Insomnia

Dealing with My Crazy is hard enough most days even with a good nights sleep. Most days however I do not have the luxury of a restful night. I don’t sleep well. It seems like a lifetime since I laid down, snug in my bed, comfortable under the covers and was able to relax and drift off into blissful slumber. Dealing with My Crazy is like fighting a war, and bedtime is like hunkering down in the trenches. At worst I am left knee deep in the gore of my ravaged soul and body, in agony after another day of dealing with myself. At best I lay in the eerie quiet of exhaustion, unable to drift off for fear of the next attack.

Like any other insomniac I have tried dozens of different methods of getting to sleep each night. My bedroom is cool and quiet. My alarm clock sits on its face so there is no LED light to disturb me. The blinds are closed and the curtains are thick to block ambient light. There is no TV or radio and the house is quiet.  Still I cannot relax. I don’t have any caffeine after lunchtime. I try to keep to a schedule and go to bed at a consistent time. I have a cupboard full of various herbal teas purported to help with relaxation and induce slumber. I have tried all of the various CDs; rain forest  classical music; white noise; rain and soothing instrumentation. I lay awake and listen to them repeat over in over with a warm tummy of herbal tea. I have tried OTC sleeping pills, prescriptions of various kinds, herbal concoctions and even alcohol. I still find it near impossible to get to sleep and to stay asleep.

Even when I rarely manage to get soundly asleep all is not well in my subconscious.  I have bad dreams often. It can vary between anxiety riddled dreams that make me restless and wake feeling as though I never slept, to nightmares that force me awake terrified in the dark and drenched in sweat. Then I lay awake, exhausted, needing rest but scared to drift off.

I often leave the comfort of bed so I don’t disturb my husband, there is no need to make him suffer with my sleep problems. He already has to deal with me during the day, it seems unfair to keep him awake too. I sometimes try to sleep on a couch, or watch the discovery channel to distract myself. I have watched 3am come and go so often it is almost as familiar to me as 3pm. I also know a lot of odd nature trivia from seeing so many nature documentaries. Did you know the bombardier beetle can create a chemical reaction in it’s body that causes scalding acid to shoot out of its rear in order to protect itself? I do because I don’t sleep. I also read when I don’t have a stress headache.

Being awake doesn't help with the depression or the bulimia. When the rest of the world is quiet The Crazy gets louder. McDonald's is open 24 hours so if I try to go for a drive to clear my head those golden arches might draw me in like a moth to a flame. I could use this time to improve myself but my focus is too shot to study, and I’m too physically worn out to exercise. I usually just lie in bed or on the couch, worried about the damage I have done to my body and mind and hate myself. Sometime I hate myself so well I work up a full panic attack and scare my cats and my husband with my hysterical crying and threats of self harm.

And all  of this happens when I should be off in dream land. I want to sleep. I try to sleep. I have done guided meditation, full body relaxation and even tried to write all of my worries down to get them off my mind. Yet here I am awake, exhausted and crazy.

Maybe I just need more tea and deep breathing….

Dream Forest