The Big Sleep

Yesterday I posted my list of things I did during 2008, but I left one thing out.  I don’t know why I didn’t remember, because it was one of the more significant happenings in my summer, definitely good for a few sleepless nights.

See I have this problem.  I’m a bit of an insomniac.  Actually, I’m kind of a raging insomniac and have been since I was a small child.   I used to joke that I never sleep unless drugged, only it stopped being funny because it was true.  It’s hereditary; my Dad is the same way.  He compensates with alcohol and mad midnight internet surfing.

Over the past year I had to duke it out with my insurance company over paying for my sleeping pills.  They thought I may have a bit of a problem and wanted my doctor to call them every time I tried to get a refill.  Every time it happened I would get this sick feeling in my stomach, start to shake and cry at the drop of a hat. (no, I didn’t have a problem!)

Whenever I tried to skip a night thinking I would prove that I didn’t have a problem I would lay awake all night long, jonesing hard and feeling like a wreck so inevitably I would cave because I’d end up keeping hubby awake too with all my tossing and flopping around.

Over the summer hubby went to a retreat for two solid weeks.  During that time an animal got into the yard in the middle of the night and killed two of our turkeys.  I heard the commotion and if I had been able to get out there I probably could have saved at least one of them, but I couldn’t.  I physically could not get my body out of the bed to go see what was happening because I was stoned on Ambien.  My head fell back down on the bed and the next thing I knew it was morning and I had to hunt down turkey bodies.  Then I had the joy of telling hubby his two favorite pet turkeys had been killed. (yes, we have pet turkeys.  We’re weird.  You can say it.)

I decided then and there that enough was enough.  After taking them for 3 years solid I stopped, cold turkey.  Yeah, I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to do that.  I figured I had like 10 days before hub got home to get it out of my system and it didn’t matter if I wasn’t sleeping because he wasn’t there for me to bother.

And I didn’t.  Sleep, that is.  For 5 days straight.  I shook, I sweated, I hallucinated, but I did not sleep.  Amazingly I wasn’t Queen Bitcharella from the planet Snarkatopia.  I was surely a zombie, probably unfit for things like driving and balancing my check book, but I knew I just had to gut it out because there was no going back.  I wanted that monkey off my back and I had to pay my dues, so I kind of took it in stride.

Eventually I made it.  I started sleeping through the night.  After it was all over I went to see my doctor who told me to not be so stupid next time and come see her first.  She gave me a prescription for something other than the devil Ambien that I can take when I actually NEED to.

I think I’ve taken it 3 times since the summer.  Otherwise I’ve gone it on my own, learning to compensate with reading and staying up a little later.  The great thing is that my quality of sleep is so much better.  I don’t feel grogged out in the morning and I don’t have to worry about fighting with the insurance company because they think I’m an Ambien junkie.

The bottle of Ambien still sits in my medicine cabinet, as a reminder I guess.  I don’t know why I haven’t thrown them out because I’m surely not going to take them again, ever.  I still have the occassional sleepless night, but it doesn’t bother me like it used to.   I got the damn monkey off my back and it’s good, very good indeed!