Tales From an Insomniac

Once again sleep has decided it doesn't like me. I don't know what I ever did to sleep. I was faithful to it, I even took naps often! I enjoyed sleeping in, rolled up nice and warm in my comforter. Sleep and I had a great relationship. Then something happened...sleep left me and ran far, far away. Well, if you want to get technical about it, I was in a car accident and was cursed with Stress-Induced Insomnia.


For a while this meant that I wouldn't get to sleep until about four or five in the morning and I'd often only sleep a few hours due to pain. Slowly the lack of sleep built up against me until I was becoming a bit of a mental nutter butter. This is when I was put on sleep meds...ones that didn't work. I tried a bunch of over the counter medicines that didn't work and was then introduced to Ambien. Ambien worked, it knocked me out cold but it also didn't allow me to wake up very well. I was a zombie for half of the day and, if I had to be up by a certain time, it was worthless because of how incoherent I was. I started refusing to take it so that I could make it to appointments on time which then led back to, you guessed it: NOT SLEEPING. This is when one of my doctors suggested Melatonin, a natural sleep medicine. 


The Melatonin worked. I would drift slowly off to sleep, stay asleep and wake up feeling mostly refreshed. The only problem was I had to make sure I got a good eight hours of sleep in so that I wouldn't have troubles waking up. I used the Melatonin long enough to ease my sleeping pattern into a more normal time of going to sleep around midnight...still not normal, but better. It seems I am now stuck in this pattern as I now don't usually take my Melatonin. I got tired of calculating when I would have to be up and now I just suck it up and sleep when I can.


I know I need to start taking my Melatonin again but I hate set bedtimes. I also hate pills of all kinds and I tend to get a lot done in the middle of the night. Tonight I wrapped presents and a few weeks ago I decided to randomly clean the bathroom. My wonderful boyfriend sometimes wakes up surprised because he didn't hear me do things (like clean the bathroom). Anyway, I sit here again missing sleep. I love sleep. Sleep just doesn't seem to love me anymore. I was the child who could sleep through a tornado and fall asleep within minutes. I can still sleep through a storm, it's getting me to sleep that's the issue. 


Now I sit here thinking that I should just take a pill...but then I might not wake up early enough to finish my to-do list. Maybe I'll just start taking them again tomorrow and suffer one more night. I accept that the insomnia is partially my fault now but I don't feel like correcting it tonight, not when I've gotten so much done.


*In my midnight wanderings I found some fun stuff. There's a comic below and here is a website that lists poems about insomnia. Some of them are kind of funny, some are a bit depressing so read with care.*

(Thanks Paulette for the cartoon.
Click it to enlarge it.)

And if anyone is curious this is a site on Insomnia cures and treatments...I may be reading some of this.