A Timeline of Insomnia

Definition of INSOMNIA

: prolonged and usually abnormal inability to get enough sleep

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/insomnia)

Day Number 1:

It starts with a racing mind.  Sometimes due to the stresses of life, and sometimes for no reason at all.  Thoughts spin wildly.  I think about what I have to do tomorrow, the next day, the next week.  I close my eyes and try to quiet my brain.  Only to open them again, and sigh.  Here comes another bout of insomnia.  I toss, and I turn as I try every conceivable position to try to get some sleep.  I sigh again.  I turn on the computer to see if anything is going on on facebook. There isn't. Everyone else is sleeping. I turn on the television.  I look for something that I don't particularly want to pay close attention to.  Sometimes the background noise helps to quiet my racing mind.  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn't.  I usually am able to fight it out for 3 or so hours of fitful sleep.

Day Number 2:

Feeling annoyed, but generally still fine I fight to stay awake during the day.  I have kids to take care of, places to go, things to accomplish.  Around 4 or 5 p.m. I start to run out of steam.  But there's no rest for the weary.  Literally.  Because fast approaching is dinner time. Time to make the food, serve the food, clear the table, do the dishes, make sure the pets are fed, the children are bathed and to bed on time.  "Finally!"  I think to myself. "It's time for me to go to sleep."  I am tired.  But as I lay my head on my pillow, my mind starts to race again.  Repeat day number one.

Day Number 3:

I am exhausted. I wish for nothing but a day off where I don't have to deal with the responsibilities of life.  No such luck.  I drag my ass out of bed and get on with it.  I sometimes end up falling asleep at random points in the day, just to wake up a few minutes later realizing that it is the middle of the day, and I cannot sleep. I repeat day number two, except at the end of the day I take some diphenhydramine.  I know what I am in for, but I don't know what else to do.  For some reason which has not ever been explained to me, diphenhydramine gives me horrible leg cramps.  After an hour or so they start to kick in.  I am uncomfortable.  I stretch and stretch and stretch my legs to no avail.  Sometimes my husband tries to help by rubbing them for me.  This generally does not help.  But he, as frustrated as I with not being able to do anything to help me, tries anyway.  After what seems like an eternity of tossing, turning, and stretching the diphenhydramine wins, and I am able to sleep for 3 or 4 hours. 

Day Number 4:

These mornings are generally really rough.  After I am finally able to let the diphenhydramine take effect for sleep, I have to wake up only a couple of hours after I have fallen asleep.  I am groggy, and have a sort of diphenhydramine hangover.  At this point I spend my day too much in a daze to really feel anything else. I take more diphenhydramine at night, but it no longer works.  After one day it's as if I build up some kind of tolerance.  My mood starts to be affected further.  I am impatient, irritable, and have a lack of ability to deal with even the slightest life disruption. As the night wears on I become angry and frustrated.  I listen to the silence of my house and the snoring of my husband next to me, and I get jealous.  I envy other's ability to sleep.  By this time the two, three, or maybe four hours of sleep I had been getting don't occur.  I toss, I turn, I stretch, I sigh, and I watch the clock.  As the time gets to a certain hour of the morning I know that I cannot sleep even if I tried because there's no way I would be able to wake up and function.  This is usually the peak of the insomnia spell, and I get no sleep at all.  

Day Number 5:

This is the worst morning yet.  Usually I am upset, irritable, and like a child who needs a nap.  I feel like everything is unraveling.  I look around and realize my lack of productiveness has taken it's toll on my house.  Things are disorganized, and this furthers my frustration.  Many times I actually break down in tears of frustration.  After I am able to pull myself together and move on with my day, I feel energized.  I feel as if I did have a good night's sleep.  My mood is still poor, and my eyes burn, but I am awake.  It's at this time that I wonder if I will ever sleep again.  My brain starts to attack me.  I think of all the negative things in my life.  My inner voice says nothing but mean things.  I feel inadequate and socially inept.  Guilt builds from my lack of productiveness around the house, and my lack of patience with my family.  My self esteem hits the floor.  I fantasize about disappearing.  Life seems bleak and hopeless.  I isolate myself which only makes it worse.  No one I know understands what this is like.  When I try to explain it people tend to look at me like I am a little crazy.  I am currently in day five of my latest insomnia spell.  I am exhausted and depressed.  My stomach is perpetually upset from the diphenhydramine.  My eyes burn.  One would think that by now I would surely fall asleep if nothing else, as an involuntary survival mechanism.  Yet here I am at 2:00 a.m. writing this. (the time stamp on this blog is for Pacific time and I don't know how to change it yet)

I have suffered from this type of insomnia on and off for about 18 years.  It started occasionally when I was a teenager.  Over the years it only becomes progressively worse.  I have tried every over the counter sleep aid both medical and homeopathic and nothing works.  I wonder sometimes if I will reach a point in my life where I just don't sleep at all.  I have brought it up to every doctor I have ever seen.  Mostly they tell me not to take naps during the day.  I laugh and say "Ha!  I have children.  When do you think I have time to sleep in the day?!"  Most give small snipets of common sense advice.  Turn off the television, turn off the computer, turn off the phone, etc. etc.  When I explain to them that those things are not my issue and describe the problem I have with sleep, I am either assumed a liar or otherwise not taken seriously.  My longest insomnia episode occurred about a year ago.  I did not sleep for more than one hour for 8 days.  It was so bad that I thought about checking myself into the emergency room at the local hospital out of desperation and frustration.  I just didn't know what to do.  Luckily the episode ended before I had to do that.  But I can't help but wonder, as I sit here awake, will this ever go away?  Will it only get worse?  Will I ever get a medical professional to take me seriously and help me?  I assume that I will only get help for this when some secondary conditions arise from it.  Surprisingly that has not happened yet.  

It will end, I hope, just as it usually does and I will be able to sleep again.  In the meantime I just do what I can to get through it with my sanity intact.  It's not easy though.  People take for granted their ability to sleep.  The other night my husband did not sleep for more than a couple of hours from a random insomnia episode.  In the morning he looked at me and said "I have no idea how you put up with this like you do.  I would go nuts."  People complain about their busy lives and how tired they are all the time.  To me, you don't know what tired really is until you walk in my shoes.