What Having Insomnia Is Actually Like
People think having insomnia is this super cool thing that allows you to get millions of things done in the middle of the night instead of sleeping. I've actually had people tell me that they're jealous that I have insomnia.
I'd like to set one thing straight.
Having insomnia, is the worst part about mental illness. Not the panic attacks, not the days of feeling empty and worthless, not the paranoia, not the anxiety, and not the self-hatred. The inability to be able to sleep is the worst part of it all. I never got anything done at night, and in fact, I had less motivation to do anything before I started on the sleeping aids.
I wasn't diagnosed with my first illness – depression - until I was 12. But I know for a fact that I've had insomnia since I could probably walk. For as long as I can remember, I've never been able to sleep. Mom told me I didn't sleep through the night from when I was born until I was about 5 or 6. Right around that time is when I remember the problems starting. I used to have this terrifying fear of fire that would keep me up at all hours of the night with severe anxiety that everyone and everything that I loved was going to go up in flames. I also just couldn't shut my brain down as a kid. I was so tired at school all day long and as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was wide awake.
As time went on and I got older, my fear of fire soon disappeared, but my inability to sleep did not. If and when I was able to fall asleep, there's no way in heck that I ever stayed asleep. I remember waking up because of a nightmare, or simply just because my brain didn't think it needed anymore sleep. When that happened, I used to sneak into my parent's room and make a bed on their floor in the dark. Something about being in their presence put me at peace and allowed me to be able to fall asleep again. If I would have stayed in my own bed, I wouldn't have been able to fall back asleep.
Once I rounded into high school, being able to fall asleep, even for a few hours, was nearly impossible. I stopped needing to sleep in my parents room, because I didn't really need their presence anymore. I kind of just sucked it up and stayed awake. Some nights, I would lay in bed for hours upon hours staring at the ceiling in the dark and thinking about how dreadful my life was. Sometime around 3am, I would eventually drift off into a sleep until 6am rolled around and my alarm went off. Other nights, I would close my bedroom door and turn my light on so I could read or write. I had a bunny as a child until I was about 19. Some nights, I would get up and go hold her and cry for a little while. Sometimes, I would be awake for three days straight. There was no telling what it was going to be like each night. My parents knew I didn't really sleep, but I don't think they knew that I was awake for that extended amount of time.
The lack of sleep affected everything in my life. I had no motivation to do my homework or do well in school. My eating habits were greatly altered. My sanity was going down the drain more and more each night I got less and less sleep.
I remember feeling hopeless and dreadful. I remember feeling like there was nothing out there that could help my brain shut down. That was until my psychiatrist suggested seroquel to my mother and me. As a minor, all medications had to be approved by a parent. And seroquel was the one medication my mom did not want me taking. Seroquel is used mainly to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in higher doses. But in smaller doses, it can actually be used as a mood stabilizer to your current anti-depressant, as well as being used as a sleeping aid.
With my mom being a nurse, she had seen what seroquel can do to some people. She fought my psychiatrist on it for many months. But I remember telling her one day that we were all out of options. I had been taking 30mg of melatonin and 3 capsules of the valerian root each night, both of which did absolutely nothing. I wasn't sleeping, and I needed to be. I felt like a zombie all day long. I told her I just wanted something that would help me. I'm not sure if that's what swayed her decision or not, but all I knew was that shortly after, I walked out of the office with a prescription for it.
And my God did it work.
Believe me when I say that until I was about 14 or 15, I did not know what a good night's rest felt like. Ever. I never experienced it once until I started on the seroquel. I remember the first night I took it; I fell asleep within 20 minutes. I tried fighting it at first, but it was such a heavy sleeping aid, that it just overtook me. I didn't wake up once that night. When my alarm went off the next morning, I felt so refreshed and motivated, it was unbelievable. I will swear until the day that I die that if it weren't for that medication, there is no way I would have ever finished high school with passing grades.
Shortly after high school, I got a job in a restaurant at our local casino. It took some major adjusting in order to continue my usage of the seroquel while working a 6pm-2am job. I found that I needed a minimum of 10 hours of sleep a night in order to wake up the next day not feeling like I still had it in my system.
Fast forward to now, and I'm currently on something new. I think it's been about a year. The seroquel just became too much with that kind of schedule for work, and I needed something a little bit lighter.
Long story short, I have relied on sleeping medication since I started high school. And I'm actually not proud of that. If it weren't for it, I would be awake for days on end, and that isn't something to be proud of. I hate the fact that without it, I wouldn't be able to sleep. It's actually super inconvenient.
I'm on a very tight schedule with it. I know exactly how much sleep I should be getting on it in order to wake up the next day without feeling like I'm still "drugged up." There are the rare occasions where my brain is much more active in its thoughts than other nights, and it takes me a little while to fall asleep, since this medication is a little bit lighter. But for the most part, I do okay.
Insomnia is almost like my inner demon. The kind of dark thoughts that have run through my head at night are too dark to be spoken of. It has robbed me of so much. It has robbed me from sanity. It has robbed me from a normal life. It has robbed me of being able to sleep like everyone else in this world. It has robbed me of rest and peace.
I get really sick and tired of the nasty comments I get about being on a sleeping medication. If I'm out with new friends, I have a specific time in which I need to go home and go to sleep. They ask why, and I tell them. Apparently I'm too young to need sleeping medication. Believe me when I say that none of you want to experience me when I don't get any sleep. I am nasty, mean, moody, emotional, and unstable. That's what I want to tell them. But instead I politely explain that without it, I do not sleep, and I have been taking it long enough to know when I need to be going to sleep. I ask for them to respect that, and I leave it at that.
I wish I could say I sleep like everyone else. But for me, sleep is a sacred thing. Without it, it is the root of all my troubles. I like to think that someday I won't have to rely on a little pill to get me through the night. But unfortunately, now is not that time.
If you or someone you know needs support right now, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or text START to 741-741
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