Insomnia

Ugh. Insomnia. We have been enemies friends for six very long years.

I have tried sleeping pills. I have tried everything natural. I've tried having a normal routine. I’ve tried to not let myself lay in bed and stare at the ceiling for longer than 30 minutes before I get up and read, take a hot shower, attempt something to help me sleep.

I've told myself for the last year that as long as I am laying down, at least my body is resting. I have convinced myself that as long as I let my body rest for eight hours, I will be fine.

This week I guess I hit my brick wall.

I was sitting at my desk, just staring at my computer. I wasn't working, just staring. Not even realizing I was doing it. My co-worker came in and asked if I was okay. I told the lie I tell every day “Yes, I’m fine.” She continued “Are you sure? You look really upset?”

I started crying. She had that oh shit what did I say? Look on her face. “What’s wrong?”

I am so tired. So tired I can’t see straight. So tired that I think I am losing my mind. No one understands how insane insomnia is making me!

“How long exactly has it been since you slept?”

I couldn't think. I couldn't count. Eight nights. Maybe ten. Maybe twelve. Maybe two weeks. I’m not sure. The last time I got eight hours of sleep in one sitting? Months. Probably since I went off my sleeping pills in October.

Listening to myself try to remember how long it’s been since I slept, I realized it was time.

Time to go back to the doctor. Time to stop trying to do this alone. Time to throw in the towel and give up and scream “ I have insomnia!”

I made a doctor’s appointment.

Friday I found myself sitting in my doctor’s office, yet again. With another medical issue.. again.

My doctor came in and asked why I was there.

“I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept normal in six years. I stare at the ceiling for two to four hours before falling asleep. After I finally fall asleep, I wake up two hours later. To stare at the ceiling for another two hours. Or read for two hours. And I’ll be able to fall asleep for another two hours. Only to wake up again two hours later. And the cycle continues until it’s time to get up for work. I’m losing my damn mind! I can’t take this shit anymore. I can sleep all day but I can’t sleep at night. I don’t let myself nap. I am exhausted every.second.of.the.day. and as soon as I go to bed, I’m wide awake. Staring at the ceiling. I’m losing it. I do it all week long that come the weekend all I do is sleep. I think something broke when my husband died. Can "sleep" break? Is that even possible?”

I stopped. I realized I was rambling. I might have said too much. Maybe I should have sugar coated it and made it sound not as bad as it really is.

Mrs. Doc Lady “Let me get this right, you are sleeping two hours at a time, and have been doing this for six years now? And we have tried you on sleeping meds? Why are you not taking your sleeping pills that I prescribe?”

Because they are addicting.. and I don’t want to become an addict. I stopped taking them in October. I thought my body would reset and I would be fine.

I suddenly felt like I was on trial. I was defensive. How dare she question my sleep!

Mrs. Doc Lady “Honey, these sleep problems going on for six years NOT normal. You can’t do this anymore. Do you realize insomnia kills people?”

Yes. I know insomnia can actually kill you. But so can sleeping pills. But I’m not normal. I was widowed at 29 years old. What exactly is normal about me?

She could see I was defensive and upset. “You have been in counseling for six years. It's been three years since your husband passed away. It's time to get back to some kind of normal. I want you to sleep more than two hours at a time. Frankly if I was sleeping two hours at a time for the last six years I would probably lose my mind”

I took a deep breath and reminded myself she wasn't the enemy. After all, I called her for help. She didn't drag me in there.

Mrs. Doc Lady “So here’s what we are going to do. For six weeks you are going to be in bed, with your sleeping pill in your stomach, no later than 9pm every single night. Including Saturday’s. And you will be up at 5am. Every single day, including Saturday’s. No naps. No TV or phone after 8pm. Sleeping pill in your stomach and you in bed by 9pm, got it? For six straight weeks. After that we will wing you off the medication. If your sleep is not normal, and I mean at least six straight hours of sleep a night kind of normal, I am sending you in for a sleep study. I am afraid something is wrong but we need to do this before we can do a sleep study. And I need you to commit to this for six weeks. Six straight weeks. No skipping the medication because you think you can do this on our own. You can do this or I can send you for a sleep study tonight”

She had me backed into a corner. I was sweaty and slightly panicky. On the verge of tears. Frankly she scared the shit out of me the whole sleep study thing. What if my husband died isn't really my issue? What if I have a medical problem that causes me to wake up every two hours?

Feeling beaten, slightly ashamed, scared of the possibility of a sleep study and too tired to argue, I agreed.

I realized that even when I seek help, I don’t want to accept it. Even when I know I am at my wits end, I fight it. Even when I feel like I can’t stay sane any longer, I fight help.

Where did this come from? I used to gladly accept help. I used to admit I had a problem without feeling ashamed or attacked.

Now my doctor that is trying to help me, is the enemy. What caused this? Being widowed?

So I start my six weeks of a who can really do this normal sleep schedule. Bed at 9pm. Up by 5am.

I can’t help but grumble. Frustrated that I have yet another medical issue since my husband’s death. Obviously caused by my husband’s illness and suicide.

Frustrated that I am fighting another war alone. Frustrated that I will be doing this alone. Frustrated that I am getting up at 5am on Saturday and Sunday's to be.. alone. Frustrated that the only motivation for this is my own. I don't have anyone to wake me up at 5am, coffee in hand, and say "Get up. Only a couple more weeks and we are done with this whole thing. Now get up." 

Sleep

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I think I've forgotten how to sleep for more than 4 or 5 hours at a time.

This is a side effect of my second life that really challenges me. I can feel the anxiety I've held at bay all day bubble up when I wake up in the middle of the night. It waits for these dark, quite, vulnerable moments to get a good foothold and then it's a battle between me and the anxiety.

I breathe deeply, in for four counts, hold for two, out for four counts. It only takes one or two cycles of this for my body to tense up again and my brain to swirl with worries. So I repeat the process again and again. Sometimes I can short circuit the anxiety and I fall asleep again. Sometimes the anxiety wins and I give up on sleep and read my book until the sun rises and then I get up.

The anxiety that tries to take over my brain isn't even specific worries. It's not like I wake up and think about all I need to accomplish the next day, or how I'm going to get through some difficult upcoming event. It's just generalized anxiety in a physical form. A racing heart, tense muscles and adrenaline-soaked brain synapses.  It's a fuzzy, non-specific "life is in flux and I feel scared" sensation that sinks down from my brain into my chest and gut.

I want very much to not become dependent on medications to sleep through the night, but the truth is, without meds, It's 50/50 odds at best right now. Half the time I sleep a relatively decent amount and the other half of the time I barely sleep at all. I've adjusted to this in that I don't freak out about it as much. I don't think that I won't be able to function the next day and I don't cancel stuff so I can lie around and somehow make up for the deprivation during the day. I just keep going. I don't freak out as much in the middle of the night, faced with the fact that sleep just won't come to me. I've learned to let the insomnia in and adjust to it. I learned to think of it as extra reading time or something that won't last anyway.

The problem is, I know the one way to avoid it and that's the meds. So I want to take them every night, but I don't because I want to remember how to sleep on my own, so I'm trying to wean myself off them.

Maybe I need to consider that weaning myself off right now isn't as important as sleeping but I wish I could remember how to sleep without them.

How the hell do you sleep through the night again? I can't remember. I used to be really good at it.

Dream Water or Insomnia Water?

Or in my case, drink to panic and then wake up every few hours to make sure I'm not dead. 

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I have just not been sleeping through the night. Not one night in...I don't even know how long. I wake up at 4 or 5 am and lie there in a state of mild unease and anxiety. Sometimes I fall back to sleep and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I take melatonin, sometimes I take Advil PM, sometimes I drink sleepytime tea. Nothing seems to consistently work. The lack of sleep makes me a forgetful, confused and weepy girl. I need a hell of a lot of sleep to function on all cylinders.

Last night, in an effort to get more sleep, I drank a little shot of a natural sleep aid called Dream Water*.

Right after I drank it I went to take my daily dose of Zoloft (I'm serotonin-challenged) and stopped suddenly before I could shake the pill out of the bottle into my palm. I realized with a shock that the "natural" sleep aid I took could have unfortunate interactions with Zoloft.

Then I did what I know I shouldn't have done. I googled drug interactions with zoloft.

The active ingredients in Dream Water are melatonin, 5-HTP and GAMA. I have taken melatonin many times before but was completely unfamiliar with the other two.

The google search led me to a list a mile long of drugs to NEVER TAKE ALONG WITH ZOLOFT. There were little red exclamation points next to each drug name. It may as well have been a giant skull and crossbones and a blinking red neon sign that read "IMMINENT DEATH".

In the list was 5-HTP. Before I panicked too much (I vaguely wondered if I should be making myself barf) I noticed some other medications on the list. They included Advil, almost every cough medicine known to man, and a migraine medication I've taken for years. It appeared as though they put every medication available by prescription AND over the counter on the "do not mix with zoloft" list.  So, I relaxed. I did not commence "fingers down the throat" or "head to the ER" mode. I just went to bed. But my brain continued to worry about the possibility of dying in my sleep so I woke up about every two hours, ALL NIGHT LONG. Thanks Dream Water!

What I realized, though, was that as much as I hurt and often wish to be relieved of the pain and work of grief, I don't want to die. I'm not ready to go. Even the thought of being with Dave again isn't enough to give me a real death wish of any kind.

There are times when I see young families and think that maybe my chance for that is over and was taken from me the day Dave breathed his last. There are times when I wish for an end to my pain. But not once have I actually wished to die.

I want to live. I want to feel true joy and happiness again.  I know deep down that I deserve it.

At the very least, I have now recorded these thoughts I'm able to have on a "good day" and can remind myself that I've felt this way, this hopeful, and that I can feel it again. I can access that emotion again. Maybe on a bad day I won't be receptive to this feeling, but it's there. It's filed away for later. The terrible, black days always have a light at the end of them.

Knowing that is sometimes the only way through the days when hauling myself out of bed feels impossible.

*This is not an ad for Dream Water. It would be a pretty crappy ad, if so.