Yesterday was a difficult day, the first I’ve had in quite a while (if you don’t count the panic attack I suffered the first couple days of the year). It was bad enough that I took the first emergency klonopin I’ve needed in weeks. On the one hand, it’s amazing I’ve been able to go so long without needing an emergency klonopin. On the other, it’s a sign of how difficult yesterday was emotionally that I needed it.
And I survived it. A couple of my closest friends let me vent my frustrations throughout the day and provided positive feedback and encouragement. I also received a lovely phone call from someone I’ve idolized for years but never connected with outside of Facebook until now, and that provided a huge a bright spot to my day.
But even with those positive elements, there’s always emotional fallout. For the last several months, I’ve been lucky most nights to get more than six hours of sleep a night. I’m not 100% sure as to the cause, but I have some suspicions. It doesn’t do me any good to go to bed early because it just means I wake up that much early in wee hours of the night, unable to reacquire sleep.
Last night was no different. I deliberately stayed awake until 12:30, even though my body was screaming for sleep. My eyes were heavy. My body ached. My legs muscles were tight and cramped. All these were signs of stress. And yet, I knew if I fell asleep too soon, I’d be awake at 3 or 4, alone in the dark with just me and my own thoughts. Thanks, but no thanks.
For what it’s worth, I did sleep soundly for 5.5 hours. But as usual, I was awake by 6:00, under extreme protest from my body. It screamed at me to let it sleep longer, so exhausted that I found it difficult to keep my eyes open. It wasn’t going to happen, even though I gave it a valiant effort. Already my mind was racing, not focused on any one thing in particular. Rather, it was a smorgasbord of all my thoughts, dropped into a mental blender and pureéd until smooth. I am used to this.
To top it off, my anxiety was already ticking away. Residual stress from yesterday plus not nearly enough sleep. I can function on less than six hours of sleep. That’s something I’ve greatly improved on in the last year. I’m not saying it’s fun, by any means. But it’s doable. I make it work. I have to. And so after about an hour of lying there in bed, I forced myself up, itself a Herculean effort and maybe the hardest thing I will have to do today.
I miss the days when I could easily sleep seven, eight, nine hours at a stretch. I wish I could get just a few nights like that. I suspect I would feel better. But it seems destined not to be so. Those nights seem like a distant memory now, fated never to return. I’m sure they will, given time. For now, though, it’s a matter of a strength and willpower to get up and face each and every new day.
And for the most part, I love my days now. I love my life. There are places and areas that still lack, but nothing is perfect. That’s why we set goals. That’s why we never stop working toward self-improvement. It is simply more challenging when you also suffer from a sleep deficit that has slowly compounded over days and weeks and months. But this is simply one season of life. Seasons come — but then they go. Similarly this one, too, will pass. I don’t know when. I just know that it will. Eventually. And then my normal, healthy sleep rhythms will return.
Until then, I face this challenge like every other — strong, confident, bold, if a bit rough around the edges. That, too, will solve itself with time. It’s smoothing out those rough edges that make us better versions of ourselves. That’s work that never ends, but it’s always work that needs doing.
