The last week has been very busy, as we attempted to put together the new-to-us wardrobe and bed. The wardrobe did not survive, however – even though still looking good, the connections between the individual parts were rather worn out already, and we not only had to dissemble it twice, but the units actually collapsed several times. In the end, so many different parts were damaged that after a day and a half we had to give up on it. We will have to make do with my old one and just improvise for the time being.
The bed was a more successful enterprise, and since Saturday we actually get to sleep in a proper bedroom as “normal” people do, not on mattresses on the floor. As my husband put it: “It feels like we moved into a completely different place!” And indeed it changed the room so profoundly that it was like going to sleep in a hotel room, not at home.
Unfortunately, right now I am in my second consecutive week of insomnia and it is getting worse – last night it was almost half past four when I glanced at the clock, and an hour later I already was awake again. The biggest problem is falling asleep, but staying asleep is becoming increasingly difficult too. I doze off just to wake up again an hour or two later, struggling once again to get some more rest.
Lack of exercise or oxygen, the sleeping position, room temperature, what and how much I eat (or not), caffeine intake… I checked all of those. I tried staying awake during the day in the hopes of being so fatigued that I would fall asleep at a normal time in the evening, not watching TV in the evening and staying away from the computer – none of it worked. In short, I ruled out everything but the obvious: depression.
Problems falling asleep are pretty much standard for me: there is hardly a night when I am awake for less than an hour before drifting off, but right now I am looking at several hours. In the past, I have had such spells of insomnia once in a while; there were times when I would go to work with no more of two or three hours of rest. So chances are that I can just ride it out until it goes away again, even though the lack of sleep does not exactly improve my cognitive capacities. I never tried sleeping pills, but right now I am awfully close to it.
Lugubrious Layara 