I.N.S.O.M.N.I.A.

I. Need. Sleep. Or. Maybe. Not. I. Angry.

I hate insomnia…

To be honest I had never experienced it prior to owning the bar…that is when it started and became severe enough to see a Dr. about it.  Of course the only thing that worked in my situation at that time was to eliminate all the stress in my life that was causing me to not be able to shut my brain off.  Right because that is so damn easy?  I promise the people telling you to do that don’t have an easier time doing it either, but they get a paid a lot of $ to tell you so.

Insomnia is caused by a variety of reasons.  Isn’t everything?  Hard to really pinpoint the problem until you sort all of them out.  Not eating right, not getting enough sleep to begin with, stress, exercise, illness…yada yada yada.  How do you know the cause?  Not an easy task for sure.

Since the first major incident I have had it at random times, but would have to say that stress is the primary trigger.  Sometimes more than I realize.  I may not feel as stressed as my body really is, and then I really have no control over the situation.  It tends to occur when I over-think something as well.  It is very, very, very rare for me to fall asleep quickly and from exhaustion.  It takes me forever to fall asleep, even on a normal night…I do a tremendous amount of tossing and turning.  Since Brodie’s seizures started, I do a lot less tossing and turning because he wants to lie immediately next to me.  He doesn’t want cuddled, but he has to be touching me.  So I cannot flop as much as I would like, which makes for a horrible night’s sleep as well.  We have a king size bed…we are using maybe a ¼ of it.

A very interesting bit of information about my sleeping though.  When I would go to my Mom’s to spend the weekend or whatever, I would fall asleep instantly, and sleep a lot.  Almost like, the can’t keep your eyes open kind of sleep…I think I will attribute that to “decompression.”  Things are always so tense at my house…probably because I make it that way and I take some of the responsibility, but honestly after mom left, it didn’t and will never feel like the same home…and rightfully so.  Home truly is where your heart is.  And a house does not make a home.  So interestingly enough when I go to moms to chillax, I really, really do, just that.  I let go and sleep.  Of course this drives her nuts, but she hasn’t grasped that it really is a compliment.  You can let go in the place that you feel safe.

I went to bed at 10PM last night and was wide awake at 12:36AM…until 4AM this morning.  It sucks.  I read, I play on my IPod, I watch TV, but sleep will not come to me.  And then I will feel like crap starting about noon…as I am now terribly behind on sleep.  I am not a put my head on my pillow and wake up in the same position kind of person, I wish I was. 

I think I will get back there someday.  To a safe place where I can lay my head down and sleep peacefully.  I have always been someone that needed a lot of sleep as well.  8-10 hours is pretty good for me.  I do not remember the last time I had that straight and uninterrupted …been over 14 years. 

So to all my fellow insomnia sufferers…lets swap numbers so I can add chatting to my list of things I can do when I can’t sleep.