Insomnia

When i was younger i had really big trouble sleeping at night. It got to a point where i was running on about 2 hours sleep every day, which was horrible. I can remember when it started- Christmas Eve. It was the most ridiculous thing too, I got a Christmas song stuck in my head and it kept going round and round and when Christmas Morning came i hadn't slept at all. That whole day i spent trying not to hear the same songs too often, fearing they'd get stuck in my head and i wouldn't be able to sleep again.

That's how it starts- you worry about not getting to sleep, so when it comes to going to sleep you actually try. Have you ever noticed that? when you try and make yourself sleep you never can? I've always found it strange. And all the while you're trying to sleep the minutes go by and by and before you know it it's 3am and even though you went to bed at 10pm you're no closer to sleeping than you were when you were eating your breakfast.

The part that always upset me the most and the thing i found most harrowing about not being able to sleep- and it is harrowing, by the way. A couple of awkward nights here and there and you get cranky, sure. But when you go months without being able to just doze off, left staring at your ceiling until the sun comes up, sleeping becomes all you can think about, all day, everyday, even though it's the one thing you can't actually do. After the first month of only roughly 2 hours a night i began feeling sick to my stomach at the thought of bed. The hours during the day went super fast, and i used to dread hearing the words 'time for bed'. You come to expect the fact you can't sleep. I made a lot of jokes around that time. Most of them thought up whilst not being able to sleep, ironically.

Anyway, the thing that really got to me was how lonely i always felt. Lying in my bed, which was a place i hated being in, at 4am feeling like there was no one else in the world awake with me right now. I'd constantly be listening for the sound of a car to go past and think 'Oh, thank god, someone else is awake right now, i'm not by myself'. But living in a small country town, there isn't that much traffic. Just...even though i KNEW that other people were awake, somewhere, there wasn't anyone with me. The thought of being alone, ever, still majorly scares me now.

Then, after 5 months of living off of the dregs of 'sleep', randomly, one night after no particular special day, occasion or change to my daily routine i slept soundly, and did so for years after-wards. And that was it. Every so often my Insomnia comes back- predictably around my AS Levels-although strangely not my A Levels- and during my first year of Uni i had some trouble. Neither of them lasted as long as the first time, but the bout during Uni was very hard to deal with because I had no one there who i knew well enough to talk to about it. But that only lasted 3 weeks and since then i've had no trouble sleeping.

You may think this is a really random blog to be writing, considering the ones that surround it. But it was so weird, i looked down at the clock on my laptop and it said 'something ridiculous AM'. And i got the little tugging feeling in my stomach, like i used to get. The little thought of loneliness popped into my head, and its been a while since i felt it. so i thought i'd write about it. maybe in the hope someone else has felt that way too.

xXx