Depression Talk

I love to sleep. I really hate to be cliche, but if sleeping were an Olympic Sport, I would have the gold medal in it every year since 1984. I have always been a wonderful sleeper, and I remember being little and asking my mom if I could take a nap after school when I started the first grade. I never really did give up my habit of napping, and I suppose that in this sense, my parents did NOT get the short end of the stick. In every other sense, I’m kind of a dud, but hey! THEY GOT MANY NIGHTS OF SOLID SLEEP even after I came into the world. Daughter of the year, right there.

When things are wrong with me, I stop sleeping. I become a person who is no longer capable of sleeping at all. My eyes become wide and red-rimmed, dark circles grow under them, my face becomes pale and every ounce of energy I have is devoted to trying to find a way to make me fall asleep.

I’m not sure what it is that keeps me from sleeping when I’m unwell. It is partially the fact that all the scary things that are for sure going to happen to me are whirling about my head. And yes, when I’m unwell it does seem entirely likely that I may be maimed or killed in a car wreck on my way home for the weekend; or that everyone I know will be mad at me and start yelling the next time they see me; or that something terrible is happening to someone I love RIGHT AT THAT VERY MOMENT and if I fall asleep, I might just miss their call. I never claimed that being Insane was fun.

Napping very rarely interferes with my ability to sleep at night. I am one of those fortunate souls who can sleep from midnight until ten in the morning, and then from one until four the following afternoon, and still be ready to hit the hay again at midnight. My sleep is deep and comfortable; I love to sink into my pillows and my luxurious sheets and wrap myself around the extra sheet and pillow I keep on hand, neatly arranged the way that only a person with OCD can arrange them.

I love every single aspect of sleep: I love drifting off and catching myself so that I can feel as though I am drifting off one more time. I love rolling over when I wake up to find myself all tangled up in the sheets (and sometimes at the wrong end of the bed) and wondering what I was dreaming about that would cause me to wake in such a position. I love laying on my pillows for a few minutes before I step out of bed, and then I love curling back in so that I can be in my sheets with my down duvet for just five more minutes.

Because of the deep love I have for everything related to sleeping, and because getting enough sleep is just so good for a person, I have to wonder why, when I’m not well — when the Crazy has sunk in, and Insanity reigns over all — why, is sleep so hard to come by? This is a question that I could ask myself until I’ve driven myself nearly mad, and OH! WAIT! I’ve already done that. Twice. And then the heavy duty sedatives came along and brought me back to the place where the sane people live.

Like so many aspects of this illness, the fact that I can’t partake in my favorite activity when nothing in the world could would be better than partaking in this activity really confounds me.

But for topics related to depression to be confounding — well, is that really surprising to anyone?

Sleep, Insomnia, Sleepless, Nap, Napping, Sleep Aids, Depression, Anxiety