Insomnia

As some, or most, of you know, I can have pretty bad bouts of insomnia. Over the summer, I would go weeks without sleep, and in earlier parts of my life those periods could be even longer. And as a few people know, I've recently been taking some medication to combat it. It's been going well, real well actually, but I got just a bit worried that if I would always need it in order to get to sleep. So just as a little experiment to myself I took one night to just skip that pill. No harm done, just like I missed a dose or something.

It was a bit of a mistake.

I mean, I did actually get to sleep on my own, which was fantastic, but the process of getting there still took an ungodly amount of time. I haven't tossed and turned that much since high school. But I feel like I talk about my insomnia to some people and not everyone quite gets it. I mean, how can anyone possibly imagine what it's like to be awake for days, weeks, on end? I was thinking this, well, I was thinking a lot of other things too, as I was tossing and turning. At the same time I was also struggling to find an idea for a new post, so here it is: a quasi-blunt description of what it's like (at least for me) to have insomnia.

Now, I have a feeling this always varies from person to person. I know that I have some family members that have it as well, and I'm sure what I experience is vastly different from them. The main thing for me is that each day that passes feels like-- feels like a year goes by. Everything just slows down to a standstill almost. Clocks don't look like they move, the sun doesn't shift until suddenly it's nighttime again, TV programs never change or advance. When I get into these bouts, I have literally just laid motionless on the floor for what honestly felt like a solid three hours that turned out to be maybe -- 15 minutes. On paper that sounds great, right? Now suddenly I have all this time to be productive or something? Yeah, you'd think so. You don't have the will to even be productive. Your body just feels like it's wearing thin, as Bilbo Baggins said in Lord of the Rings it's like "butter spread over too much bread." Walking is honestly a chore at this point, all I ever felt like doing was laying down. But in spite of doing just that, sleep still didn't come. I watched the ceilings mostly, traced patterns, looked for shapes that weren't necessarily there, just in some vain attempt to lull myself asleep.

The one positive I can draw from that is that a lot of the inspiration for any writing I do usually comes out of that. I tell myself stories quite often, because let's face it, who's around at 4:30 in the morning to be social with? I also got to watch a lot of awesome old cartoons on Boomerang. Wacky Races, that's the good stuff. It's kind of weird to say, but at night it's almost-- comfortable. Sometimes I'd enjoy that sensation of just being, and I wouldn't miss sleep at all. I was able to read countless books this summer because of that in just the peace, the dark, and the silence.

It's during the day time that most of that first paragraph happens. Remember in Fight Club when Ed Norton's character describes it as a "waking dream" or something thereabouts? I can almost agree with that, except I never hallucinated people flashing in and out of existence, and I most certainly don't have a weird split personality. (Spoiler alert?) But while you're spending time in those year long prisons of days, it just doesn't feel real. I could liken it to a fever dream where you want so desperately to wake up and be out of the dream, but it just continues on and on in the most uncomfortable way imaginable. It's a funny sort of personal hell. Things are as real as they could possibly be, yet it all feels somehow intangible. That's not even mentioning the complete lack of focus that follows, or the intense irritability that I had a serious problem dealing with.

I will say this though, the first time I'm able to sleep after having a really bad bout is just about the greatest experience of my life. Until my dreams are really vivid, but that would take a novel in and of itself to get into. Yeah, dreaming of being covered in termites while your legs inexplicably stop working is kind of horrifying. Although my alien invasion dreams are always particularly awesome. There's a broad spectrum of those.

And there you have it, a brief look at what it's like (at least for me) to be an insomniac. I don't wish it on anyone, really, and I'm always the first to worry about people that don't sleep since I know how it feels, I know what it's like. Cherish your sleep as I do, you'll never know how much you miss it until it's gone.

Until next time...