Insomnia

Ugh. My insomnia is back.

I get this periodically (heh...a pun. It's related to PMS - in fact, it's pretty much the ONLY symptom I have. I suppose I should be thankful for that, but it's kind of hard right now when I'm so TIRED).

I've had it, off and on, since I was an adult. It doesn't happen every month - more like every 2 or 3, with it being really bad a couple times a year.

What happens is this: usually there's some triggering event. I'm inclined to be anxious ANYWAY, so little things set me off. This month is was the evening "let's call everyone in the church and tell them to come to church! So if you're a busy person who gets maybe 2 hours at home in the evening, you can spend those two hours calling people!" thing. (that, and it was a late meeting).

I didn't sleep well Monday night but I didn't realize what it was; it wasn't until last night I realized I was in an insomnia cycle.

I was tired. I did everything 'right' - I ate a light early dinner, I showered, I read instead of watching tv or playing on the computer. I even chose a book that would be calming rather than stimulating. I even did YOGA for goodness' sake.

And then I got in bed. And I. Did. Not. Sleep. It was like my brain was all excited - it was all, "hey! hey! I know what we could do! We could get up now and start working on that new embroidery project! Or we could read a book! Or we could watch Adult Swim!"

And my body was like: "Brain? STFU."

But that's not enough for my crazy brain. I started running through the music I had listened to that day in my mind. (When I'm insomniacal, I'm incredibly prone to "earworms.") I lay there and felt my heart beating, and then wondered if it was beating too fast, or if it was beating irregularly and I realized I couldn't tell and I should just get up and get my watch and take my pulse and ohmygosh what if I'm having an episode of fibrillation like my dad used to get, should I just drive myself to the emergency room and let them hook me up to an EKG?

And my body was like: "Brain? S. T. F. U.!"

And so I lay there and tried counting back from 100 by threes or imagining myself painting the alphabet slowly or swimming, all the stupid mind-tricks that are supposed to fool you into sleeping.

And finally I got up and put my sleep mask on - because my next door neighbor has one of those damned "security lights" (I mean, good grief. The man is a COP. He has a COP GUN in the house. And we live in a town where the main ways to be a victim of crime are to be wandering drunk on the street at 2 am or be involved with the meth trade or have an abusive Significant Other - none of which the cop's family are involved with). And I didn't want to be nicely asleep and then have that monstrosity come on and be all shining in my bedroom (I have curtains, I have shades. Still enough light gets through. My neighbor's tried repositioning it but to no avail. He's not willing to give it up because "My teenaged son comes in late from work." Yeah? Work that ends at 2 am? You might look into that kid.)

I slept a while then but I woke at 4:30. I need to be up at 6 at the latest (if I'm not working out) and 5 (if I am). So I groaned and thought: at the most I get an hour and a half more to lay here. And it took me three hours to fall asleep last night. So I got up and worked out - which was probably good because it propelled me through my eight o'clock class. But I'm anticipating the crash any time - and Wednesday is not a good day for this: I have another class in an hour, and an afternoon lab to teach, and then it's Youth Group and another church meeting (which, at least, I won't have to talk in). It will be 8 pm at least before I get home tonight.

What does insomnia - or rather, the days after I have Not Slept feel like? Well, time passes oddly. It passes a whole lot more slowly than normally. Things drag. Noise bothers me more than it normally does. And I'm a lot less patient than I normally am.
(The other day - I was tired - I snapped at a colleague that I "didn't have time!" when he came in and wanted to do his latest round of "me me me! I'm so great! I cancelled a week's class to go to this meeting! Yay me!" Well, I WAS working on something that was time-critical. But I'm so tired of his "I'm working smarter not harder like you chumps!" attitude when he's actually not really working that much at all). The weird time-dilation effect is the most noticeable though. I remember a bad, bad bout - the first real bout - I had in grad school. I didn't sleep more than an hour or two a night for two weeks. I remember sitting in the little Continental Restaurant in the city where I lived, with my French Toast (they served breakfast all day. It was the cheapest thing on the menu and their breakfasts were better than most places' other food). And I remember staring at it, and feeling like the five minutes I had been eating it had been an hour. It felt like walking through molasses, going to class, teaching my classes (dear God, how did I manage to teach? I don't even remember it now). I'd go home and stare at the television (I lived in a tiny apartment in a bad part of town; I never went out at night because it was too dangerous) and I prayed for sleep. I tried everything - going to bed extra early. Going to bed extra late. Getting up and staring at the Weather Channel (which, seriously, is the insomniac's friend...it's the same thing over and over again and as long as no tragedies like hurricanes or tsunamis are happening, it's kind of oddly soothing).

Finally I slept again. I don't know if my body slowed down its production of Bad Hormones or if I just got tired enough or if the triggering event (an unpleasant confrontation with the Queen Bitch of the faculty at that school) faded enough in my mind, but I finally slept again.

Those of you without insomnia don't know what it's like - you don't know the joy of waking up and realizing you were dreaming - which means you were asleep - which means you are getting better, and you won't feel so trashed the next day. It's one of those not-missing-the-water-until-the-well-runs-dry things - you're never GRATEFUL for sleep until you can't sleep.

I've learned just to live with this insomnia - I drag for a few days every couple months, feeling like crap, maybe doing a little less than I normally do in the name of self-preservation. I know - some people would be quick to suggest the many new Sleep Enhancing Drugs (or some of the old Sleep Enhancing Drugs) out there. But. I have such a screwy metabolism - I react to things so strangely - that I'm afraid if I took the sleep-drug, one of four things would happen:
a. it would act like an upper on me and I'd sleep even less
b. I'd sleep, but I'd be slow and stoned-y the next day, and people would talk.
c. I'd sleep, and sleep through my alarm, and be late for work.
d. I'd never wake up ever again. (I don't know what the risk of Sudden Death is in side effects; I suspect most drugs don't publish that).

So, like with most health-oriented-quality-of-life things, I tough it out. Maybe it's not the strategy you'd use. Maybe it's not even the best strategy. But I manage to survive on it. (I just hope the kids aren't squirrelly tonight; they've been all jangly the past few weeks - I ASK the food-providers not to bring caffeinated sodas, but everyone in this culture thinks caffeine is 100% harmless, they don't see that the kids are utterly hooked on it, and so they look at me strange when I suggest lemonade or Gatorade instead as a beverage. I refuse to drink the colas or caffeinated root beers or Dr. Pepper [or more likely, the wal-mart knockoff] partly in protest, but partly because I NEED MY SLEEP.)