Monday, June 28, 2010

InSOmN1A


When I was younger, in my teenage years, I had a few acquaintances who were insomniacs, or at least that’s what they told me. Back then I used to think it would be a pretty handy thing to have – you would have less time wasted in bed and thus get more things done. Some of the people I thought “Yeah, well that’s probably coz you take speed all the time”.

Years later in my mid-twenties and I am a full-blown insomniac, have been for a good three or four years now, and it’s not fun at all. It is seriously very incapacitating. I spend hours in bed “trying” to get to sleep, most the time with no success. I don’t spend hours at once, but all up, until I just get that sick of it I don’t even try, instead go and make myself a coffee as I know it just isn’t gonna happen that night.

Even my thoughts on “speed” has changed. You can’t sleep but you’re too tired to stay awake. Too tired to read, clean – hell, even to watch T.V, and that involves very little effort indeed. So why use the speed then? Well, at least it will wake you up even more, make you more alert and you can actually do something worthwhile… even if that is to just sit there watching the T.V, but at least you are into it, not just sitting there with the shits because you can’t sleep.

I’ve tried different medications for it – Temazepam and Valium – but they only work for a couple of weeks… then the body simply gets too used to it you just take it to feel normal, to get rid of the shakes from withdrawing off it. Doesn’t even add a bit of fun to your night. I was recommended a new drug on the market when it first came out, “Stillnox” but I never went on it, and lucky I didn’t as there have been many cases since where people sleep walk, wedge themselves in some uncomfortable position then wake up needing their legs amputated. Others have walked off balconys, where the less severe cases people just hallucinate, make an arse of themselves, annoy anyone in the house, then watch it back on video after their parents or housemates tape them, feeling incredibly stupid… and that’s if you’re lucky not to walk off the balcony, sleep walk to the bathroom between the toilet and the wall or out on the street playing chicken with cars.

Last week on “Today Tonight” they had yet another new drug out – I forget what it’s called – but it apparently mimics the chemical in your head that helps you sleep. Not addictive, you don’t get a tolerance – but that’s what they say now, so I’m not going to try it until it’s been on the market a few years.

How I wish for a decent nights sleep, be able to fall asleep withing twenty minutes, not waking up in the middle of the night or awaking in the morning with my fingers shrivelled up from sweating in my sleep so much from night-terrors.

If I didn’t get so addicted and tolerant to drugs such as Valium and Temazepam, things would be alright I guess. Now I basically just have to put up with it, or talk to my doctor about another option, perhaps something else is out there. Only know if you ask.

The thing that really irritates me though is that the people who make drugs these days are so obsessed with making them only do what they are meant to do, for instance, pain-killers that just kill pain – no sedating effects. It’s crap! Some of us have such a high threshold when it comes to the sedative effect anyways that most the things that are still on the shelves with some sedating properties just calms me down a bit, if anything, while many other people I know have it and it knocks them out cold or gives them a good buzz. I feel totally ripped off. It’s not fun. Fuck insomnia.

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