When Insomnia Becomes Ironic

Okay, so, I went to the doctors and underwent this annoying sleep study because not only was I getting reports from all kinds of people that I snore, but I was finding myself needing 10 hours of sleep a day and I was still not rested. I'd sleep as much as I could at night, get up and get the kids to school and the husband to work, spend an hour doing stuff, and then I'd go back to bed.

By the time I got up, I had just enough time to take a shower and go pick the girls up from school. And eat lunch. And that was about it. Not much of a life, was it?

So, off I go to the sleep clinic, convinced that something is interrupting my sleep, something serious and chronic, because there just isn't really any time in a day for me to do anything but take care of others and sleep. . .and even then, there was a terrible tendency walk around all hunched over with my knuckles dragging on the ground from exhaustion. I think I looked like a gorilla in clothing.

So, now, I've had the sleep study, and because this is how the world works, my follow up appointment--where I find out what happens when I sleep, when I get some information back--had to be rescheduled for seven days from today. And, because this is also how the world works. . .now I don't sleep.

I'm not certain if it is insomnia, as I've not looked up a medical definition of what constitutes "insomnia," but I can tell you that it's the devil for me to get to sleep these days. I get the kids to bed, I tuck myself in and do all those properly soporific activities, I turn out the light and

Nothing.

Not a thing.

No sleep, no tiredness. My brain starts to throw up a bunch of disconnected thoughts from the past several days, my legs start to feel cramped, my eyes will not stay closed. It's the Anti Sleep going on now.

Last night, for example, Mr. Sweetie was gone on a business trip, which usually means I forget to go to bed. I stay up, because some pre-logical part of my brain thinks that he's going to come home and I should wait for him. But I had already not been able to sleep the night before, when Mr. Sweetie was home, and I was tired. So I went to bed when the kids did, and tried to go to sleep. After an hour and fifteen minutes, I got up, went to the bathroom, did some laundry, and tried again.

Of course, nothing. So then I stayed in bed (this is apparently key advice for getting back to sleep--stay in bed) and I got out my laptop, and started doing some Internet research, some reading, some computer games. . .all of which have been known to make me so tired I think I'm going to be ill if I don't go to bed. You guessed it: nothing.

Did you know that just before the sun comes up, the birds get really loud? That if you are in a darkened room with only the laptop screen for illumination, you can see the air around you get lighter as the sun rises? I finally started yawning at about 5:30 this morning, and got to sleep sometime before 6. And I woke up less than six hours later, and I've been up and fully alert and awake ever since.

Doesn't this throw a monkey wrench into my sleep history? Maybe by next week, I can develop yet another disordered sleep pattern, and drive the doctors crazy! Sounds like fun, doesn't it?