One of the larger tasks I have had to work on during this whole mental health process is sleep. My sleep patterns have always been odd, at least that’s what I’ve always told myself. When I was younger I would tend to wake up in the middle of the night and have difficulty going back to sleep. Then I spent the better part of 25 years working night shift. Mostly 12 hour shifts but there was a good bit of that time spent working 24 hour shifts on an ambulance. This meant, of course, that any time, day or night, the pager could go off and I’d have to wake up and at least be able to pretend to be functional. I got used to it pretty quickly. I was even pretty good at it. I wouldn’t even take off my uniform, I’d get back to quarters, kick my boots off and fall asleep in the recliner. As soon as I stopped moving I would fall asleep and as soon as the pager went off I’d be awake.
The unfortunate thing is, apparently brains and sleep patterns aren’t really supposed to function like that. I’ve tried various pharmacological and non-pharmacological techniques to help regulate my sleep but what finally seems to have worked is Lunesta (eszopiclone). I’s the only thing I’ve found that will put me to sleep and not make me a total zombie the next morning. The difficulty is, it turns out I’m kind of a zombie in the morning anyway. I have probably slept more in the past year than I did for any two years I was working put together, I slept for eight hours right before I sat down to write this very post, and yet I still take literally hours to feel like my brain is fully on-line in the morning.
I have been assured, and also noted myself, that this is something of a family trait, and I come by it honestly but it’s still troublesome. I’m sure this arrangement is much healthier for my brain-meats but I do miss being able to get out of bed and start the day instead of spending two or three hours bumping into walls.