Value-Added Sleep

Sleep is good for you — we all know that. People have different needs for sleep and vastly varying sleep schedules.  Some folks nap and some don't.

And some of us sleep away the majority of a day without planning to do so. Today I felt immensely tired at 1:30, so I set my alarm for 3:00 (2 alarms, actually). I don't remember turning them off. I woke up just before 7pm, just before another alarm went off. 

I certainly didn't accomplish anything to day. Nor did I work up an appetite. I had a piece of buttered toast and two popsicles for dinner. And didn't get to the store for milk and berries.

I don't take regular naps. If I lay down, I'm going to sleep for at least an hour, usually two. If I sleep longer, well there's a reason. The reason right now is most likely being worn out from severe anxiety, and/or avoiding my life. There isn't much I can do right now about significant aspects of my life, so sleeping through some of it makes a certain emotional sense, if nothing else. Certainly it doesn't help my life. But I don't have the ability to help my life significantly right now, which is just not at all a nice place to be. Thus the sleep.

I'm up to taking an entire milligram of Ativan 3 times a day. It helps me reduce the anxiety (I don't grind my teeth and my shoulders can actually drop down away from my ears), but it also makes me sleepy at that level. I might try for 3/4 of a mg. Half just isn't doing it right now.

I'm half looking forward to working on the pre-sale work next week and the following. If I get involved and focused enough, I can refrain from thinking about all the crap that is making me so crazy and fearful. I can't do anything about any of it, so I might as well avoid it by doing something else.

But I need to stop sleeping during the day.  It really doesn't allow me to do things that will decrease my anxiety. Doing activities to avoid anxiety (even unconsciously), which raises it. Really effective.

Nap Attack

I was attacked by a nap today. It kept me under for 3 hours. Same happened yesterday. These damned naps take a huge toll on my productivity.

Just don't go to sleep? Have you seen a cat, or maybe a kitten, experience a nap attack? Suddenly their eyes get sleepy, their head wobbles, they try to stay awake, and then they fall asleep in some weird position, like half out of their bed or upside-down in a chair. Well that's what my nap attacks are like. The only thing is I manage to put things off my lap and somewhere safe before I fall over asleep. And I don't sleep upside-down.

These are a bit different from the zombie-sleeping I experienced when I was on the evil Haldol: with these last two nap attacks, I felt very sleepy but not like I wouldn't be able to do a couple of things before I slept. I had the chance to use the restroom, get comfy on the couch, and set an alarm. (Which did no good because after an hour, I turned it off and went back to sleep.) The zombie-sleep attacks hit me like a freight train and I had to put things down immediately because I was going unconscious Right Now. It is possible that I'm still suffering effects from Haldol as it leaves my system; I'm very sensitive to medications and they seem to take forever to clear out of my body.

Still, I don't think I should be napping like this. Let's see, yesterday I had therapy, took a walk, and grocery shopped. I had to ice my heels due to the fact that my feet are still weak and stiff from sitting and lying about. Today I had a massage that worked some very severe knots. I iced those previously knotted areas. However, I don't think the ice had anything to do with my naps.

I couldn't tell you if I'm getting good sleep, but I am not going to bed at a good time, so I'm getting around 6 hours of sleep. Tonight I should get 7 — woo hoo! — and going to bed much earlier, both of which should offer me benefits.

Yes, I need to see a doctor, just to make sure I'm okay. But I haven't written the letter to my health insurance stating why they need to reinstate me, so I don't have health insurance right now and I don't like the idea of paying the huge amount I'll need to pay. As it is, I may need to buy several meds at full price if I don't get this insurance thing handled soon. You'd think this would motivate me to write the letter (and I've had over a week, almost two, that I've known to write it). 

Right now, all that seems to motivate me are naps. And I'm just not enjoying them as much as I used to.

Floating lightly, as if smoke on air, and peeing

Between feeling like a cat — just a breath away from a nap — and feeling as if I have no responsibilities when I'm here (which isn't exactly correct), I've been drifting from one thought to the next, none of those thoughts being particularly deep. That's fine, but half of my two-week vacation is gone and I haven't accomplished what I planned to do: go through the storage unit to sort more of my things out and to find things to send home. I do have a couple of hours here and there I could devote to it, but so far most of my hours are completely filled. It's totally weird. And I still haven't set a time for dinner with the neighbors.

My two deep thoughts are about my health. First: why am I so bloody tired? Needing to take one or more naps a day is not normal for me, and my first (always my first) thought is that I have cancer or some other wasting disease. Because dying now would simply round out the story of my life: 1, 2, 3, 4 — Dad, Jim, Mom, me. Hypochondriac? Maybe, but more likely it is just another part of hypervigilance and always expecting the worst so I'm prepared for it. And yet, as with Mom and last summer, I'm only prepared for the worst in respect to myself. I mean, I've been grieving since September 12th; I've only been sleeping all the time for the past two months or so. The napping and the grieving don't match up.

The other health concern is about my urine. If you have a problem with bodily TMI, better skip out now. Are they gone? Okay, now it's just us. The problem with my urine is that it's gone completely clear and it smells a bit odd. No pains in my kidneys, but this seems like something wrong. Is it my medication? Am I dying? Is it something else? I've called and left messages with my psychiatrist and my physical doctor (because the psych wasn't calling back). I left info about symptoms. That was earlier in the afternoon for them. It is now mid-evening back there ... I doubt they are calling me back today. Does this mean the symptoms are nothing to worry about or that no one has actually looked at or listened to their messages? A call back would have been nice. Kind of like a signal on one of the SETI radio telescopes. "Yes, we heard you. You are not alone."

Napping and peeing: important issues at the beginning of life and often at the end. Let's just hope it's also a problem in the middle of mine. Not like I'm paranoid.

Tidal effects, perhaps

I had thought that, being away from my every day for two weeks, I would be able to write. Write the blogs, write my therapy homework ....

I was mistaken. Instead, I have had friends stay overnight, which has been great. I've had a few just-for-an-hour visitors. When I've had no visitors, I've slept. And slept. And slept. One day, I got up at 1pm (bedtime by about 10), ate, went back to sleep at 2, up at 4, drifted off for most of the next 5 hours, up at 9, in bed by 11:30. Slept great. If nothing is demanding my attention, and sometimes even it if is, I want a nap and I want it NOW. I'm taking a drive inland a bit in a couple of days and I'm going to have to buy some energy drinks just to make the trip both ways!

Even being physically uncomfortable doesn't keep me awake: it makes me want to sleep. I am sometimes peaceful and comfortable and sometimes quite twitchy and uncomfortable. But I always want to sleep.

Maybe I need to sleep a lot to make up for all that grieving. I don't know. I guess I'll just ask my therapist.

Hey! It's 9 o'clock! It's almost bedtime again! Yay!