Insomnia

Have you ever had to deal with insomnia? If you haven't, it is extremely hard to understand. Surely just about everyone has experienced sleeplessness at some point, this is natural. What is not quite right is when you either don't sleep at all, can't stay asleep, don't get enough sleep, or your sleep is not restful. I am currently dealing with the latter type.

I'll tell you it's awful. I FEEL like I haven't had any sleep in at least a week. I have dark circles around the bottom HALF of each of my eyes, my eyes themselves burn and tingle a little, I have a near constant, very dull headache, and I'm continuously, mildly nauseated. I feel very sensitive to temperature and light changes, am rather irritable and have few patience.

This is a form of torture (no really, it is, look up sleep deprivation & brainwashing techniques).

What's even worse is when the people in your life are COMPLETELY insensitive to what you are going through. I know it isn't really their FAULT. Chances are, most of these people haven't experienced this level of insomnia themselves. They have NO IDEA how bad it is.

Now, I feel pretty confident that I know where mine is coming from. I have WAAAAYYYY too many things going on right now...

1. Work is very busy (and let's not forget the paperwork that goes along with it).
2. I have extra duties right now while the boss is out of town.
3. Taxes are coming up and I'm a procrastinator (probably related to this whole sleep thing).
4. I have household things to do like laundry, vacuuming, trash, keeping up with the cat's needs, dishes, grocery shopping etc...
5. I'm terribly worried about my abilities when it comes to taking the GRE.
6. Likewise I'm terribly worried about getting into a PhD program in time to finish before I'm 40.
   
7. I'm feeling a LOT of pressure to get my house packed up (and trust me this is a HUGE job).
8. Paco is pissed at me because I'm not attending to things he has designated as top priority.
9. I'm pissed at Paco because I feel like he is being incredibly insensitive (and I'm just plain irritable and sensitive myself...see above). It doesn't help that he knows about my sleep problems and just doesn't understand.
10. I don't understand why when Paco wants express himself he seems to automatically jump to an adversarial position. I find myself just trying to make him happy, please him, ease his worries...all the while my own are mounting exponentially. I DESPISE walking eggshells. I understand that I haven't been as responsive as perhaps I should be lately...but good God, I really feel like I don't have the ability at the moment. ALL of my empathy is going to the people who pay for it...my clients. I just don't have anything else left right now.
    

There are more things to write, but I just can't anymore. I can't even tell you how many typos I've had to correct in this entry just because my fingers won't type what I want them too (time to get fitted for replacements I guess).

I'm a zombie who has to DRAG himself out of bed and to the office each day. I just want to cry (but I can't really do that either right now...too numb from the bad sleep).

Out of necessity, I have decided to take next week off of work. I really don't have any other choice. It's going to hurt financially, but, I NEED to clear up this sleep thing and I NEED to make some progress on the house that Paco can SEE. I want to make him but happy, but lately it seems that I can do nothing right.


"More......BRAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIINS!!!!!!!!"

--Iton