Sleep
You can’t always get what you need
I’ve been an insomniac for literally as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I couldn’t fall asleep. I’d lie awake, sometimes for hours, watching the clock — I remember I had this “digital” clock that was mechanical numbers flipping over on a rotissierie sort of thing, and they would flip, and flip, and I would watch. As an adult, I have a somewhat better time falling asleep, but I have a hard time staying asleep. Some nights I’ll wake up at 3:30 or 4am after having gone to bed between 11 and midnight, and I will maybe catch another hour before I’m up for the day.
I know what I’m supposed to do. I’ve read books, and articles, and worked with my doctor. I know I’m not supposed to drink much, and I’m supposed to limit caffeine, and I’m not supposed to be exposed to screens near bedtime, and I’m supposed to get out of bed when I am wide awake so I only associate it with sleep (and sex, but I’m not getting much of that either these days, har har). Funny, though, when I follow the rules I sleep worse. I love coffee and booze and my phone and being warm and cozy, and if I’m not going to sleep anyway, I might as well enjoy my life.
I’ve tried it all. I’ve tried reducing stress (even Wendy can reduce the stress in her life, though it takes doing), medication to tamp down my anxiety (didn’t work; I’m naturally a bit anxious but not, it seems, on a clinical level), even actual sleeping pills. The first one I tried was so vile — I slept the night I took it, but had a hangover and the taste of an old shoe in my mouth the entire next day. The second one was a regular old benzodiazepine, and the first time I took it, it was lovely. The second time, a few nights later, I didn’t sleep, and boy was the day after that fun. And so the end of sleeping pills.
Those were my worst days. It was 2006, and I’d been in Toronto about a year, and was finally understanding exactly what I’d done by leaving my lovely Boston job and friends and family, getting married, and moving to a new country all at once. At that point the insomnia was so bad I would go a couple of nights with no more than a little doze. After the first sleepless night I’d power through the day no problem — a lifetime of being regularly underslept teaches you how to cope (hint: carbs, coffee, and plenty of water). After the second, I’d be cranky and have a hard time focusing. The third night, I would usually sleep. If I went a third night, which did happen a few times, I could survive the day, but I’d be shaky and usually spend a fair bit of it crying. I never went four nights. I don’t ever want to know what that looks like.
And mostly I am terrible at sleeping next to someone. There have been a few wonderful exceptions to that, and now I wonder whether my subconscious brain knew something I didn’t. I love to be held (by an appropriate person) more than pretty much anything in the entire world, but if I’m trying to sleep, 90% of the time, you go find your own side of the bed, thank you very much. (Exception: my cat likes to sleep on my butt, and for whatever reason, this does not disturb me at all.)
2013 may have been the second worst, and possibly the most stressful year of my life, but it never got to that point with sleep, probably because I had very little in the way of firm schedule the entire year. I could sleep on my own terms. Maybe this is part of the reason I loved my time as an older student so much — there aren’t any graduate school of education classes in the morning. No alarm clock is almost always equivalent to better sleep for me. The clock I am watching doesn’t have punishment in store.
The only thing — the ONE THING — that I have ever found that helps, and it is hardly perfect, is Vitamin D. I take 2000 IUs a day and while I still wake up most nights, I am more likely to get back to sleep when I take it than when I don’t. It just seems to smooth things out a little. But here’s the thing about insomnia — what works for one person does nothing for another (see…you know, everything I wrote above). At least this one is pretty harmless and nondisruptive. I don’t know.
Why am I even bothering to write this, you ask? I’m starting a month of night shifts tomorrow, and I’m pretty scared of what it’s going to do to me. I’ll get home from work around midnight, keyed up from a late commute. It’s only a month — I’ve made it through a thousand worse things, I know that. But I hate the way I feel when I don’t sleep, so I’m getting all of this out so I don’t show up tomorrow all twitchy and wanting to say all of this then. I don’t think I’m ready for my coworkers to see me cry (have I mentioned I cry really easily? should write about that sometime, she thinks, blowing her nose).
Wish me luck. And I wish you blissful, uninterrupted rest.
