Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! How I hated those early morning sounds of the little birdies chirping outside my window in Manhattan. That meant another day of work after another night without sleep. I always wondered how I would make it through yet another day with no sleep, but somehow I always did. The headaches, the muscle pains, and the overall tiredness that dogged my days never quite went away, even on the occasional days that followed a good night's sleep. Insomnia never became my friend. Insomnia was the demon that undermined my education, my work, my health, and my peace of mind.
I, like many others, have had to learn to make the best of living with a disability. Life handed up some complications that compounded my disability.
KosAbility is a community diary series posted at 5 PM ET every Sunday and Wednesday by volunteer diarists. This is a gathering place for people who are living with disabilities, who love someone with a disability, or who want to know more about the issues surrounding this topic. There are two parts to each diary. First, a volunteer diarist will offer their specific knowledge and insight about a topic they know intimately. Then, readers are invited to comment on what they've read and/or ask general questions about disabilities, share something they've learned, tell bad jokes, post photos, or rage about the unfairness of their situation. Our only rule is to be kind; trolls will be spayed or neutered.
I was born in an orphanage and adopted at four months of age. On the rare nights when I sleep relatively well, it is usually because I have left a light on in the bedroom. That seems to be a remnant from living in a hospital the first four months of my life.
My adoptive mother said that, as an infant, I would be wide awake most times when she would check on me during the night. I would be lying in my crib, awake, alert, and quiet.
There was definitely reason to be quiet. My mother was a deeply disturbed woman, who was brutal with her punishment when annoyed. Daily beatings were the norm throughout my childhood. The emotional upset these beatings caused contributed to my inability to fall asleep at night.
The insomnia was most likely coupled with some neurological issues. One of my earliest memories is of being a huge pastel room with a bunny rabbit on the ceiling. I was lying on a hospital bed with electrodes hooked up to my head. I had petit mal seizures, and was being tested.
It turned out that my EEG was no more abnormal than 10% of the population. I remember a certain level of disappointment that a diagnosis for the insomnia wasn't going to be so easy. This was about age four.
Throughout my childhood, I had nightmares. I don't know when the nightmares began, only when they stopped. They stopped when I first left home for college, and they never returned. But when they were active, they were another reason for insomnia. They were terrifying, near-death experiences that recurred nightly.
The dream was always the same. The symbolism was apparent to me at an early age, which made me feel even more powerless over it. The dream always followed the same course.
It began with me running for my life to escape the wicked witch (the aged crone of Jungian lore, a version of mummy dearest to be sure) who was chasing me with the intent of killing me. In my dream, the threat of death was very, very real. I would run and run, with the witch drawing ever closer to me.
In a panic, I would run into an old Victorian house and run up the stairs hoping to escape the witch. She would enter the house, and mount the stairs right behind me. I would climb and climb flights of stairs in a blind panic attempting to escape, with the witch closing in on me. In a final burst of terror, I would jump through a glass window and fall - knowingly - to my death to escape the witch. It was apparent that death was preferable to being caught by her.
Every night I experienced this dream, and every night I would awaken in a damp sweat, just before I hit the ground in the dream. My state was fearful and panicked. The only nights I didn't have the dream were those when I didn't sleep.
My adoptive brother has told me he believes we were lucky to escape our home with our lives. I know that as a child I truly thought our mother might kill us in one of her rages. The inability to form a safe attachment with a parent was another source beyond the neurological for the insomnia, because it reinforced the neurological tendency.
Insomnia was also coupled with ADD, and possibly ADHD. Mine was the first hand shooting up in class to answer questions. I was a quick study in most subjects from kindergarten forward. I was quick, restless and nervy. There seemed to be only two modes in which I operated, those being either on or off. When on, I was engaged and manic. When off, I retreated into books to learn and escape the outer world. There is also an element of bipolar in my makeup, as the escapism could turn to depression as I matured.
Chronic sleep deprivation impaired my education. I began college in an honors program at my university, but soon missed so many classes in courses like honors chemistry that my grades dropped. The same would happen in my work history. I could hold my act together sometimes for months, or even a few years, but eventually sleep deprivation would cause me to sleep through too many alarms, or be groggy when the boss needed me alert, or I would send the wrong message to the wrong person and create havoc in that manner.
At different times I have used meditation, counseling, drugs and alcohol to greater or lesser effect. I have consulted with enough therapists and counselors to populate a small town. One of the only things, apart from drugs and herbs, that can put me to sleep, is incredibly loud noise. At an avante-garde musical performance by La Mont Young and Marian Zazeela, the tremendous noise of their performance threw me right into a deep sleep. I had never experienced anything like that, and think it might have been a response to my very early conditioning from being birthed and living several months in a noisy hospital.
I remain plagued with insomnia. As a result of not having access to appropriate medication, I have had to live my life chronically sleep-deprived. It has only been during the last four years that I have worked with an MD willing to prescribe a strong sleep medication on an ongoing basis. Most MDs are so fearful of prescribing such medications that it has taken a lifetime to find one who will actually work with me.
Time has shown that I need at least 30, and occasionally 45, milligrams of temazepam, a benzodiazapam, to fall asleep each night. That is coupled with four capsules of valerian, and at least 15 milligrams of melatonin. With the herb, supplement, and medication, I usually manage to sleep around 5-6 hours a night. But some nights even that doesn't work very well, and most days it leaves me functioning less than optimally because of the temazepam.
Those of you who also suffer from insomnia have my deep sympathy. Sleep deprivation can be dangerously debilitating to one's physical and mental health. Having insomnia as a lifetime affliction is a very unsettling challenge. One never knows what the next day will hold when a good night's sleep is seldom an option. Further, there seem to be no easy answers for many of us other than either medication or learning to tolerate tiredness. Then, even with medication, the drug hangover can lead to impaired mental function, as it often does with me.
There is still hope. Studies are being done on the limbic system that hold promise for insomniacs. I have found the Ayurvedic herb Tulsi, or Holy Basil to be effective in cutting some of the effects of stress. Exercise done earlier in the day helps many. Learning to quiet the mind can be challenging for some, but I have practiced this and have found it to be beneficial.
Please share any thoughts you might have about insomnia, or share a joke or two. If the insomniacs among us laugh hard enough, we might all get a good night's sleep :D