Lying Awake Thinking What To Write......

Originally posted on Multiply 20^th February 2009

The past week I’ve been visited by my old nemesis ’Insomnia’ again. It’s been a frequent visitor in my life. I have suffered from periodic insomnia since I was a small child, and I've never been too sure exactly why. No-one else in my family has ever had insomnia as far as I know, so it’s nothing hereditary. I think there were several, not necessarily linked, contributing factors (by the way, any of you who have been friends with me since the Y360 days will remember me posting on this subject previously. This is more of a rewrite rather than a repost). 

As a child I used to suffer on a regular basis from scary and disturbing nightmares. I often couldn't remember what exactly they were about, but I had them so often I eventually became afraid to sleep. I would force myself to stay awake as long as I could. I also started to need some sort of nightlight, as I became terrified of the dark. This started when I was about five years old and continued until I was about eleven. Eventually the nightmares lessened and then disappeared, except for the odd ones everyone has from time to time. However, even after the nightmares stopped I was plagued by sleeplessness and I started to develop habits that seemed to reinforce the insomniac pattern. I had always been an avid reader, and I took to reading books underneath my bedsheets by torchlight until the early hours of the morning. 

Later in life, when I was married, it used to sometimes annoy me that my wife could fall asleep at the drop of a hat, and sleep undisturbed for hours, while I lay awake most of the night, again usually reading to pass the time. The advent of the internet was a godsend for me. I have spent so many nights chatting to folks in other parts of the world, and more recently blogging, when it seems the rest of the world are snoring their heads off. 

For many many years, my usual sleep pattern, when not suffering bouts of insomnia, seemed to be around 2am to 7am, but then something which made me look at my insomnia in a different light happened. About 15 years ago, during the only time in my life I was unemployed, I was out of work for about 6 months. In that time I suddenly discovered a sleeping pattern which seemed natural to me. I would sleep from 5am to 11am UK time. I've never figured out why, but that is the only time I have felt comfortable with a sleep pattern. Maybe I should have been born on the East Coast of the US, where that pattern would equate to around midnight to 6am, a much more ‘normal’ pattern. 

I have tried all sorts of remedies both medical and traditional to rid myself of these bouts of insomnia. Herbal remedies, caffeine-free diets, sleeping pills. All to no avail. I've given up trying now, whenever the insomnia kicks in I just have to go with it until sleep returns. I guess what I need to do is find a way of sleeping from 5am to 11am without being unemployed. Or move to America. Now there’s an idea!!

Additional note 5^th December 2012: since I wrote this, nothing has changed, I'm still plagued by bouts of insomnia at irregular intervals. Guess I'm stuck with it for life!!