my first night in a few days without meds. no idea how well i'll sleep. dont be suprised to read lots of late night whining from me tonight if i cant sleep. headaches getting bad as well.
at least ive had a good afternoon and evening. i see my counsellor tomorrow. still waiting to see if my appointment with the shrink can get brought forward.
1 comment:
Nice to see you out earlier Ant. Hope the hand gets better soon.
Something's occurred to me. Don't know if it will help you or not, or if I've already mentioned it, but I may as well while it's on my mind...
When I was about two months into my operation recovery, I was getting really down. I wanted to get out of the house, to just go and do some normal things, plus I had responsibilities at work and I didn't want to let my colleagues down. I couldn't help but put enormous pressure upon myself to heal asafp. I was also beginning to suspect that I had a much longer time to wait until I was healed up, which was very frustrating. I was getting quite emotional, and like you, the smallest of setbacks would send me spiraling down. I really couldn't see the ordeal coming to an end.
I'm not sure how much of it was a concious decision, but, I was so tired with it all, I gave in. Note the wording there, not 'I gave UP', but 'I gave IN'. I accepted my situation, and basically stopped worrying about it. I stopped worrying about my work colleagues, about my responsibilities, about the time I was wasting, and about the fact that I wanted to heal up and get on with my life in the house I'd bought one month before my op. I realised that I'd just have to put all my wants and desires to one side, because lying there bemoaning the lack of them wasn't actually getting me anywhere.
I think I was selfishly, and, very bloody mindedly saying "screw you all, I don't care how long it takes for me to heal, you'll all just have to bloody well wait for me to be done, just like I've got to."
I passed the time by watching a hell of a lot of tv and dvds, reading books, and listening to music. I found that I was looking forward to various 'waypoints' throughout the day, a programme here, a meal there, and another chapter of a book slotted inbetween... The days literally flashed by! If you ignore the physical pain, and general embarassment of having a dozen different nurses changing my dressings, I think I enjoyed the final 6 months of my recovery. I just kept myself occupied on a day to day basis, while it took the length of time it needed.
I suppose what I'm saying is that, I wonder if your worry about not sleeping, is what is keeping you awake. Perhaps originally, other worries were keeping you awake, but as the time has passed, you noticed that you were staying awake longer and longer, and eventually the annoyance and then fear of staying awake for hours on end has taken over. Maybe, if you gave in to it and accepted that you will be awake all night, you won't worry so much about it.
Oh, another possibly related thing to back that up... I used to work in a newsagents on a Sunday, while I was at university. I had to get up VERY early on a sunday morning to be there for 6am. I would always worry that I would oversleep, so set three separate alarms to wake me. I wouldn't actually get much sleep. I'd take ages to actually drop off, and my sleep would be broken. I would regularly wake every hour and a half or so throughout the night, check the time, and then be annoyed at myself because I was awake, and only had so many more hours until 5.30, when my alarms would drag me out of bed.
The odd thing is, that I wouldn't have any trouble sleeping the previous Friday night, nor the Sunday night (or any other night for that matter). The only thing I can conclude, is that the worry about oversleeping was keeping me awake. I didn't have to get up early on Saturday or Monday, so oversleeping wasn't a problem, and therefore not a worry.
So, er, like I say, don't know if any of that'll help at all, but I really sympathise with what you're going through, and short of waving a magic wand around, it's all I can do to help. If anything, it's wasted a few minutes for you.
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