Insomina

“Insomnia”

I suffer from the bane of insomnia, a curse I have struggled with since

young childhood. As a young toddler, I’m told that I hated to be forced to sit still;

maybe this explains why my mind goes into hyperdrive any time I try to get my

body to relax enough that I can sleep. (In fact, this is somewhat a family joke

among my relatives: my step-mother has always said that if she had been the one

to name me, she would have chosen “Windy”—with an “i”—because I was such a

whirlwind of energy. She uses this nickname still today.)

I can remember Mom standing in the doorway of my bedroom,

threatening me within an inch of my life if I so much as moved or dared to open one

eye to peek at any movement during daily mandatory nap time. She knew that if

she could get me to simply lie still for ten or fifteen minutes, chances were I’d

actually fall asleep, if only for twenty minutes. Those twenty minutes, however often

meant the difference from being easy to deal with or Toddler from Hell. My father

used to recite a poem to me about this minute difference:

“There once was a little girl/who had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead;

When she was good/she was very very good,

But when she was bad/she was simply horrid.”

That was me, in a nutshell. Mom also knew if, God forbid, I ever missed my nap, I

would more than likely pass out, face-first, into whatever was on my dinner plate

that night. She says she got really tired of picking mashed potatoes out of my hair.

My father was the one that I usually remember tucking me in at night,

probably because poor Mom was exhausted from dealing with my antics all day.

As you’ve already gathered, I was not exactly the easiest child to deal with. My first

word was “No!” and my first recorded full sentence was “My Daddy will do it!” I can

remember Dad coming home from work and I’d still be in my pajamas from early

that morning, simply because I refused to get dressed for Mom. Toilet training was

just as difficult, I’m told.

I’ve always been a light sleeper. The funny thing is that I don’t remember

having the same problem falling asleep at night as I did during the day. Staying

asleep, however, was another story. I was plagued with reoccurring nightmares from

a relatively young age, maybe five or six. These nightmares persisted until I was a

senior in high school, when I began to fight back against the demonic images

battling my sub-conscious mind. Eventually, they quit bothering me. The older I got,

the more I actually came to enjoy taking afternoon naps. My father was a minister

and Mom was a rabid football fan, so Sunday afternoons were pretty routine and

laid-back most of my childhood. After church, we’d go out to lunch and come home

in time for the Game. I’d lay on the couch with my Walkman, rock music blaring in

my eardrums loud enough to cause damage to them that to this day still makes me

hard of hearing, and doze off, while Dad would fall asleep in his easy chair, waking

only occasionally when Mom would yell at the television, especially when John

Elway would either make a touch-down or a fumble.


When I got married at age 19, sleeping with another person seemed to

make the insomnia curse that much worse. It got to where I tossed and turned so

much that my ex-husband and I finally purchased the largest bed manufactured, a

monstrosity called a “California King.” The sheets were a nightmare to find if they

needed to be replaced, but the luxury of being able to toss and turn all we pleased

without ever having to touch one another, was well-worth the inconvenience.

When I was diagnosed with clinical depression and prescribed a mild

anti-depressant called Paxil, the problem was even more escalated. I would stay up

for nights on end, then sleep for days at a time. When I was undergoing fertility

treatments, a vile combination of drugs and hormones that made me do nothing

BUT sleep, this “marathon” insomnia lasted for nearly two years. When my father

took ill with what turned out to be an inoperable fatal brain tumor, my marriage

turned rocky, for a variety of reasons, one of which being having family members

move in and out of our home like a revolving door, and being respite foster parents

for a six-week-old crack-addicted baby girl. We had Trina four days a week from

that time until she was about ten months old, when some friends of ours adopted

her and her two sisters. Trina would wake up in the night screaming, and I’d get up

in the night to tend to her needs, including comforting her when she had night

terrors associated with the drugs in her system she was born with. My nightmares

returned for a short time. I don’t think I slept more than 30 days total during those

eight and a half months!

After my father passed away, I was forced to become the Strong One for

my family. It sucked. I do not “do” strong well. I figured that was what my brothers

were for.They both freaked out when my Dad passed away, however, and the duty

fell on my very ill-equipped shoulders. The stress triggered, among other things,

severe insomnia. It was right about this time I discovered the wonders of over-the-

counter sleep aids, which caused me to have some of the strangest dreams ever

imagined. I slept, but never felt truly “rested” because of them.

After my divorce, I was forced to take three separate jobs with three

separate companies in Retail Hell to make ends meet. I was perpetually

exhausted, to say the least! I started experimenting with illegal drugs because I

made a lot of poor choices after my divorce. I was hit by a car crossing the street

near my apartment one day and ended up on prescription Hydrocodone for about

six months afterwards. I’m very thankful that my drug phase was relatively short-

lived: I only have so many brain cells to spare!

Today, I have my shit together. I have a great relationship, a decent job,

and a bright future ahead of me. I still have plenty of stress: a pet fighting a losing

battle with cancer, mandatory overtime at a fairly stressful position at work, college

and family issues. With the stress comes the occasional bout of insomnia, but it

visits less frequently these days. I take two Tylonol PM tablets every ten days or

so, and after a night or two I’m ‘right as rain’, at least for a week. I may always

struggle with sleeping issues, but they won’t incapacitate me. I will reach the goals

I have set for myself and accomplish much more than simply getting by. I will

conquer all obstacles along the way.

Including the disease named Insomnia.