It just so happens the sleep medications I take, while having many benefits, like all medications, have a dark side. It has come to light that many of the sleep medications cause dementia and contribute to alzheimer's but NEWSFLASH, so does not sleeping! It usually takes a couple hours after waking up to not feel like I'm dying, sometimes all day. I literally feel the medicine killing me, stealing my thoughts, eating away at my brain, nibbling my neurons, making my life disappear. On the days I don't work, I lay there lifeless, waiting for my body and brain to function. Me, to my body, "Hello, is this thing on?" So much for my intention towards inspiration. Yet, if I'm honest and I tell people how I feel and someone else feels the same way, I could be helping them to not feel so isolated. That is one of the goals of the blog after all. It often takes an entire day to accomplish one thing, sometimes more. It's like time slows waaaaay down. It can take me an entire day to do the dishes, an entire week to do the laundry, all night and all morning preparing to go to work, a month to get my emissions done and years to open mail. So perhaps if you have any bills you want to send me, you might want to stop wasting paper. Everything is getting worse. There are no more good days. There are still good parts of a day, usually, if I'm not at work and the medicine has worn off, sometime in the evening, usually close to bedtime. If I don't sleep, I feel terrible. If I take the medication, I sleep but I feel terrible in a whole other way. The benefits of being able to sleep no longer outweigh the side-effects of the medication and that's not good because one simply doesn't live without sleep BUT I likewise feel that I can no longer live the life the medication is providing me. When I tried to talk to my previous doctor concerning the numerous ailments I suspected were caused by my sleep deprivation, she proceeded to tell me a story about how a doctor did an experiment where he didn't sleep for a week and went insane but when he finally slept, he was never sane again. Thanks Doc. Fun times ahead. I have informed my current doctor of my intention to quit the medication and she agreed that would be a good idea seeing as these medications are not meant to be taken long-term. She said that I'd have to wean off them and recommended a neurologist, so we'll see. I literally feel like the medication is snuffing me out and I can't take it one more day! But then what? How long will I keep my job without it? How long will I function reasonably? Will I gain back my sanity or will it push me over the edge? Will tomorrow be the day everything ends?
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So I guess feeling like you're dying is not a valid reason to get medical leave. The past two months I felt worse than I've ever felt, which caused me to use up all my excusable absences at work. This prompted me to seek counsel from Human Resources, which advised me to apply for Short-Term Disability and seems unlikely at this point. I think the mistake was switching doctors right before applying for it since my new doctor didn't really know me or see me more than a couple times. When I tried to explain my situation to her she wrote everything down in my chart. Dr.: So why do you want to get on Short Term Disability? Me: Because the long-term effects of chronic insomnia are making my body give out and I don't feel like I can go on. Dr.: So, fatigue. Me: No, I feel like I'm dying. Dr.: So exhaustion then. Me: No, I actually feel like I'm dying. Then I had the exact same conversation with the company representative that was handling my case. She basically told me that I didn't have a real problem, since there was no medical data to back it up, as if it's my fault that the doctor never found the cause of the problem. Then the woman tried to give me medical advice and suggested more medications and asked me if I was depressed. That conversation made me depressed, having to open up and be vulnerable about something so private and having to defend it on public record. SIGH. I'll get approved if I'm meant to get approved. The Universe has a way of working things out how they are meant to. I'm pretty sure no one has a clue of what it's like to have chronic insomnia, unless you actually have it, which is the point of the blog. When people think of the problem, they are only thinking about how someone might feel bad on a certain day. As the representative said, "Many people have insomnia and go to work." Yes, but those people don't have "chronic insomnia" where they haven't slept for years. It's one thing to say, "Oh yeah, I get insomnia and I can manage," but tell me that after a year, five years, 10 years, twenty and then tell me you're not dying. Seriously, people act like going without sleep is tolerable, as if it has no medical consequences but your body requires sleep for every function. Lack of sleep can cause so many malfunctions in the body that can become serious and increase the risk of death. Dr. Joseph Mercola addresses this in his article, "Long-term Study Links Chronic Insomnia with Risk of Death." My previous doctor, as kind as she was, really didn't help me, as I only got worse over time. She did try but it was beyond her scope. Although the last time I saw her she handed me a sheet with suggestions to help to include things like, "chamomile tea, hot baths and warm milk"! OMG!!! It's not bad enough that I have every Tom, Dick and Larry telling me all these miraculous ideas when they find out about my problem, but now I have my very own doctor who's been treating me for many years telling me these things. SERIOUSLY, do you not think that I've tried EVERY natural alternative known to human-kind?!?!?! I'm surprised she didn't offer to get me a marijuana card, since that's one of the things people repeatedly recommend to me. SIGH F******G SIGH. The natural things will only work if I'm not taking all these pharmaceuticals that my body is dependent on for sleep, which is required if I want to work. I would love to get off the medication and retrain my body back to balance and health and sleep naturally, but how does one survive without a means for money? One of the adverse effects that may be caused by the chronic insomnia are nodules in my neck, to include my thyroid and lymph node. I've had pain in my neck, below the ear and the lymph node for a couple years and that's when the doctor informed me of the goiter and tried to convince me my pain was probably allergies. Whereupon I had an ultrasound done as confirmation of the goiter. The following year I still had the neck pain, which is nowhere near my thyroid and the doctor wanted a follow-up ultrasound to check the thyroid issue. I had to ask her if she could include the "entire neck". Then, I had to call for my results a couple weeks later after the ultrasound technician told me the results would be ready in a couple days. Then I finally got my results online, through the patient portal and it addressed the thyroid nodule being slightly more enlarged since the previous year but gave NO mention about the rest of my neck! Since my ultrasound I have switched doctors. My new doctor went over my ultrasound with me and told me there was also a mass in the lymph node and said that it needs a biopsy! So all those years of my doctor telling me it was allergies and this doctor is addressing things that could be serious on the first day! What's that all about, competency? Time? Copies of every record??? Has hell frozen? My new doctor has referred me to a surgeon who has decided that the biopsy should be done on the thyroid first because it's less invasive and it can rule out any thyroid causes. So I guess that's progress. Biopsy in a couple weeks. Each New Years my friends and I do New Years tarot card readings, to showcase the upcoming year. One card represents one month, January through December. It is through this medium that I found out that the Tower was in my cards, in early Autumn. The Tower is basically the scariest card in the deck which represents the abrupt tearing down of one's known world, where the walls fall apart and the floor crumbles and everything falls down, including you. I will say there is no such thing as a bad card, since we all have to go through each cycle and it's not the card that makes things happen. It's just there to let you know what's going on. Then my favorite astrologer, Aepril Shaile has basically said in her last two reports something like, "Have fun now before the shit hits the fan in September." Now, don't assume I'm creating or inviting doom and gloom. Firstly, I don't have the physical energy to stop what's coming and second, no card, including the Tower, need be feared, as it is sometimes a necessary part of evolution. What do you do when you see your world crashing around you right before your eyes and you have very little power in the situation? I like scales of 1 to 10. For example, I gauge my daily energy level on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest. Lately it's been between 2 and 4. Where I'd say "normal" people without this problem, or any other major problem have an energy level between 7 and 10. So I average about an energy level of 3, on a descent day, although it's been a 1 much to often these days. This is not a level one can accomplish anything on, much less actually live. For the most part, I'm lucky if I can get to work. Last week I only worked one day and I beginning to drown financially. People who haven't shot their body into the ground don't understand the relationship between body and will. For I will say that it takes an amazingly strong will to still live at all on a level 3, much less be semi-functional. Yet, from the outside it's all, "You just gotta keep going till you die." And I'm like, "I'm pretty sure I'm dying right now." When I look at my life I often feel like I'm looking in from the outside. Like a stranger who is looking at me with pity and contempt. Who is the warrior that's loosing the fight? I want to look away from her. I don't want to see anymore. "I'm disappointed in you. You're failing," and then, I remain sternly detached from emotion, since it's really just a movie I'm watching and there's nothing I can do about it. What would the gurus say? What would Kelly Howell say? (She's someone I admire.) She'd say, "Stop the negative self talk and judgement and love yourself fully." That's what my higher self says and I'm right. But even that doesn't change anything, yet. I suppose this is where patience comes in. When I fully surrender to the healing process, I won't be able to work anymore and that time feels fast approaching. My body is running the show. My body is crashing. My body... I have every reason to continue but the reality is, I've gone so far beyond running myself into the ground. When my body gets below 1%, it's over. I probably won't die; I'd more likely get fired, which I'm desperately trying to prevent but the Tower is swiftly becoming. Can't stop, addicted to the shindig
Chop top, he says I'm gonna win big Choose not a life of imitation Distant cousin to the reservation Defunct, the pistol that you pay for This punk, the feeling that you stay for In time, I want to be your best friend Eastside love is living on the West End Knock out, but boy you better come to Don't die, you know the truth is some do Go write your message on the pavement Burn so bright, I wonder what the wave meant White heat is screaming in the jungle Complete the motion if you stumble Go ask the dust for any answers Come back strong with 50 belly dancers [Chorus:] The world I love The tears I drop To be part of The wave can't stop Ever wonder if it's all for you The world I love The trains I hop To be part of The wave can't stop Come and tell me when it's time to Sweetheart is bleeding in the snow cone So smart, she's leading me to ozone Music, the great communicator Use two sticks to make it in the nature I'll get you into penetration The gender of a generation The birth of every other nation Worth your weight the gold of meditation This chapter's gonna be a close one Smoke rings, I know you're gonna blow one All on a spaceship persevering Use my hands for everything but steering Can't stop, the spirits when they need you Mop tops are happy when they feed you J. Butterfly is in the treetop Birds that blow the meaning into bebop [Chorus] Wait a minute I'm passing out Win or lose, just like you Far more shocking Than anything I ever knew How 'bout you 10 more reasons Why I need somebody new, just like you Far more shocking Than anything I ever knew Right on cue Can't stop, addicted to the shindig Chop top, he says I'm gonna win big Choose not a life of imitation Distant cousin to the reservation Defunct, the pistol that you pay for This punk, the feeling that you stay for In time, I want to be your best friend Eastside love is living on the West End Knock out, but boy you better come to Don't die you know the truth is some do Go write your message on the pavement Burn so bright, I wonder what the wave meant Kick start the golden generator Sweet talk, but don't intimidate her Can't stop the gods from engineering Feel no need for any interfering Your image in the dictionary This life is more than ordinary Can I get 2 maybe even 3 of these Comin' from space To teach you of the Pleiades Can't stop the spirits when they need you This life is more than just a read-through Don't say anything too morose. That's negative and uninspiring. Stay on the positive track. Lift people up and lead them into the light...but what if you felt so physically awful that you really just want to die. Is it honest, to show nothing but a smile? Is it healthy? Is it helpful? I don't know. I'm drawn to creating and sharing only the most positive and inspirational but that's only part of the story. My energy level continues to degrade. I was only able to work one day last week and it was truly hell. I have been feeling so bad that I often feel like I'm at death's door and yet I continue. What choice do I have? It's too tempting a fantasy to just give up, to stop going to work, to stop caring, because I really don't have the energy to care about anything. It's beyond chronic fatigue now, it's chronic exhaustion. Due to these factors I went to the doctor, without expectation but a sliver of hope. I told her how I've been feeling and she requested a couple tests and we changed the medication, again. I mentioned treatment for the chronic fatigue but she said that there wasn't really a point in pursing other problems since lack of sleep can cause a variety of things. Now I'll state my disclaimer: I don't blame my doctor for anything because we Americans, for the most part, are privileged enough to be responsible for our own health. That would be ridiculous for me to blame my doctor for my problems. Every person, healthy and sick (with the exception of perhaps genetic diseases and accidents), is responsible for their own health. It is societal, physical and spiritual. It's diet, exercise, life-style, toxins, environment, thoughts and emotions. It's all that and more. Now just a small rant if you will allow...no doctor I have seen has ever tried to get to the root cause of the problem. In fact, that's my entire rant of the Western medical process. It's always, fix the symptoms, fix the symptoms, fix the symptoms, drugs, drugs, drugs, blah! I'm guessing there are doctors out there that do try to figure out the whys of a disease, but I have yet to meet them. So how did I get myself in such deep waters? So far off the path, so far out of balance? How does someone who understands that we do have power over ourselves and our lives, get herself so messed up? Twenty years ago I was a completely different person. I was spiritual. I knew who I was and what I wanted. I prided myself on being spirit led and spirit serving. I had spiritual guidance and fortitude. I felt strongly guided to move to a certain state and be with a certain person and have a particular career but none of that was in the cards. That's what we say right? "Not in the cards." But the reality is, the cards didn't just lay themselves out, we chose the cards. This is a complex subject that is impossible to make clear by a single blog post. Yadda, yadda, yadda, to make a long blog post short, I will just say that I had a choice of where to go, who to be with and what to do but I chose the path less traveled and in doing so I began to stray so far from which I came, that eventually I became unrecognizable and I suspect that could be the point. For the opportunities I were given had a very small window that shut shortly after and I've been stumbling around since, trying to find my way out of the woods. The Road Not Taken - by Robert FrostTwo roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you woke up one day and did everything you were supposed to do? "Perhaps that's the answer?", you're thinking. If I just did everything I'm supposed to be doing, all my problems will go away and life will be rainbows forever. Well maybe, I wouldn't actually know but anything IS possible.
These are the things I think I should be doing EVERY DAY: 1. An hour of exercise 2. Another hour of either yoga or tai chi 3. Juice with my juicer 4. Acupuncture or acupressure 5. Meditate 6. Read 7. Write 8. Do something creative 9. Hike or do something outside 10. Stay positive *All of these every day These are on top of everything I have to do: work, assist my son, eat, rest, chores, etc. This list will probably be a constant for the rest of my life. Although in today's reality, I do perhaps one on the list daily and then an extra one or two on the weekends, IF I'm ambitious. I think most people can relate to the dichotomy of wanting and doing. Life is the canvas that we are painting so there is always more room on the canvas for growth and beauty. Is this psychological or physical? The two are so intricately connected that sometimes it can be difficult to tell. It's all about how much energy you have and what you do with that energy. If I happen upon those rare times where I have had two or three descent nights of sleep, my energy gets up to a level that it would likely be normally, where I could get all those things done on my list and more, at least on a weekend day. But if I haven't slept or my sleep was deplorable, then my energy goes down to between 1 and 50%. If it gets below 20%, all I'm really good for is laying in bed, which is actually the case more often than I want to admit. The irony is, all the things on my list would give me more energy, if only I had the energy to do them. It would be nice if modern medicine were more holistic and they tried harder to figure out medical problems like this. I talked to my doctor about some other issues that the sleep was causing and she said that there was no point into looking into those until we get my sleep under control, yet as I said, pharmaceuticals are a bandaid, but I'm not giving up. My doctor is interested in seeing me get help. She actually recommend a hypnotherapist but I can't afford to go to the hypnotherapist because they charge $100 a session and I'm not making enough to pay my bills because my body doesn't let me work more. I'm sure there are many more holistic avenues I could take with more money as well. It's a Catch 22. Sunday I took my break and Monday I felt great. Then on Tuesday, I got up early, meditated and did my exercises and I felt terrible for the rest of the day. That's what it's like in the beginning steps of discipline. That's what keeps us from taking the next step, keeps people down, under achieving, depressed, over weight, held back from success, etc. It's the pain of that first step, because let's not blow sunshine, the second step sucks even worse. But FUCK that shit! I'm just waiting for the right time, when I no longer have to go to a job and I therefore will not have to spend all my energy in the morning getting enough sleep and getting ready for work, then going to work, working at work and then going home from work and preparing for my next day of work by taking care of myself, hopefully relaxing and sleeping. How is that living anyway? But don't stop. Take another baby step. It's worth it. So my escape plan continues...Step 1 - Escape the corporate world. In the meantime, back to my list. Due to the chronic insomnia I generally have energy to be social one night a week and that's with allot of planning. I used to be a more spontaneous free spirit before all this. Now, though I am 45, I have the energy of an 80 year old, but I refuse to give up while I'm still young. I haven't even met my life-mate yet and I want to be ready when he arrives.
I literally have on my dating profile, "My favorite thing is laying in bed all day and watching shows", because that's what I usually have energy enough to actually enjoy. Although it really is much less adventure than most people are seriously looking for and I hope to improve my energy level in time. Now I usually need at least a week to prepare for leaving the house for social interaction and then through a series of strategic procedures, everything must go somewhat to plan. The first thing to note is that in order to have a social night, I need at least two days off from work, which is generally the case. I usually choose Saturday for my Me Day and/or Social Night, which gives me time on Sunday to "blob out" without concern for social expectation, catch up on chores and prepare for the work week. The goal is to gather enough energy throughout the week for a day's event, in order to feel like I'm still living. While two days off of work really isn't enough to have a life one day a week and recuperate adequately, I try to make it work. If I know I have plans on the upcoming weekend, I will take the necessary steps to gather enough energy for the event. This means maintaining a strict schedule, which also includes: slightly less than desirable levels of caffeine, an increased caffeine cut-off time, exercising in the morning and not the evening, staying balanced in all areas, including diet, taking my medication as early as possible and making sure there is at least one "break" night during the week before the event. When I am not able to take a break at some point during the week before the event and I continue the medication throughout the entire week, by Saturday, when I have taken the medication 4-6 days in a row, it doesn't work and then, which has happened too many times, I either have to cancel my plans or suffer painfully to get through it. In either case not only are my plans ruined but my weekend and possibly the week to come, due to a continuous imbalance and lack of time to correct it. Most of the time, one might say, I don't "do" anything. On the weekends when I don't do anything but lay in bed or just lay around (i.e. - "blob out"), it can be an extreme relief not to have anyone expecting you to have any energy that you don't have. People rarely understand that I often lack the energy for simple tasks such as, driving, doing something "fun" and having a simple conversation and much less energy for crowds, traffic, parties, etc. Most people in my age range can't understand that, especially when you're meeting someone new and you have to explain it to them, it really is a social and date killer. I met someone a year ago whom I had to explain that I don't have time for socializing during the week since I'm on a later schedule and they couldn't understand why I could not set aside an hour before work. It was beyond their comprehension that my mornings were devoted to sleep and getting through the morning haze to get to work on time. Even during social times, I rarely leave the house before early evening, because sometimes it take an entire day to wake up and gather energy for the later activity. One of the major social problems with this is it makes it next to impossible to make commitments. I've learned the hard way that making commitments for activities is a huge mistake, where it's much more desirable for everyone to cancel when I've had abhorrent sleep than to follow through with my commitment and be abhorrent, ruining everyone's time. Therefore all my plans are "tentative", which makes me seem like the ultimate flake but my true friends understand. A few months ago, when making plans with a newer friend who I thought understood my plight, with the usual agreement of confirmation of the day's plans upon waking in late morning, decided to go without me, without notice or confirmation because I was taking too long. He was always annoyed with the frustration of my predicament. So sometime last year I took my dating profiles down and just decided to take a social break till my energy starts rising again. It will require life changes, that I have been working on for a few years now. So if you know someone with chronic insomnia, just be patient with them. One of the effects of chronic insomnia is chronic brain fog. I'm really not sure which is worse for brain fog, not sleeping or experiencing sleep medication the following day. I'm basically always in a haze. I'm either sleep deprived or feeling the after effects of the medication. The odd thing is, I can't tell much of a difference, in regards to the fog. Memory was never my strong point but the noticeable decline is disturbing. I had four days off from work last week and therefor a four day break from my medication, whereupon I thought I would have better awareness and productivity this week but it somewhat "backfired" making the medication too potent and leaving me feeling drugged. The medication is no longer in my system the following day but the effects on the brain and nervous system continues to be effected over time. The most obvious and prevalent cognitive effect of chronic insomnia is the decreased ability to process thoughts effectively. This can lead to diminished performance, an inability to maintain relationships and general mental decline, to include memory loss and an overall diminishing grey matter. Because my grandmother died of Alzheimers, I find this even more disturbing. Besides brain fog and memory loss the insomniacs brain processes are also prone to a variance of psychological and chemical disturbances to include emotional disturbances such as depression and anxiety. This is brain fog has become a way of life, only reinforcing me to become healthy whereupon I will no longer require medication to sleep. Days like this, are a constant reminder of this goal. Thus, since my blog isn't about inviting people to a pity party but to impart understanding and hope. I will now include ways to improve memory and cognitive function: 1. Aerobic exercise 2. Eat a diet high in essential fatty acids 3. Read 4. Play memory games 5. Play challenging brain puzzles 6. Learn something 7. Drink green tea 8. Reduce stress 9. Address depression 10. Meditation 11. High anti-oxidant foods 12. Vitamins 13. Herbs 14. Yoga/Tai Chi/ Qi Gong 15. Take up a hobby 16. Do something creative 17. STAY POSITIVE! :) Sourceshttp://www.livescience.com/39337-insomnia-brain-working-memory-differences.html
http://www.medicaldaily.com/insomnia-affects-brains-emotion-regulator-could-lead-depression-246154 https://www.sharecare.com/health/insomnia/does-chronic-insomnia-affect-brain https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201403/insomnia-creates-24-hour-brain-condition http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/30/insomnia-brain-memory-concentrate_n_3843672.html http://www.helpguide.org/articles/memory/how-to-improve-your-memory.htm http://greatist.com/happiness/47-ways-boost-brainpower-now http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/05/17/good-brain-health-tips.aspx http://bebrainfit.com/how-to-improve-memory/ If you are an insomniac, it's highly probably that caffeine is an integral part of your daily routine. An insomniac must stay on a schedule. So one of the most important parts of the system is to stick to the caffeine cut-off time. Allot of people think caffeine doesn't effect them because they don't feel anymore awake or they sleep after drinking it but if you are an insomniac, it is effecting you. It gives your brain messages and alters your chemistry, so just because you had caffeine 12 hours ago and it's not in your system anymore, doesn't mean that your chemistry isn't altered because of it. All of us caffeine addicts know this in our hearts to be true or we wouldn't keep drinking it. My caffeine of choice is organic coffee. My body deals with it best of all other forms of caffeine and I get the most benefit from it. It's natural and it is a necessary component to keep me alert when I need to be. There are also studies that show that the benefits of coffee are vast, to include the powerful antioxidants that keep you young to fighting cancer. Nevertheless, there negatives to coffee also. It can still tax your adrenals and there are some reports of coffee toxins but for now, the benefits for me, greatly outweigh the possible negatives. I would stress that getting organic is important, for those of us who drink it everyday. I was not able to drink coffee regularly before because it upset my stomach. But then I started using cream everyday, then half and half, then whole milk, then reduced fat milk and now I just use my almond milk everyday, since I cut milk out of my diet and it works just as well for protecting my stomach from the acidity of the coffee. This would not be enough for coffee that's cheaper or of less quality, so I always make sure to bring my own coffee to work and not leave it up to the free coffee in the work kitchen. That being said I do feel like coffee gets overloaded in my system and so I have to take breaks from coffee but this does not include caffeine. I've learned the hard way that as long as I'm working (going to a job and not working at home), the withdrawals tax my system beyond anything continuous caffeine intake can do. When I get off the sleep medicine for good, it will require that I'm not going to a job and possibly no more caffeine. My mind, surely as any addict, doesn't want to contemplate that and is working it's way around maintaining my drug of choice but time will reveal the reality of the necessity. That being said on my last day of "Break Vacation", I have cut my usual two-plus cups down to one cup. It is an important part of the Break process to lower my caffeine tolerance and destress my entire system. Now when I go back to work this week, having been off my medication for several days and lowering my caffeine intake, I may be able to get through my entire week without taking a day off from work. My medicine should work well again and I will require lower amounts of caffeine to start out my week, which is very good since due to tolerance both the medication and the caffeine dosage usually goes up as the days progress. So it wasn't the most pleasant experience having to spend my four-day "vacation" locked into this whole 'preparation for work' but it is necessary to be able to continue job security and my days this week should be a bit brighter. Sources4:45 a.m.
I take as many opportunities that I can to take a break from the medication. Taking a break from the medication is a necessary process because if I don't, it will stop working. I try to take a break at least once a week but I really need to at least twice a week, because if the medicine is not working, there's not point in taking it. When I take a break I don't fall asleep till around 5 a.m., or so, and then I wake up between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. more or less. So I average about 5 hours sleep on break nights, IF I'm lucky. Five hours of sleep might seem like plenty to some people but understand that everyone requires a different amount of sleep. Some people only require 5 hours of sleep and would do poorly with more, where some people actually require 10 hours in order to get the same effect. Also, the "quality" of sleep can be even more important than quantity, hence, the "power nap" and believe me, the quality of my sleep is quite poor. I normally wake up an average of 10 times a night. When I take my medication I am able to fall back asleep or not wake up fully but without it...I'm still up. Break Days (the day following not taking sleep medication) are actually worse than Break Nights. On Break Days there is no fun to be had, no socializing and nothing gets accomplished. I make sure NOT to make plans and I write myself a "to do" list that I know probably won't happen. Tonight is the first night of my 4 day weekend, with a holiday coming up on Monday. So...we'll see... I don't have anything planned so I might as well take as many break nights as I can, that will be 4 nights! What I want to get across is, this really sucks. It can be annoying when people are always asking how your weekend was and expect to hear something exciting or fun, while in your mind you flash back to barely being able to get out of the bed and drudging through things you have to do, even though it's the weekend, or because it's the weekend, like catching up on chores. So I will come back to work after having 4 days off and in my mind people think, "why is she so tired, she had a 4 day vacation?", while in reality, my days off are often more unpleasant than work days as I have to spend the time healing my body, gathering energy and recovering from the week, where my body can't really even do those things efficiently without sleep, so whatever. I have SEVERE Chronic Insomnia. I've had insomnia for the last 20 years, off and on, but it's only became chronic in the past 5 – 10, increasing all the while. Having chronic insomnia is like living in a nightmare sometimes. You're so tired that the waking world bleeds in with the sleeping world and life can become a bad dream.
I try to avoid telling people about my problem because first of all, I don't think they will understand and second, they ALWAYS give you lame unwanted advice. I hear the same things over and over, “Have you tried chamomile, lavender, a warm bath, milk, marijuana...” People please, shut the fuck up! You don't tell someone with cancer how to treat themselves, seriously. I've tried EVERYTHING natural possible and I avoided taking medication for many many years till it was evident that I had to choose between working at a job or to stay off the medication and not be able to work, and since I had a child (who is now an “adult”) of whom I had responsibilities for, I chose the former. I'm 45 years old and I've been at my current job for 5 years. It is the longest I've held down a job and now that my insomnia is so bad, I finally see why I never did well with all those morning shifts and bankers hours. At other jobs I took naps during my break, everyday or I couldn't make it through to the end. But my current job only gives us a 20 minute break and people with insomnia really shouldn't take naps. So I try to avoid taking naps whenever possible. While napping is unadvised for insomniacs I was desperate not to take medication so it was my best option, at the time. Although, it was quite embarrassing when people would see you sleeping and ask you if you were OK. I managed to work at my current job for a couple years without treatment and was able to do it due to the later shift. I never had a job with later hours before, so second shift turned out to be a blessing. After a couple years I was “managing” by drinking daily energy drinks, sometimes two or three a day, which of course only made the problem worse but I didn't have a choice if I wanted to work. People saw how terrible I looked and felt so bad for me that they shared their prescription medications with me till I was able to see a doctor myself. On the weekends I would withdraw from the energy drinks and it was pure hell. It felt like I was coming off hard drugs and that's what I looked like. I knew the energy drinks were killing me and draining my adrenals and likewise made me super bitchy and my moods were uncontrollable. I needed to get off the energy drinks because my body was too burnt out to continue, so I finally gave in to over-the-counter medication. I took the over the counter medication for two years and fortunately my job gave opportunities to take unpaid days off for particular circumstances, so I was able to keep my job despite being unable to work everyday. There came a point when I felt like the over the counter medication was doing unforeseen harm, though they all do in their own way. I don't think any of them are meant to be taken for years. They always say something like, “Take for seven days and then if sleeplessness persists or worsens consult your doctor because it could be a sign of a serious illness.” My doctor has yet to find any source of my insomnia. I decided that the over the counter medication was no longer good for me and was killing me slowly so I “evolved” to prescription medication. I've taken prescription medication now for several years. The problem with taking medication for most things, is that it's just a bandaid. It doesn't really fix a long-term chronic problem. It only treats the symptoms. For insomnia, medicine doesn't work indefinitely. My body has built a tolerance to every type of medication that I've taken, rendering it ineffective. So in order to keep the medication working, I have to take regular breaks but that's not always possible. Yet when I don't, that's when things start spiraling out of control. The medicine will stop working. I'll be forced to max out my caffeine intake. Of course this only makes it worse but I have to get through my day. Then I have to use every ounce of reserved energy just to make it through my day but where is this energy coming from? It's not healthy energy that you get from sleep, food or exercise, all those are depleted by this point. So it starts taking the energy from my organs, like my heart and I can feel the strain. After two days of this, my immune system is shot and I really can't do much more than lay in bed. My goal from the minute I began taking medication has been to be medication free. That's been my goal and that is my goal but for now I still have to go to work. I feel that it's a cycle where I'm not really living in any way. When I don't sleep, I'm in a living nightmare and when I take the medicine I feel that it spiritually blocks me from living a clear and joyous life. I call it living the Half-Life. It is my hope that I can get back to the land of the living. |
AuthorJust a sleeping beauty trying to wake up by getting some sleep. -GG Archives
November 2018
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