Tag: insomnia

  • Plllllbbbbbtttt

    The other day, Liz Poole IM’d me and was like, “OH MY GOD ARE YOU STILL AWAKE?”

    And I was like, “YES. YES I AM.”

    Because Internet, I am still not sleeping. As in, at all. As in, the shadows are moving. As in, this would be kind of cool if it were in a movie and not in the real world. As in, hold me, Internet. Hold me.

    I’ve mentioned before that I have three or four really good hours in which I’m all GO GO GO! like the zhu zhu motorized hamster Marilyn bought for the cats Christmas of 2009. That’s more or less still accurate, only instead of GO GO GO! it’s CRY CRY CRY!  Because apparently the feeling like shit is the new black. Who knew?

    I say these things not so people will feel bad or to induce pity, but because these days, mind-altering drugs are passed out like freaking antibiotics. Can’t sleep? Try this pill. That pill makes you crazy? Try this one. And there’s a lot they don’t tell you about these pills. Crazy things. Frightening things. Things that would make you reconsider whether or not you just needed to work out more before bedtime or maybe lay off the caffeine. Because hey, what would be the fun in that?

    I remember being sixteen years old and going to my doctor and telling him I didn’t like to take Paxil because it made my face twitch and my mouth taste funny. And my doctor was like, “You’re just saying that for attention.”

    And then it came out that Paxil had been known to cause convulsions in women during the first six months of use.

    Because Paxil sucks, yo.

    Anyway, so the no sleeping thing. It got so bad that last week I went to do a sleep study, and the doctor there was all, “So here is a list of medications. Check off the ones you’ve tried. If you tried a medication that was over the counter, or an herbal remedy, or something not listed here, you can use the slots at the bottom to fill in your answer.”

    And I was like, “Wait, I’m going to need another notebook, Mr. Doctor Sir, because that is how many medications I have been on.”

    And then he gave me a horse tranquilizer and I slept for eighteen hours.

    Which is good except for the part where I haven’t slept but hardly at all since.

    And this not sleeping thing? It totally sucks. I think it sucks worse than any other kind of being sick.

    Because at least when I’m out with the flu or strep throat, there’s this assurance that either I’ll get better or die from it.

    But with insomnia? Fat chance. Even when I do manage to get some sleep, I always wake up anxious. Because what if that was a fluke? What if I never ever get to sleep ever again?

    What if I go back to the sleep doctor and he’s like, “I can’t give you any more horse pills, ma’am. Because I think you’re only here for attention.”

    It affects every aspect of your life, too. Like how my house looks like a bomb’s been dropped on it, because with the not sleeping and all, I can’t be bothered to feed myself, let alone sweep a floor.

    But the worst part of it is that when I’m sleep-deprived, my defenses go to shit and I start telling myself things. Things I should never, ever be telling myself. It’s like living with a bully in my head. Or worse, my mother.

    Which is why it’s such a good thing that America’s Next Top Model is back with new episodes, even if they have kind of sucked for the past five years. Because now, whenever that bad part of my mind is getting the better of me, I can rest easy knowing that at least I didn’t just eat my weight in haggis.

  • Side Effects May Include Heart Palpitations and Zombie Nightmares

    So let’s talk about sleeping pills.

    I mean, they sound so great, don’t they? Take this pill and you will rest. You will rest so hard, the instructions tell you, that you probably should not plan on doing anything for the next eight hours.

    Except sleeping.

    But what they don’t tell you–or actually, I think they do tell you this, but in very very very fine print–is that sleeping is only what happens sometimes.

    Sometimes you sleep.  And sometimes you drive to Taco Bell in the middle of the night wearing just your bra and panties, and because you’ve left your house key at home, wake up half naked on your porch swing covered in verde sauce.

    When I was on Lunesta, it didn’t take me long to figure out that I was going to be one of the 0.003% of patients who experience a reaction that is opposite of that which is intended, aka CAPS! LOCK! MODE!

    So instead of thinking:

    “It’s late. I’m tired. I should go to bed now.”

    I kept thinking:

    “I! SHOULD! GO! TO! BED! NOW!”

    “OR! MAYBE! PAINT! A! WALRUS!”

    “QUICK! FIND! ME! A! WALRUS!”

    “NO! TIME! FOR! PANTS!”

    “BUT! MAYBE! THE! WALRUS! WOULD! LIKE! TACO! BELL! FIRST!”

    After about three nights of this, I was like, Dr. Dude, this isn’t going to work. I need something else. Something that won’t try to turn me into a human fast food taco.

    In the meantime, I break my cardinal rule of never reading dystopian and/or zombie novels by picking up both The Forests of Hands and Teeth and The Hunger Games, the former of which because I already had it in my bedroom and the latter because I like to read books before I see movies, and I think the movie looks really good (even though I probably will not be watching it now, thanks to the book).

    I want to take a moment to apologize to all the wonderful writers out there who write dystopian novels, some of whom I know well enough to know they are not at all as scary as their books. Most of them are fine, upstanding, cat-loving people who would never eat another human being. The others are Democrats.

    HA HA.

    BURN.

    But regardless of how nice they are, I cannot read their books. Can. Not. It doesn’t matter how good or popular or interesting they are. I. Can. Not. Read. Them.

    And the reason why is because they scare me shitless, no doubt due to the fact that my grandmother, from an early age, groomed me to fear the coming zombie apocalypse.

    And I wish I was making this up, but I’m totally not.

    Except for the zombie part. She didn’t believe in zombies, just like she didn’t believe in Democrats.

    My point is, you read a dystopian novel and it’s a book. And I read a dystopian novel and start looking for quotes on bomb shelters.

    So picture me in bed, Wednesday morning, unable to sleep thanks to a clap of thunder that woke me up just as I as drifting off, and I’ve just finished reading The Hunger Games. The sun isn’t up yet, but I’ve taken a second Ambien and after thirty-six hours of little cat naps, my vision’s going fuzzy. When who do I see but fucking Effie Trinket in the corner, sawing off her own head, chirping at me about painting the roses red.

    This goes on for maybe half an hour–half an hour of hell–and then I finally drift off to a place where I’m the only passenger on a rollercoaster that has no seatbelts and every time I go upside down, the lettuce falls off my taco.

    “What do you think that means?” I asked a friend in an email shortly after it happened.

    “I dunno,” friend said, “but I hope it’s a euphemism for something dirty.”

  • Liz Breaks Down

    Every now and then the shit hits the fan in such a way that I’m left alone in the PetSmart parking lot, sobbing into a slightly used McDonald’s napkin, wishing the earth would crack open and swallow me up, because somehow everything has gone to shit.

    Everything. Shit. All of it.

    I say this, and people are like, “OMG WHAT IS WRONG?”

    And I don’t know what to tell them. EVERYTHING is wrong. NOTHING is wrong. I am wrong.

    There’s this thing that happens when so much of who you are is wrapped up in any one thing. If something goes wrong, if you get get sad or despondent for no apparent reason, they automatically assume the reason why is buried somewhere in that part of you.

    Which brings me to Sunday night. PetSmart. Parking lot. Salty McDonald’s napkin. And a friend on my cell telling me to calm down, calm down, there will be other books.

    “WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE WILL BE OTHER BOOKS?”

    “Just that…Not everyone…Maybe you should focus on other things right now.”

    “OH MY GOD YOU THINK MY BOOK SUCKS!”

    “What? No. Of course not. But if you’re upset about it–“

    “I’M UPSET BECAUSE I RAN OUT OF CAT FOOD AND PETSMART IS CLOSED AND THEY DON’T SELL IT ANYWHERE ELSE AND IT’S RAINING AND MY HAIR IS STUPID AND I GOT THE WRONG CLEMENTINES AT WAAAAALLLLL-MAAAAAAARRRRRRT…”

    Truth is, now more than ever I’m grateful for writing and reading, and even my new Kindle, even though it took three hours to convert all my Nook books over to Kindle format. Every day is a struggle to keep my head above water, to keep from melting down or crippling with fear, and every minute I get to check out of this reality and find sanctuary in another truly is a blessing.