Insomnia: My lifes greatest adversity
I talk to you now in my most normal state of mind, that being pure insomnia. Life is challenging enough but the lack of sleep is what kills me in all aspects of my life. Now I will admit I'm naturally a night owl. But there is a huge difference between staying up till 11pm one night and going to bed at 6am the next. Weather its my physical discomfort, unruly night terrors, diet, anxiety/mental health issues I find sleep to be the biggest challenge of my entire existence.
Some days I can go without any sleep, and I'm sadly used to it. Because of such early start times for my school, summer work, and in general life there were many nights of my entire childhood where I did not sleep. Most nights such as this one all I want is sleep. But because I went to sleep early at 8pm I woke up at 11pm, and now I cant fall back to sleep. I've tried everything...AND I MEAN EVERYTHING. Some people add or say "well just go to bed at a regular time..." but for a teenager that doesn't have a 9-5 job, goes to school, and works different shifts every week, that kind of sleep balance is impossible. A lot of the time I have no true reason to get up to get up before 10am. No chores, no school or work for hours. So I instinctively try to catch up on as much sleep as possible whenever I possibly can. Sleep is the biggest work out for my life.
My insomnia has gotten so bad since the start of college that I have a stash of Vicks severe Nyquill if and when I need to sleep and be up before 10am. It hurts, makes me sick, and is putting me at a very great personal risk. They do say that the BIG SLEEP is death and to a point (to someone who barley can get any) does not sound that bad of a viable option. Because of the overall lack or abundance of sleep some days my brain can just be gone. Like now I just keep staring at the same line over and over again trying to piece together what I want to say. I can't tell you the amount of binging I've done, the video games I have played, the books I have read projects I have written, videos I have worked on In the span of sleepless nights.
You really think about it in perspective, how much time you truly lose in life in between going to school and sleeping. The "night life" is truly about me and me alone. I have gained so much personal independence based on my own inability to sleep. Because most people are asleep and I live in a rural area there is truly nothing stopping me from doing whatever I want. It's like this feeling of being "home alone" mixed with the scary realization of living in "Groundhog's Day." Every night seems to drag on, and every day starts to feel exactly the same. You begin to notice things out of the corner of your eye. And when the hallucinations begin thats when the real horror of it all is just starting to emerge. When it gets to that phase, when I get panic attacks and I feel like my heart is literally gonna burst out of my chest I always rush straight for that Vicks.
The unruly paranoia that begins to set it sucks. Especially when you have to be awake the next morning. And you could literally feel the touch of death that previous night as your brain interprets the halls of your house/apartment being to spin on itself... Is just scary. You know what your seeing is not really there. You know that its just all in your head. You know that its just your mind playing tricks on you. That the hand coming out of the mirror is not really there. But for some reason you submit to its bending of reality because you have this feeling deep deep down that your time is truly coming.
And to those thinking that these true night terrors could be solved by sleeping and positive thinking you would be quite wrong. I know that this is not normal but I can feel REAL pain in my dreams. For some odd reason my brain can simulate pain that I have yet to experience in grim ways. You guys reading this may have seen Nightmare on Elm street. Well every night is like that just without some kind of Freddy coming after me. I have been killed in almost every imaginable way possible in my dreams to the point where some nights I purposely stay up in terror because the thought of feeling more pain scares me at my core. I think one of the scariest dreams I ever had was one where I was shot in the back of the head. It was so scary to feel true loss of consciousness in a dream. I could feel myself getting colder as my eyes began to close in my own dream. Its like that Twilight Zone episode with the guy who kept seeing this girl in his dreams... You know if you ever saw the episode.
Some nights I just accept it but wish I had friends to talk too to pass the time. Some nights I get so bored I just stare at my desktop and hope someone messages me or that my creative mind helps me binge write something. So this is why I rant tonight currently still typing this out at 3am. I hate my life so much because all I want is that sweet sleep. I dont think I'll be able to achieve that for awhile. For some reason people on the platform enjoy it when I talk deeply about myself. And at the moment making videos is a pain (mostly due to weather and money) so I thought why not blog about my issues and see if people have solutions I haven't tried. Anyways thanks for reading this rant. I can could go into some grim details about my nightmares if any horror writers want some kind of inspiration lol.
Well again thanks for reading let me know what yall think and take care. :)
I'm gonna try my best to go to sleep now lol. :/
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Mate my heart goes out to you with this, what a difficult situation to be in.
It is gnarly to hear that you feel real pain in your dreams, I have not heard of that before.
A good friend of mine suffers with insomnia and just one night like the kind that you described where your mind starts playing tricks can mess up a whole week for him. Which makes him miss appointments and stuff (he runs a business) and makes him feel worse. It really has been the most difficult thing to deal with in his life. If he CAN get to sleep, he will sleep for a looong time, but generally he can’t turn his brain off and so he just works all night to stay busy.
I hope you ended up having a decent sleep bro,
and I hope in some way that your situation improves soon man!
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Oh ya man I'm so used to it. Its like something that no one should be used too lol. I thought about doing vlogs or little videos about these things I go through because they are oddities to say the least, but I don't want to come across as someone looking for attention. Ya the real pain in dreams is scary when it can be viewed as a possible real life scenario like getting shot. Thanks for commenting man I love watching your videos when you post them. Always glad to hear from you. And its a life long problem I'm always up to try new solutions to help me out. Again good to hear from you bro glad you reached out. :)