I slept five hours last night. I was expecting seven, but of course my anxiety had other ideas.
Do you know what it’s like to wake up in the wee hours of the morning, not yet fully awake but just semi-comatose enough to know that something isn’t right? You hear yourself involuntarily grunting — it’s not enough of a sound to be a groan but also not little enough to be merely a sigh — because you’re in discomfort but can’t yet ascertain why because your brain isn’t really awake and processing input yet. So you roll over in one direction, hoping that getting more comfortable will resolve whatever issue is plaguing you, only to hear yourself grunt again and feel a little shiver of something spike through your body, especially your belly. So you roll again, in the other direction this time, seeking comfort and solace but not finding it. All during this, little grunts continue to escape you unbidden, little thrums of noise that emanate more from your chest than your throat.
And it takes a while, but you finally — finally! — start to rouse enough to realize what’s going on. Your anxiety is spiking severely, and you’re having a full-body reaction. Naturally, there is literally nothing provoking the anxiety. You’ve been asleep for nearly five hours, after all, and your dreams haven’t been particularly stimulating in any way at all.
At this point, you recognize you’re not going to be getting back to sleep anytime soon, so you reach over and turn on the lamp. You sit up and take a drink from your water bottle because you’ve been at least partially breathing through your mouth, and you’re parched. You lie back again and realize the cat is curled up against your side, blearily looking at you with sleepy eyes. At least he’s comfortable.
You lie there a few minutes, hoping sleep will approach again, but nope. The anxiety is doing an excellent job of keeping it at bay. So you grab your phone, check the time, and realize you still have a couple of hours before your alarm is scheduled to go off. And you know, you just know, that you won’t be getting anymore sleep this night.
It’s a rough way to start a Monday, and it’s a rough way to start a week. But it is what it is. Nothing for it but to knuckle down and push through as best you can.
