Nine O'clock rolled around last night and Gary declared that he was going to bed. My panic started up again. NO! I couldn't stand the thoughts of just laying there for hours - I wasn't mentally prepared for the effort it took ... so I told him I would be in later.
Puttered around doing nothing for an hour and decided I might as well just bite the bullet and start already. Gary was reading - so no sneaking about needed. Took two sleeping pills and two muscle relaxants (NOTE: DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME ...) and thought smugly (and with wee bit of maniacal panic) that THIS WAS GOING TO WORK! Got in bed and told myself 'NO iTOUCH!'. I have a sneaking suspicion that surfing the web, checking out facebook, the news, the weather - does not help one get all that drowsy.
I told Gary that if he immediately fell asleep, I was not responsible for my actions ... which I implied would be slugging him in the head (that jealousy thing - how that man falls asleep at the drop of a hat, well, is a secret I'm willing to pay a LOT to find out). He immediately falls asleep, I DON'T slug him in the head, but sigh. And lose the 'no iTouch' battle and start surfing. Put it away noting it had been 30 minutes since laying down.
One hour in I gave it up and in one sneaky movement, grabbed my iTouch, glasses and rolled off the bed. And upstairs to my craft room. Decided to make something - sunflowers came to mind so I found a sort of pattern and let the rhythmic stitching lull me into some sort of exhausted stupor:
Done ... just have to clip the threads ....
Next step - the trash can. No use for it other than babysitting me for forty five minutes ...
Took the advice of my sister in law and went to sleep in the guest bed - one less thing to worry about - no 'three strikes and your out' rule - I wouldn't wake Gary up this way. I have been going to bed in the guest bed for some time for this very reason ... and to date had not fallen asleep there - I was starting to think it was cursed ...
Surfed on my good buddy for a while - noted it was 1:30am and shut it off for that excruciating time of just LAYING THERE - emptying my mind of anything but trivialities, trying to ignore the pain and relax, and just somehow get through the night. Didn't work.
So I got retro on myself. Remembered WAAAY back to when I was horribly ill, bedridden, hadn't found my current doctor (and thus my supply of morphine) and practiced some severe relaxation exercises just to keep from shooting myself in the head ... um, seriously. Things were bad and all I had was books to help me since the doctors just thought it was all in my head and really didn't give a shit anyway - what's one sick person to them? Oh, sorry - going off on a rant about something that happened years ago - I digress - but a difficult time - being so ill, so in pain and no one listening to my shouting.
So - I lay down, flat on my back - not a position that I EVER fall asleep in - I am more a fetal position, curled up holding two pillows type of gal. And I start some very painful muscle contractions - starting from my toes, to the top of my head. Contract, relax, move up an inch, contract, relax. The 'relax' part of that series is the important part - the rule is to relax the muscle you just really contracted hard as relaxed as you could get it - seriously envisioning the muscles turning to butter, melting - what ever floats your boat and helps totally relax the muscle. At the same time - the biofeedback tricks that I used to practice daily (I can lower my blood pressure by a TON using this trick - comes in handy in a doctors office) to relax and control pain kicked in and I got into my old fashioned relaxation groove.
And the next thing you know ....
... well, I don't really know - I FELL ASLEEP. Just needed all that exhausting relaxation exercises to get the ball rolling. I estimate I was doing that for a half an hour - so fell asleep around 2:00am and woke up - completely stunned at 5:14 (my iTouch is very good with that time thing).
OVER 3 HOURS!!!
I don't ask for any more than that on any given night. It was a success! So I am up for the day - not as freaked - had some funky dreams the entire time I was sleeping - sad heartbreaking, crying in my sleep dreams that are hazy, but I can tell that I came to some sort of conclusion, resolution, point I can function at in my subconscious - so until I actually have to confront Jessie in person, I think my panic and fear is a wee bit more under control - go figure - I work things out in my sleep, probably why my body rebels doing it so ...
THREE HOURS!!!!
any time, any night, any where ... I'll take it!
9 comments:
Wow - I am so amazed by you! I need a good 9 hours of sleep to even think about functioning the next day - how do you do it?
I rather think that it explains A LOT about me ... don't you think?
Hooray for 3 hours! I'm like Kristie and absolutely could not function w/o sleep. I'm interested in your biofeedback comment. Was that like Neurofeedback? I'm researching this at the moment. Did you do sessions where they hook electrodes to your head and train your brain/thoughts?
Rhonda
I'd be panicking too if I had only a couple hours of sleep over the course of a few days. Here's hoping you get another 3 hours of restful sleep very soon.
Rhonda,
My biofeedback training was pretty home based. When I was so sick for 6 – 10 years when the kids were small and the doctors couldn’t figure it out (my current doc took ONE blood test and could diagnose me … idiots) and so decided it was all in my head – thus on to psychiatrists – who pretty much just wanted to drug me – which became unacceptable – I am totally unable to take antidepressants for various reasons I won’t go into here. They brought it up (biofeedback), but mostly I learned about it from my ‘Alternative Medicine’ books.
It is a natural progression when the medical profession cannot help you to turn to alternative, holistic, herbal medicine and I tried EVERYTHING. The books would explain what to do to help - for me – mainly alleviate pain – and I would practice. As for the instruments (there currently exists: Electromyograph, Feedback thermometer, Electrodermograph, Electroencephalograph, Photoplethysmograph, Electrocardiograph, Pneumograph, Capnometer, Hemoencephalography to measure your progress as you do what you do in your head and body) for me – it was much more primitive. Two huge indicators of severe pain is elevated blood pressure and elevated heart rate. So I had a blood pressure cuff and a stop watch and would do my practices and see how far I could drop each with my ‘weird biofeedback stuff you do in your head and body’ exercises.
Biofeedback is explained in Wikipedia as: “Biofeedback is the process of becoming aware of various physiological functions using instruments that provide information on the activity of those same systems, with a goal of being able to manipulate them at will. Processes that can be controlled include brainwaves, muscle tone, skin conductance, heart rate and pain perception.” This is a HUGE way I control my pain – thus when I am depressed, stressed out, panicked, etc – my pain is so out of control because I cannot control my brain and body to do what it needs to do to reduce my pain perception.
I am unfamiliar with Neurofeedback – but probably close to the same thing. This is probably the part where you asked me if I was hooked up to electrodes to train my brain/thoughts. Mine was physical training (thus the ‘bio’) whereas you are talking about brain and thoughts (thus the ‘neuro’) which would probably help me with the panic and stress – but I have not studied it at all. And no, I was only hooked up to instruments a couple of times – my stuff was a good enough indicator if I was succeeding at training myself and I didn’t have to pay for an appointment! Since it is more brain / thought related – my home grown blood pressure cuff and stopwatch would not work! Is this something you are studying for your sons?
Wow--thanks for the info. Yes, we are looking into this for some of our sons and it looks promising. I am so frustrated with drugs--it's such a hard and long process to find what works and then after awhile it is not uncommon for it to stop working. Of course this treatment is not covered by insurance and will take a good year or two, so I'm trying to get as much unbiased feedback as possible.
I'm so glad you finally got a little sleep (or what for you is a normal amount of sleep). I hope this 3 hour trend continues - or hopefully even lengthens!
I think you are absolutely right about facebook/computers/surfing interfering with sleep. I know I can't do it before going to sleep.
My newest thing is reading until I am absolutely exhausted then turning off the light. I go right to sleep. Often, I do wake up again in a few hours. Then I do the conference talks or BYUI talks. I don't feel panicky because I tell myself I'm listening to a good talk and doing something uplifting. Sometimes I hear the whole talk (45 minutes or so) or even a few hours worth, sometimes I don't get past the introduction. It helps my brain to stop churning.
Vicki,
I have tried the reading thing - and if it is a good book - I just end up reading through the night! I truly think I have something screwed up in my system that tells me when I am tired (or it is that CFIDSThing - I am tired ALLThe time) but my body won't seem to tell me or help me go to sleep. Man I sure wish I could figure this mystery out!
Post a Comment