Dreaming of Sleep

The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. 
                                                         ~W.C. Fields 

By far the greatest challenge for me since the brain hemorrhage has been lack of sleep.  Waking up refreshed is something I only dream of.  You know that expression, "I slept like a log"?  Yeah, completely foreign concept to me.  I wish I were a log.  Or even a stick.  I'm more like a leaf, continually turning over and not in a good way. 

Even prior to the bleed my sleep wasn’t that restful. I could sometimes get eight or nine hours in (this was before I had children) and still be tired the next day. I honestly cannot recall a time when I experienced that beautiful, mythical, enjoyed-by-cats-and-babies-only, restorative state of sleep known as delta wave.

Living with insomnia is -- pardon the pun -- a nightmare.  It sucks the energy from your limbs and turns you into a tired, irritable, joyless drone of a being (until you're so ridiculously exhausted that you hit a wall and get the giggles, which is kind of fun).  But most of the time I feel (and look) like a raccoon-eyed zombie, dreading the daylight and functioning with the memory and attention span of an adolescent squirrel on an espresso drip. Minus the energy.  It makes you drag your carcass out of bed with the enthusiasm of a cat in need of a bath, groping the walls for balance, one eye half-open, fighting the magnetic pull of the bed and heading for the redemption of the coffee maker, ready and willing to shoot anything remotely resembling bright eyed and bushy tailed that might stand in your way. (Insomniacs hate morning people. We don't understand them and are certain they've come here from another planet for the sole purpose of torturing us.  We'd like to see them all shipped home on one large red-eye space flight so that we're awake to celebrate.  Cheerful bunch, aren't we?) And let's not forget what great decisions we make when not firing on well-rested cylinders.  Emotions, anyone?  And that was just the start of the day.  Later, after it has taken every last bit of effort to fake the motions through a day you know was not productive, you get to feel tired and guilty.  What a combo.  Fatigue, low immune system, and self-loathing.  Have I mentioned how much fun this is?  I'm also convinced it’s at the root of this wretched condition known as Fibromyalgia, and I am bound and determined to eliminate them both from my life.

I tried prescription sleep meds in the past, but they were a no-go.  They either failed me altogether or came with such horrendous side effects that any minor benefit provided was far outweighed.  (Reminds me of my last few boyfriends.) One medication had my brain so messed up I was typing dyslexic.  Sure, I could get some sleep, as long as I didn't want to think properly or form coherent sentences ever again.  (This actually freaked me out so much that I stopped writing for a while.)  So I decided to look for a natural way into dreamland.

To date I've tried yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, and Qi Gong.  They didn't provide the level of sleep I desired, but each one has been helpful in dealing with stress, which of course is amplified when you're not sleeping. (This makes me the most relaxed insomniac you know. I haven't dozed off -- I'm meditating, really.) 

Supplements were also included in my next plan of action.  Melatonin helped me fall asleep, but did nothing as far as deep sleep was concerned.  Valerian root made me dream too much and still didn't produce restorative sleep.  Skullcap helped a little, but not enough.  We won't talk about what the Magnesium did.

Thus, the mission to find a natural solution to the sleep issue continues. But come Hell or high water, I will find a method/supplement/remedy/incantation/some-kind-of-cure that will take my brain into delta sleep where it belongs. Until then I remain, your friendly chi-balancing raccoon-eyed-zombie-squirrel.  Hating the cat and hiding from the morning people.