Experiences: Forever Night

Forever Night

The world (or at least my part of it) always shuts down at night. The roads are deserted and the streets are empty of people, except for the odd drunken wanderer. Shops and cafes are long dead, and even the clubs spewed out the last of the evening’s revellers some time ago.

It’s 3.30am. Everyone is asleep. Everyone but me.

Or at least that’s how it feels.

I know that somewhere behind the walls of my block of flats there are other people starting at the clock, willing it to move forward and make it morning again. I know that insomnia is relatively common, and that I’m not different or special. My rational mind knows all sorts of things, but at this time of the morning it’s not my rational mind that’s at the wheel. She left some time ago to go and stay with some other body that actually allowed it to get some rest. I don’t blame her. I’d do the same if I could. Without her calming influence, though, crazy-mind has taken over and I’m reasonably sure that my alarm clock hates me. Maybe time has stopped. Maybe my time has stopped and the rest of the world plodding on as normal. It could really be mid afternoon out there and I’m stuck in a rift of the space-time continuum (whatever that is). Forever night.

Insomnia is quite a pretty word. Like many pretty words (especially the ones used in psychiatry) it hides it’s reality deep beneath a palatable shell. Only those that find themselves the wrong side of it’s casing understand how terrible it really is. People can sympathise, empathise and even recount to you the time that they used to lie awake till the early hours while worrying about x, y and z. They might even tell you that they got through their ‘bad patch’ by cutting out caffeine, chocolate or food additives close to bedtime. Some are even adamant that if only you went to bed at the right time, counted sheep and really tried to sleep then it’d all be ok. Yeah. Right. This advice is reasonable enough, but it highlights the vast difference between personal experience and reading a leaflet at the local chemist. If someone is just retelling a story to you that they know nothing about it’s really hard to take them seriously.

Insomnia doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Before my own sleep-hell I admit that I didn’t really think it was as rough as people made out. A few sleepless nights never did anyone any harm, did it? Besides, I got the impression that most people slept much more than they thought they did (or so most of the nurses in the hospital maintained). I used to sleep well, though. I was out like a light as soon as my tired head hit the pillow. So, what did I know? Very little, I’m afraid.

Now insomnia is my reality. The form it takes is changeable – it can be me lying in bed staring out the clock, it can be me sitting at my computer, it can be me lying on the sofa watching News24 trying to bore myself to sleep. I can be awake all night, and only grab a couple of hours at 9am (when I’m meant to be doing other things). I might just wake up an hour after I got to sleep and be unable to get back off. Sometimes I can stand it till 4am and then take a sleeping tablet so I spend the next day in a drugged haze. I go through some days in extra-hyper mode, being almost manic because I’m just running off adrenaline and caffeine (until late afternoon when this runs itself out and I crash both mentally and physically). Other days are spent in bed, catching up on some sleep because my eyes refuse to stay open no matter how hard I try to control them. I often feel flushed and shaky because I’m exhausted but can’t sleep because I’ve gone through the ‘barrier’ – my only hope it to trudge through the day and try again that night.

I’m not trying to lay it on thickly, I just want to tell you how it is for me. There are times, wonderful times, when I sleep like a baby. Unfortunately those nights are a minority, but it’s those nights that keep me sane. Medication can help, lavender oil can help, relaxation exercises can help and so can Chocolate Horlix. So far, though, I’ve not managed to find anything that works with any regularity. As long as my sleep pattern is messed up I know that my mind is going to be messed up too (sleep deprivation, anyone?). It feels like I’m fighting a battle with myself, and I really don’t know how I can win.