The Status Quo: March 2013

1.) Long dark winter: Germany experiences an average of 160 hours of sunshine in the period defined as the meteorological winter – December, January, February. This year, we stayed well below the statistical mean with only 96 hours of sunshine in those three months, and I certainly felt it. Day after day of dreary grey; snow and rain and drizzle and sleet. I can cope with periods of bad weather, but this winter does not seem to end.
All of a sudden, there was a spring intermezzo last week. The sun came out and we had a few nice days in a row – only to go back to freezing temperatures and snow.

2.) The welfare process still makes no progress: The only thing missing is my therapist’s statement, so I could go back and officially apply. The psychologist couldn’t tell how long it’s going to take; when I asked her, she said, “it’s difficult”. I feel awful for even having to bother him (and her) about this, but unless someone’s going to donate me money to tide over the months until he can work again, what am I supposed to do? I wish I didn’t have to ask for that and could just let him recover…

3.) I still miss having a car: The supermarket closest to home is about ten minutes away by foot, but is too expensive for me to shop there regularly. The one I used to like best and frequented the most is about 30 – 40 minutes away by foot – one trip. So just the physical act of getting there and back takes at least an hour. Not to mention the physical limitations of how much I can carry; a few times I had to call my husband to meet me halfway because I had underestimated the combined weight of all articles. Sometimes I take the shopping trolley, but that is tedious and brings its own problems, like when the tram was so full that I couldn’t enter it with the trolley, leaving me with no choice but to wait for the next tram in the cold.
Last week, I borrowed my sister’s old bike for shopping (I don’t have one of my own anymore since selling it for making some money), but discovered that while I could get to my destination in about half the time, it really did not make much of a difference regarding how much I could bring home. Also, for at least ten years prior to this, I had ridden a bike exclusively when on vacations at the North Sea – in a car-free environment. I got so scared on my way to the supermarket that I rode on the sidewalk for about half the distance… On top of everything else, the bike is actually too small for me, so that I cannot stretch my legs properly, and I found the whole process actually more exhausting than walking the distance.

4.) The insomnia is under control: I still have problems falling asleep, but at least it’s restful slumber once I dozed off. No more waking up every hour.

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Sleeping Problems & Depression

As someone who had no experience at all with sleeping medication, I did not really know what to expect when taking zopiclone. My sister said it had knocked her out within two minutes, but that she woke up only six hours later. With this in mind, I took my little pill at 10.30 PM, after I already was in bed. I read for half an hour without noticing anything, but after switching the lights off it really was a matter of minutes only until I was asleep. I shortly woke up in the middle of the night and when my husband left for class, but it was not before 9.30 AM this morning that I became fully conscious.
Obviously, I am quite happy about this and hope that my cycle is corrected now so that I will be able to sleep tonight as well, without the help of a hypnotic agent. However, it also was a good demonstration on the limitations of sleeping medication: it was not a refreshing rest, and I have been tired all day long. It felt more like I had been knocked out instead of sleeping, and I did not dream either – which I usually do every night.
The best thing about it was that when my husband came home from class, I was not only awake, but had also showered, dressed, eaten breakfast and opened the shutters. Instead of a zombie-like “…. heyyyyy…” from the bedroom, he got a “Hi!” from the kitchen – and I got a hug in return, because he was so happy to see the zopiclone had helped.

Sleeping problems are a very common symptom of depression, but a lot of publications only focus on insomnia and /or early waking, entirely leaving out hypersomnia. In fact, back when my doctors were still throwing diagnoses like MS into the ring, I myself already suspected it could be depression, but the insistence on insomnia and early waking made me doubt my own feelings: if depression was tied to decreased hours of sleep, I surely could not have that, since as a rule I was sleeping too much.
Early waking is defined as waking up significantly (an hour or more) earlier than one intended to and not being able to go back to sleep, coupled with excessive worrying while lying awake. This happens very rarely to me only, about once or twice per year.
I do have massive problems falling asleep, though,even on my best days. I read that the average healthy adult needs seven minutes to drift off, and while no source for that claim was given, it matches what I see in my husband: once the lights are off, it takes only a few minutes until he’s gone, whereas I stare into the darkness for at least an hour, often longer. About once a year, I will have a period where the problems with falling asleep grow into a full-blown insomnia, even though I have never had it for as long as now.
However, once I am asleep, I usually do not wake up until I had my full share – unless being interrupted by external signals like the alarm clock, of course. According to the IRS-SR, my nine hours of sleep within a 24-hour-period count as slightly elevated; when I first started therapy, I would need twelve. Under the influence of citalopram (at least in the beginning) and before receiving thyroid medication, it would be even more.

I just hope I can get a handle on this now and will have plenty of restful sleep tonight!

Counting Sheep In The New Bedroom

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.