I'm envious of children for a lot of reasons: They're honest to the point of being offensive, they're rude in public, their clothes don't have to match, and they often don't bathe for days on end. Okay, so admittedly I have all of those same traits on a pretty regular basis. But another thing they do is they SLEEP. They sleep so easily. I know some parents will disagree, but I'm not talking about babies. Here's a trick you can pull on a toddler; Challenge them to a contest of who can close their eyes the longest. The little buggers will straight pass out on you! It blows my mind.
I have had insomnia for over ten years now. Fifteen? Who knows. When I tell people I have insomnia, I have to stand there and smile and listen when they tell me that they also have insomnia (no clue why, but everyone LOVES to tell me that they have it). What they mean is that they have had "episodic" or "transient" insomnia. I have "chronic" insomnia (I know a handful of people with chronic insomnia). There is a major difference. Its not that I have trouble falling asleep, its that my brain has simply decided that it doesn't want to do it. If I do not take some sort of medication (vodka is a "medication" in some countries, so I'm going with that as a viable option) I will simply not get tired and not be able to sleep. Its not uncommon for me to be able to go over 50 hours without sleep before my body finally just shuts down. And when that happens, the sleep is garbage and I feel like crap when I wake up.
Have you ever been really hungry but you were caught up in a task and you forget about being hungry and before you know it you hadn't eaten in like ten hours? Thats me except with sleep. Oh, and its usually about 3am when I realize that its really, really late. (Its 4:06am as I type this). The best thing I can compare it to is "sleep constipation". You want to do it. You need to do it. No matter what you try, you CAN'T do it. This doesn't stop people from doling out advice. And MAN do they love to give me advice. Its always the same stupid shit too.
- Do you drink caffeine really late?
- Have you tried reading?
- Are you getting enough exercise?
- Just try lying there until you're asleep
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| Albert explains my response to these people |
The thing is, not only does everyone offer the stupidest advice ever (over and over again) but then they have the balls to tell me I shouldn't take sleep medicine (despite the fact my doctor thinks I should). And they get JUDGMENTAL. Like I'm some sort of crackhead. I'd love to hear these people tell a diabetic to stop taking insulin because its wrong to inject drugs with a needle. The thing is, I've tried it. I've tried all of it. Over and over again. I've changed my diet to everything imaginable. I've taken up meditation, breathing exercises, I've eliminated caffeine entirely, I've added more caffeine. Nothing works. Laying there trying to sleep is excruciatingly painful. I'm not saying that as hyperbole. It's literally painful. Its often a problem in relationships when my lady friend can't grasp why I can't lay down and go to sleep with her. Laying in bed and doing nothing is maddening for me. My brain simply doesn't shut off. It makes for some fairly poor quality of life at times.
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"When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep... and you're never really awake."
The good thing about insomnia is that I get to play with mind-altering drugs (this isn't really a good thing, but for the sake of my already deteriorating mental health, let's pretend!). My doctor gives me all kinds of fun drugs that have warning such as: - you should know that some people who took medications for sleep got out of bed and drove their cars, prepared and ate food, had sex, made phone calls, or were involved in other activities while partially asleep. After they woke up, these people were usually unable to remember what they had done. Call your doctor right away if you find out that you have been driving or doing anything else while you were sleeping.
- you should know that your mental health may change in unexpected ways while you are taking this medication. It is hard to tell if these changes are caused by this medication or if they are caused by physical or mental illnesses that you already have or suddenly develop.
- Tell your doctor right away if you experience any of the following symptoms: aggressiveness, strange or unusually outgoing behavior, hallucinations (seeing things or hearing voices that do not exist), feeling as if you are outside of your body, memory problems, difficulty concentrating, new or worsening depression, thinking about killing yourself, confusion, and any other changes in your usual thoughts, mood, or behavior.
- Be sure that your family knows which symptoms may be serious so that they can call the doctor if you are unable to seek treatment on your own.
Those are all 100% real (I would have been much more clever had I written them myself). And yet the option of NOT sleeping is worse. |
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| Most of my Rx Bottles look like this |
Let's look at that last warning again. "Be sure that your family knows which symptoms may be serious". Are you f'ing kidding me? Which of those symptoms are NOT serious? "Hey dad, if I call you at 3am to tell you I'm having sex while driving on my way to make mac n cheese, please don't worry about it. It's probably just my Ambien."
Nothing good can come from this and I think we all know what the eventual outcome will be:
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| Pictured: Me and Bob in our support group (shout out to MO) |
I guess the good news is that according to my warning labels, I probably wont remember anything anyway. Next time my dad throws up a high five for no apparent reason, I'm gonna have to assume its because I made the above phone call.
Sleeplessly, your humble narrator
-NM
