I used to think that insomnia was all in the mind. That you tell yourself that you suffer from insomnia and therefore you cannot sleep. Except for people that watch TV in bed, I used to scoff at them too. (even though I was one of them for a long time)
Well.
I have known for the last 2 years or so that this is not the case. I’m not talking about when your kids keep you awake at night and you sleep in 15 minute increments and take shifts. Then insomnia is NOT a problem. You go from bedraggled to fast asleep in 0.2 seconds.
I’m talking about when you are woken up or wake up in the middle of the night and you can for all the friggin love of being productive the next day not go (the fuck) back to sleep.
Take last night for example:
The kids must have been fiddling around with the docking station in the kitchen as the alarm went off at midnight, much like it did the night before. Because I did the sprint down the passage the previous night in a state of sleepfulness I completely forgot to sort it out before we went to bed last night. So when the bloody thing went off again at midnight Etienne did the sprint and just unplugged the whole thing. I was in quite a deep sleep, so I just turned over and off I went to dreamland.
At 02h00 Isabel wanted to go pee. She was pulling at me from the one side and Etienne was pushing me out of bed from the other as it was now my turn to get up and eventually I managed to drag myself up and off we went. For why I don’t know as she is more than capable of switching on the light, but anyhoo. (yes, yes, grumpy, I know). She did her thing, we switched off the light and I tucked her back in.
I get back into bed.
I toss.
I turn.
I sigh.
I worry.
I work myself up into a flat panic about stuff I have no business worrying about at 02h00 in the morning, much less in broad daylight.
I give up, take out my kindle and eventually managed to fall asleep again. (but only after I woke Etienne up with the light)
I am not pleased.
Do you suffer from insomnia? How do you deal with it?
Since being on the antidepressants, I definitely have times like these. This week, in fact (for whatever reason) – is the first time in about a year that I *haven’t* woken up between 1 or 2am, awake for an hour or two – reading, going to have a smoke, coffee or something. First week in a year that I’ve actually slept through the night. I didn’t realise how tired I was.
Haven’t thought much about “fixing” it – not sure how I can? So I just ignore and carry on 🙂
I do battle to sleep…first to get to sleep and then to stay asleep.Mostly as Hubbie is a restless noisy sleeper and snorer….which doesn’t help.
But I do find I will go for weeks where I sleep like a log and then it suddenly hits and despite being dog tired I just don’t sleep.
Hope you have a good sleep tonight after the evening out 🙂
My insomnia flares up when I have a tremendous amount of stress in my life. It’s not pleasant and I really don’t wish it on anybody. When I’m at that point, I take Rescue Remedy before bed. IT seems to help. Am going to try Melatonin the next time I go through a period like that again. Hope you get a good sleep tonight.
I’m awake every night from about 2 to 4. I have now learned that to try and battle the wakefullness and try and go back to sleep is useless. Now I just lie in bed and enjoy the solitude – something that a mom does not have a lot of. It is strange that I slip into sleep much easier if I just stay calm and do not try and fall asleep.
I used to have a lot of it in my before kids days (and while being pregnant). I read – the only way fo rme to fall asleep again. Or drink some resq remedy.
You are not taking sinus meds are you? Some of them do cause insomnia