Sleepless Mind - The Chaotic State of Awake

I believe I have been an insomniac-in-the-making since I was a very little girl. I believe this because I can vividly recall episodes where, rather than sleep contentedly at an assigned bedtime like other children, I preferred to stay awake late into the night worried, or worrying about things that were far beyond my young reach to change or comprehend. While everyone else retired to rest their bodies and mind, I found myself in a constant state of disquieted existence that tormented me. Instead of sleeping, I would find creative, albeit irrational, activities and thoughts with which to occupy the racing jumbled madness in my head.

Although I often joke about my inability to sleep and my increasing dependency on sleep-assisting medications, I consider my situation dire. It is basically one of ongoing suffering. Not sleeping enough takes it toll on you mentally and physically. While I don't present myself as a perpetually exhausted person, in many ways, I believe that I am. I know this and yet I am unable to help myself. The pills I take alternatively - both prescribed and over-the-counter - help some, but on several occasions fail miserably all together. When this occurs, I am left in a strange state of being both medicated and still wide awake. I am functioning and I am numb at once. I consider my insomnia a direct and constant contributor to my overall ill health, although I can't directly blame it for my various named illnesses. To do so would be to assume that all of what I've endured could be explained and corrected, if only I got enough sleep.

When I hear about people who have fought and lost their battles with insomnia, I cringe. I cringe because I can so intensely understand the ongoing agony felt by well-known insomniacs like Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson - to name but a few. Their seemingly relentless quest for that elusive 'good night's sleep' is as disturbing to read about as it is to live through. When I read about their demise and how sleep - or lack thereof - was a contributing factor, I can't help but sympathize with my fellow suffers. It is a cross to bear. It is too close for comfort when I am in my maddening quest for sleep in the darkest hours of a sleepless night and I envision some of the tactics they use and even consider them. This is madness. And though I pride myself on not being an addictive type of individual - striving to get myself off post-surgery pain medications quickly to avoid dependencies - it is still like walking a tightrope and balancing to keep from going over that edge.

What I think I need to do is understand the purpose of sleep and provide it with the respect I know it demands. Right now I mock sleep and treat it not so much as a real human necessity, like food and water, but more as a burdensome task thrust upon us all to occupy time that could be spent in more productive ways. Now if only someone was up at night with me to verify this, or at the very least back me up on my insanity.

On any given night conversations in my head will sound off inventing options other than sleep to fill the empty hours. Should I watch more mind-numbing television? Should I surf the 'Net for the nothingness of what I am not missing, but seeking anyhow? Should I read and if I do, will I concentrate, or will it all empty out of the other side of my brain? Should I write? Is it inspiration or muse keeping me up, or will my sleep-deprived writings not make sense in the daytime hours?

My husband can sleep, my dog can sleep, the cat can sleep, but I can roam the house all night and not find a purpose to stay awake, or the strength to fall asleep. I am at times extremely envious or angry at anyone who can effortlessly fall asleep. What is the secret? How can I join the club?

I once sought the assistance of a sleep center and specialist to try and pinpoint the center of my sleep problems. I stayed the night at a place where I was hooked up to machines and told to try and calm my mind and doze off. Ha! Fat chance! That is why I was there to begin with! I was told the machines would monitor my sleep and gauge the extent of my troubles. The outcome was, at best, inconclusive. "You have a mild case of sleep apnea. We would have to determine how obstructive a case it is to your overall well-being." Wait a minute...you have to determine this and you need a degree for it? I could have told you that my damn self! Is this not why I slept here last night? I have a mild case? Then would anyone care to explain why I have had such a - forgive the pun - nightmarish time sleeping all these years? "We could treat you using the standard CPAP machine." Hmm, I wonder what marvel of modern medicine that is? "Well, a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine is a treatment in which a mask is worn over your nose and, or mouth while you sleep." What? Oh, hell no!! It's enough I once agreed to hook myself up to a dialysis machine at night. Probably because I was unmarried at the time. Hooking myself up to a face mask? Now there's an attractive look for bedtime with your husband! No, thank you. I don't need to obstruct the only thing I actually like to do in the bedroom with some hideous contraption!! Well, that sleep study was a big waste of time! On to other resolutions!

Sleeplessness is something that haunts me because of the fear I have of it all catching up with me one day. I once read an article in which someone in the New Age, eastern-minded community said that all human beings are programmed to have a certain amount of sleep within their lifetime (like women are born with a certain number of eggs with which to reproduce) and that when we lose sleep over and over again, eventually we will suffer a crash from which we won't be able to recover. Great! I have about 30+ years of backed up hours to catch up on! Basically, I understand this to mean that if you are behind in your sleep, you are actually contributing to your body's revenge against you. Hmm, sounds oddly like the symptoms of Lupus - the illness I have whose explanation is limited to "when the body attacks itself". Great title for a movie!!

All of the elements of my sleeplessness conspire to keep me from the rest I know my body desperately needs. Although people find it hard to believe, I can go entire nights without sleeping and then function optimally the following day without so much as a dozing off session. But this doesn't mean that eventually it won't affect me. The problem is that inevitably it will and the after-effects won't be pretty. Rude, angry, moody, callous behavior can be a follow-up to a completely sleepless night. This does not bode well for garnering and maintaining lasting relationships, although I have somehow managed to snag myself a husband and - eight years later - knock wood - still have him around.

If someone were to ask me what it is like when I do not sleep - or rather when I cannot sleep - I would have to whip out all of the artillery in my sack of verbs and adjectives to explain it. For starters, I would say that having the kind of ruthless insomnia that I do is quite possibly one of the most unnerving, disturbing, ill-serving situations to be in. During the nights when sleep eludes me, my brain is moving at breakneck speed and I can't calm it down. Even if my body is beyond exhaustion, my brain won't cooperate to let it rest. It's like having 5 million thoughts at once that you just can't control. When it gets really bad, like when it has been hours and hours of watching a clock mock me, my body starts to react to the intense desire to sleep. My heart races, my pulse accelerates and I begin to feel (or think I feel) the blood coursing through me. My skin begins to experience what I call the creepy-crawlies, which are like goose bumps but slightly painful. My eyes begin to sting, my mouth becomes increasingly dry and my body tosses and turns trying to find comfort. I guess that is where the tossing-and-turning-all-night saying comes from. Instead of fluttering butterflies in my tummy, it's more like raging bats in my brain. Some of the thoughts are ridiculous. Some defy explanation. Some are downright hurtful.

There are thousands of tiny puzzle pieces in my head and they just won't come together. Among the countless inexplicable thoughts that keep sleep at bay is a constant repetition of a song, any song, or lyrics, or tunes in my head that go on and on and on until I think I will go insane. STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! That is what I say over and over to myself - a mantra, if you will. I say this as the thoughts race haphazardly through my head. Some thoughts can be heart wrenching. Sometimes I have vivid thoughts about my mother that seem to be in real time. They can make me jump suddenly, as if I was mid-way through a conversation with her and suddenly realize she has died. Other thoughts are simply the instant replays of situations that have already occurred - whether in the near or far past - and the ways in which I could have handled them differently. There is questioning and confusion about what makes me happy and unhappy. Am I happy now? Was I happy this morning? Did I confuse unhappiness because I was happy or did fleeting happiness cloud my judgment? Am I experiencing happiness at this moment, or am I just giddy from the exhaustion and lack of sleep? How much anger do I still harbor over the losses from the flood, the loss of my beloved mother, the repetitive loss of my kidneys, my lack of health, my lack of children? Will I ever get over any of this and see it for what it is - a loss of things beyond my control? Do I need the control to be happy? Or will this be a never-ending panic I will feel for all of my days?

The guilt. The GUILT, GUILT, GUILT of always knowing the sacrifices people made for me to stay alive. Was I worth it? Do they regret it? Are they proud of me, or disappointed in me? What have I done for them lately? Will it ever be enough? No, it will never be enough. It never is enough, what I do or say for them. It just isn't. Will all of this eventually make me lose all my marbles or just a few of them? How unhinged am I now? Or am I so in control of my reality that I laugh at the weaknesses of the truly unhinged? How much terror is really in me about my life expectancy? Does all of this make me sound paranoid, or am I really paranoid? Do I live with the knowledge of a ticking time bomb, or do I live excitedly because I love life? Will this ever-present baby issue ever go away? How angry am I really about it all?

Some people ask me if it was the chicken or the egg. Did I become an insomniac as a direct result of the many medications I take, which clearly list sleeplessness as a side-effect. Or (more accurately), was I already a borderline insomniac whose condition was exacerbated, heightened, when all the medications came into the mix? As stated, it's the latter. I was already troubled by sleep issues and these issues were escalated once I became dependent upon the medications I need to survive. A double-edged sword? One would think so.

Today, it gets to where I feel like all of the things that plague me (real or imagined) are screaming, screaming, screaming at me, in my head and I can't shut them up!! The noise, the chaos, the stress, the strife and the sadness collect and puddle as deep as the flood waters that took it all away one day. Where is the harmony I sought in the yoga and the acupuncture and the meditative music and the search for the elusive calm? Right now what I feel is like I am lost in the tall-tree forest of my brain where everything makes sense one minute and makes no sense at all the next.

Was this a harsh or confusing blog to read? Keep in mind that I wrote it with just minutes of sleep under my belt. If it was, multiply it by a million and then you can say that you have spent one minute in the chaos that lurks in my mind when the sun sets, the moon comes out and sleep never comes.