All I want for Christmas is some normal sleep. By the way, just a second ago I got a handful of a thousand tiny slivers by shoving a piece of wood into my wood stove. It pains me to type this. Literally. This is so lame. They're like tiny little hairs, so it's impossible to get them all out.
Years ago, as a teenager living in my dad's house, I was once so out of it that I reached into the oven and pulled out a pan without a hot pad. It took about a second for it to register to my brain that a) it was hot and b) I should drop the pan. A few weeks later I did the same thing only it took slightly longer for both of those actions to occur. The pan actually made it out of the oven and I dropped it on the open door. I remember my dad was standing there staring at me as if I had lost my mind. Maybe I had, I don't know. I think though, really, I was just tired.
I'm tired a lot these days and I've tried an awful lot of things to get me to sleep. Everyone's got some amazing ideas. The thing is though, if you've got insomnia, it's not like there's a whole lot out there that will work. I just finished reading this super long, boring book that basically said if you've got primary insomnia (insomnia without a side cause like getting dumped by your boyfriend or having a big presentation coming up, or just being crazy in general) doctors have no idea why or how to treat it and the big money is not in trying to find out. The big money is in the drug companies.
Back when I was younger (high school age) I only partly valued my sleep. I slept whenever I could, I went to bed early and got up early. But some nights I laid awake for hours. I'd get up and write or read, or go get a snack from the fridge. On many of these nights I'd find my dad laying on the couch watching tv. He'd say he couldn't sleep. There's evidence that this is hereditary. I didn't think it was such a big deal because many creative ideas came into my head at 2am. I'd just write it out. In college I started to struggle with it a bit, but then again, a couple shots of espresso can get you through class no matter how tired you are.
I think it all really became a problem when I took on a job where having energy and being able to stay awake were actual requirements of the job. Last year on a fire in Oregon I was having a particularly hard time with my insomnia. I was becoming so exhausted that I couldn't keep my eyes open during the day. But when I would lay down at night, I couldn't fall asleep. One morning a couple people asked me what on earth I was doing walking around at 3am. Apparently I had woken them up. This year in Montana I have memories of one night where I was just as exhausted and could hardly sleep. I'm starting to think that I may get "overtired" like a kid does and it gets to the point that I'm so tired I can't sleep. That night is forever engraved in my mind as fragmented moments of a horse walking in a pasture. First he's standing over me (nearly, there was a barbed wire fence between us), then he's gone, then he's back and his face is coming through the fence at me, then one of the guys is trying to call him over so he can pet him (so he wasn't sleeping either I take it). The horse walks away. Then I see him in the distance. Then he's standing over me again. Then he's gone. Then he's walking towards me. I spent the entire night watching this stupid horse. And it's all in weird fragmented images like a bad horror movie.
I bought a highly rated book called "Sound Sleep, Sound Mind". The guy seemed to make sense, except that he kept saying that if I'm laying in bed at night, it's because I don't truly want to be asleep. I beg your pardon? I won't even touch that one. But it infuriated me to the point I finally quit reading it. He did have some suggestions that I gave a good try. One of the common suggestions that actually come from quite a few people is to not stay in bed if you can't sleep because then you begin to associate bed with not sleeping. Fair enough. He suggested going into another room and reading or finding some other mind numbing task like coloring or a puzzle. No tv of course because the blue light messes with your circadian rythm. So one night I couldn't sleep and I got up and tried coloring. I got sleepy so I went back to bed. After about a half hour I still couldn't sleep so I got back up and tried a puzzle. The light was terrible so I tried a book. I was so tired my eyes burned and I couldn't focus on the book. I tried the coloring book but my eyes were burning so bad by this point that I just wanted the light off.
I've tried limiting my coffee to nothing after 2pm. I've cut out alcohol before bed. I've spritzed my sheets with lavender. I've drank chamomile tea and had a warm bath (infused with lavender). I've taken melatonin and valerian root and recently, 5-HTP. I've tried meditating and breathing exercises. Speaking of exercises, I tried working out several times a day so that I would be too exhausted to stay awake...still didn't work. And that was training for a marathon. So not only would I run 12-18 miles per day, but then I'd eat a lunch and go hike a couple hours up a steep hill with a 45lb pack on. Didn't help.
My doctor prescribed me this wonderful drug called Dalmane. And I slept. Sure, sometimes I had to take two but for the most part it worked and I felt great. Until I had to carry 5 gallons of drip torch fuel and a full drip torch (2 gallons?) up a hill in the snow. My legs were jelly (aren't they always). Dalmane stays in your system for about 72 hrs. It relaxes your muscles quite well. Not so great for walking uphill in the snow with several loads. So we tried Xanax. It works but not for the entire night.
I moved up north and got a new doctor in the process. He gave me a sample of Ambien. After the first weird psychadelic night, the rest of the nights weren't anything too crazy, and I slept ok. Not all the way through the night, but I did better. Then I tried to go a night without taking it and was slammed so hard with rebound insomnia that I decided Ambien was not for me. Rebound insomnia apprently happens the first couple nights when you're off a sleep drug. It means you don't sleep AT ALL. Like, at all. Ever. The entire night. But you're god-awful tired. So tired your bones and joints and muscles and hair hurt. And your eyes. OMG the eyes hurt.
So then he prescribed me a bottle of Lunesta. Same thing. Halfway decent sleep unless I didnt take it. And have you seen the warnings for these things? One guy reportedly ate a buttered cigarette. Many people eat, drive, have phone conversations and even sex in their sleep without knowing it, all due to these drugs. Awesome. As far as I know, none of these things have happened to me. Can you imagine waking up halfway across the state and having no idea how you got there? Some people gain 20lbs, blaming it on the drug, which does not cause weight gain...only to find out they've been eating quart after quart of ice cream while they're asleep.
I went back to the doctor and he recommended trazodone (generic for Desryl). I gave it a shot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The whole problem with all of these (except xanax) is that you need to commit to a full night's sleep. If you don't have 8 hours to sleep, you can't take any of them. But more importantly, I don't usually have a problem falling asleep in the first place. My problem is waking up at midnight, 1am, 3am, 4:30am, 5am and then being unable to get up when my alarm clock goes off at 6am. Or worse yet, when I go to bed at 9pm, wake up at midnight, lay awake until 3:30am and my alarm goes off at 5:30am.
I have an aunt who doesn't sleep through the night much (same blood line, notice a pattern?). She remembers a fair amount of the night and mentioned she doesn't like it much when she sleeps all the way through the night and can't remember any of it (because she was asleep). I can sympathize with this a little. I had that happen to me a couple times. One time I did it two nights in a row and it was very strange. I crawled into bed and it was night time. I woke up and it was day time...and I remembered absolutely nothing in between. It was strange. I'm not asking for that really. I'm asking to be able to fall asleep within a half hour of laying down and closing my eyes, and then if I wake up at night, I'd like to be able to fall back to sleep within a half hour and preferably not wake up more than twice in one night. Oh, and these weekend "natural wake-ups" of 4:45 am? Yeah, I can do without those thank you very much.
Last night I gave up. I've been so hooked on caffeine throughout the day that it's getting pretty serious. But I'm always so tired. So I took my last Ambien sample. I just wanted to sleep. And I did. I don't remember much of the night and I think I slept through it. I have a vague memory of a dream. Then I woke up at 5:15 am, went to the gym and then went to work. I've been yawning all day. I just took a Lunesta because now I'm stuck. Rebound insomnia and all. But I have a plan. I'm going to take the Lunesta this week and then take the Dalmane (yep, still have that too, it's probably expired) when my weekend gets here so I can get off the Lunesta without losing sleep (literally) and I won't have to struggle up the hill after the boys while under the influence of the Dalmane.
So I'm going to go get ready for bed. If you guys ever get weird messages from me in the middle of the night, I may not have been awake when I've done it, so disregard. And forget it ever happened. Let's not make it awkward, huh?
