances are, as soon as that globe of fire we here in Arizona call the sun peaks it's early tentacles into the night sky I will be out like a light. Or if not today, I will this evening. All the important stuff that must get done most likely will, or it won't, and that too I will survive. If I stopped crying in victimized frustration it would help minimize that under eye puffiness I think makes me look so old. And if I remember I am not a victim, but a victor who faced a frustrating setback in a way that could use improvement, it would make it easier to not be so hard on me. I tell myself these things and think I'm calming down, relaxing my tense muscles and wigged out mentality. Oh me oh my, could it be? I think I just might be getting drowsy...

Thanks for joining,
Leah