Insomnia I Can’t Sleep with You

I’m tired.  So tired.

I need sleep.  So, what’s the problem?

The solution is simple.  Really?

Just go to bed and go to sleep.  Hmmm…

I have always been a bad sleeper.  More significantly, I am a worrier.  I prefer warrior.

I’ve learned to manage it (sort of).  Routine.  Routine.  Routine.

The human body functions at its optimum when it is governed by a strict routine.  I know!  Boring!

I’ve had a really bad week.  The nights feel like they are a hundred hours long.

Insomnia, I believe, is the triumph of the mind over the mattress. I’m competitive by nature.  So I’m fighting to regain control.  Otherwise, insomnia wins.  No.  No.  No. Insomnia, I can’t sleep with you.

 

Before my accident, it was easier to cope with a restless, ruffled mind in the middle of the night.

This quote sums it all up perfectly:

“If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying.”

Things are different now.  I wish…

When I was younger, it was the worry that got me, not the lack of sleep.  What’s the point of worrying about something you cannot do anything about at two o’clock in the morning?  Huh Tracy?  But, how to stop?

Now, the worry and the lack of sleep get me.  Life happens when I cannot sleep.

As I’m wheeled down the passage in my Lazyboy recliner, I dread the hour-long tiresome ritual of getting me ready for bed every night.  Yes.  I know.  It’s my own fault.  I am pedantic.  And particular about my personal hygiene and schedules.

I try to switch off by watching mind-numbing rubbish on TV whilst my care assistants are busy.  But, it still means having a pair of human hands, often roughly, invading my personal space which is not always so easy to ignore.  I wouldn’t mind so much if my Comrades legs invaded my personal space (a little roughly) from time to time.  Hmmm now that’s an idea!

My nighttime routine, added to heaped-up frustration from a solid day’s confinement, usually leaves me feeling highly irritated and filled with despair.  Try having someone else brush your teeth.  And I don’t mean your oral hygienist.  And bath you.  And dress you.  And feed you.  And… Aaarrrggghhh!

Eventually I am left lying motionless – on my side – in the dark – alone with my thoughts.  Most nights I pop a sleeping pill and manage to sink into temporary oblivion for a good few hours.  Just.

This week the wicked-insomnia-monster managed to invade my psyche in all its despicable, colossal glory.  An insomnia ogre is a gross feeder.  It nourishes itself on thinking – fueled even more by thinking about not thinking.  Somehow, it gets me to replay disturbing, tragic events  over and over again on the big screen behind my eye-forced-shut-lids.

My 80-year-old paralyzed-from-the-neck-down body also decided to go into Alzheimer’s mode and completely forget how to go to sleep.  I was dying of thirst.  I was hot.  Then cold.  My nose itched.  And my head.  Excruciating torture!

My internal organs chose to mess with me.  My stomach was sore, bloated, cramping and uncomfortable.  It’s full of shit as usual.  Yes, I know.  Typical woman.  Don’t even say it!

The only comfort, when going to bed, is the rough, male kiss of the blanket resting on my neck.  Well, when kisses are a rare occurrence, it calls for desperate measures.  Doesn’t it?

It’s amazing how a double-bed-made-for-sex-love-and-intimacy can become such a lonely, desolate place with an all-consuming emptiness as the dark Knight takes possession of my being.  Sheesh remind me to stay away from the tall-dark-and-mysterious types in future.

I could hear my care assistant’s heavy breathing – and snoring – in the adjoining room.  Why is it that people who snore always seem to fall asleep first? 

I called out irritably for her to turn over.  Sheesh no wonder I cannot sleep!

It didn’t help.

My bed has become a bundle of paradoxes – I go to it with reluctance (mostly) and leave it with regret, sometimes.  Although bed can be a reprieve from a day of physical torment for me, it can be my emotional hell.  Sometimes, I fall asleep minutes before I have to get up and then I’m annoyed when my care assistant wakes me up.  Other times, I lie awake for hours, clock-watching and listening for the quiet movements of my care assistants getting up – wishing for them to hurry up.  I need to get the hell out of this damn bed!

Try lying in exactly the same position all night long without moving anything, not waggling a finger or wriggling a toe.  No repositioning.  No fidgeting.  Nothing. C’mon I dare you!

Sleep is as perverse as human nature.  Often, the repose of sleep refreshes the body but not the mind.  Sleep can be like a slice of death.  But, there is still nothing like a good laugh and a deep, long sleep as balm for the troubled soul.

Without enough sleep I feel like an emotional, temper-tantrum-throwing two-year-old, on the inside, who yearns to fling herself onto the floor, kicking and screaming like a woman gone mad.  I’m grossly-grumpy, insanely-tearful and oh-so-sorry-for-myself.  Beware!

 

Do you suffer from insomnia sometimes?  How do you deal with it?