Insomniac
June 6, 2007 by laura
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Due to a fairly intense burst of energy, I woke up feeling very rested after about 1 hr of sleep. I have now been awake for hours. Here is a list of what I have done since I woke up.
- Scrubbed my bathroom sink
- Made a delicious pot of coffee (if I am awake, I may as well enjoy myself)
- Walked to the mailbox, and mailed the latest dvd that Starflix sent (if you want to see Poseidon, don’t bother wasting your time, its horrible).
- Chatted with a friend who lives overseas
- Snooped around on Facebook
- Wrote 3 posts for CFS Squared (this is number 3)
- Took the picture that is attached to this post. It’s what my street looks like at 3:30 am
- Watched half an episode of Grey’s Anatomy
- Remade my bed twice – this is when I was still optimistic about getting some sleep
- Grooved to itunes
Ah geez. My mother keeps telling me all my problems would be solved if I would just go lie in bed by 11 p.m. I’m 50 years old. She has not a clue what it’s like to have a sleep disorder. Mostly I try to ignore her on this, but occasionally I have to tell it like it is. She doesn’t want to hear it. Or she won’t.
Hi Laura! I’ve been riding along on a weird little burst of insomnia energy too. Odd how that happens. I’m anticipating a crash any day now. I had been finding it very stressful not being able to sleep ’til around 5 – 6am, but now I’ve chosen not to worry about it I’m far cheerier. I can’t claim to be as constructive as you in the wee small hours – that’s quite some list of things that you worked through! I tend to read a bit, watch films, potter around the internet, play my guitar, listen to music…Anything to keep my mind occupied but my body not too busy. MUCH better than lying in bed trying really hard to sleep.
Sherril – I’ve given up trying to explain what it’s like to simply not be able to sleep. It’s almost impossible for most people to imagine as for them sleep is something that just ‘happens’ automatically, which (of course) is lucky for them…
Excellent point about the impossibility of explaining what it’s like to be unable to sleep, Georgina! My mum does sleep really easily, too.
What I do while waiting for the elusive Sand Man: read. NOTHING involving movement.
A friend of mine refers to my nights of sleeplessness as the “vampire state”. He insists, that the best thing that I can do is to stay in bed, and lie still.
But I get so restless and frustrated that I just get up and start my day. Of course, there are times when I am just so tired, that I can’t even move…but most of the time I get up and stay busy, or walk my neighborhood at odd hrs of the morning.
People who aren’t insomniacs have a hard time understanding what its like for us. I stop trying to get people to understand. I couldn’t make my friends understand about CFS, so I am not so sure I could get them to know what having CFS is like and not sleeping. If the subject does come up, I just dismiss it, as a silly little thing…and move on. The more I stress out about things like this, the harder it is for me to get any kind of sleep, at all.