Can’t Sleep, Everything Will Eat Me

Sleeping doesn’t always come easy for me.  I have a really flexible schedule the past few months, and that’s really chipped away at all my routines that I used to have.  Previously, I was always exhausted and in bed by eleven and awake by seven.  Boring, predictable yet effective.  Now that I don’t have to wake up for the regular 9-5 grind, I go to sleep whenever.  At first, I felt like a badass kid who was like “hehehe, look at me, I can stay up till midnight!” But as the lack of a cohesive schedule continued on, I found myself going to bed later and later, sometimes not until 3.  I don’t necessarily like it, but I’m just not tired.  Sleeping till noon doesn’t help.

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I wanted to sleep.  Nothing good happens that late at night, awake all alone.  I started taking sleeping pills to help me get to bed and I got hooked.  The lame part?  They weren’t even some boss prescription pills that I could totally walrus out with.  No, just Unisom, available at any local drugstore.  Somewhere inside me, though, I knew it still probably wasn’t a great idea that I needed pills every night to get to sleep so I’ve weened myself off of them.  Two weeks strong with no sleeping pills and I feel better than ever?  Not exactly, but I am definitely waking up when the clock still says AM.

Another thing that prevents me from sleeping is the very name of this blog.  I love it and hate it.  Getting all jacked up in the evening makes me very productive, yes.  But then when I lay down in bed at 3 in the morning counting my heartbeats, I start to have second thoughts about that latte at 9 PM. 

PLEASE DON’T ABDUCT ME

In order to try to relax in the evening, way after my boyfriend has gone to bed and it is late, I try to read to get myself into a state where I can fall asleep.  This doesn’t work out the best way if your favorite author is Stephen King.  One night, I was taking a hot shower to try and loosen up before turning in, and my mind started to wander and I couldn’t stop thinking about that short story with the finger that starts to come out of the drain.  It is so easy to freak yourself out at night.  I’ll think of awful terrible things that keep me awake.  The two most horrifying to me being ghosts and aliens.  Though I’ve tried to assure myself time and time again that this apartment is NOT haunted (since we are the first tenants to live here!), my brain fights me and says “well what if ghosts followed you from somewhere else?  What if this land was built on hallowed grounds and the spirits are restless and are going to try to steal your soul as retribution?”  Then I keep imagining that there’s aliens outside and they are going to bust in here and abduct my ass.  It’s scary to think of those big-headed creepos outside on my balcony with their long fingers, all eyes and no face, just waiting to take me to their ship and probe the hell out of me.  No thanks.

HAVE A GOOD TIME NOT SLEEPING.  EVER AGAIN.

Let’s say I don’t think about horrible things like ghosts, aliens and republicans and somehow I get to sleep and I am all sound and snuggled in bed.  Things wake me up!  I think I have some kind of version of night terrors.  The scene is this:  I’m sleeping, and I wake up for half a second to turn over but OH MY GOD LOOK ABOVE YOU, SPIDERS!  THERE ARE GIANT SPIDERS ON THE WALL AND SOME ON THE BED AND HEADBOARD AND YOU BETTER JUMP OUT OF BED, START SCREAMING, THROW OFF ALL THE BLANKETS AND LINENS AND FREAK OUT AND SHAKE YOUR BOYFRIEND AWAKE BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT SPIDERS ON HIM EITHER, DO YOU?  This happens regularly.  My boyfriend is a really deep sleeper and he won’t wake up for any of these shennanigans, no matter how much I shake him. By the time I have all the lights on, have thrown all the covers and pillows off my side of the bed and am frantically trying to wake sleeping beauty on the other side of the bed, I can see there’s no spiders and I’m doing that thing again.  I’ve gotten to the point now when I wake up with my heart racing seeing imaginary spiders, in a few seconds I can calm myself, focus and not do any of the freaking out by telling myself “those are not real, they are never real, just turn on a light and see then you can go back to sleep.” 

These are the things that keep me up at night.  I sound like a weirdo.

One Response to “Can’t Sleep, Everything Will Eat Me”

  1. Jaclyn

    The only way you are ever gonna get back on a schedule is to start setting your alarm and getting up at the same time every morning. And if it makes you feel any better, I firmly believe that ghosts are around but 99% are just there and don’t want anything from you at all and won’t, I dunno, rip your face off in your sleep or steal your soul. And for the record, your house is not haunted.

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