Insomnia is one of those good news/bad news situations. The good news is that you have all sorts of time at your disposal. If it doesn't go to the extreme of literally no sleep, you can be quite productive as an insomniac. My writing projects tend to go well when I can't sleep. "Twice in a Lifetime" would probably be a half written first draft without a period of no sleep. "Angel" is benefiting from this current stretch. I made another breakthrough on how best to get through the difficulty of writing in two general time periods. I skipped it and wrote what happened. A first draft is a slogging process, after all.
Unfortunately, there are limits to what my body and mind can tolerate. Right now, I'm at the point where I cannot stay awake or asleep. I write a few sentences and then my eyes close. I dream something very convincing. It's almost convincing enough to make me believe it as a memory except that it's too weird to withstand more than a few seconds of waking scrutiny. I go back and forth over and over. Those last few seconds of dreaming managed to mix the last few (spoken) lines of Pearl Jam's "Evenflow" with a "Star Wars" theme. It didn't make enough sense for me to go into details.
Yesterday was better. Yesterday started off with me finding a website combining the basic rules of the ancient Asian board game, "Go," with a server for playing it. I was even able to watch a pair of beginners play a game for a while. I want to immerse myself in this ancient game as a way of trying to hold on to my brain power. That requires more than watching a couple of beginners make move after move with no apparent rhyme or reason. Fellow online journaller Magnus Itland just pointed me to a URL that should let me play against the computer. Yes, the computer opponent wiped the floor with me in my first game. I need to have some sort of guiding strategy concerning where I put my stones.
I don't even know for sure if there are any books on Go strategy in print. I had hoped to use the Nook for this but I never did manage to get that upgraded. I have no idea if it's been reduced to the status of expensive paperweight or if Barnes and Noble will take in trade towards an upgrade. Other things came up and overwhelmed my priorities there.
One of the problems of being so far past my limits concerning time spent awake is that everything is overwhelming. Last night, I had a one person flame war on Facebook. I didn't mean to do it but I pushed an old friend's buttons and then she pushed mine. Next thing I knew, I was spiralling out of control mentally. Maybe I'm not sick but just lazy. Maybe our finances would be fine if I weren't always spending all our money. Maybe I'm the root of all that's wrong in the world and that's how you can help yourself by using logical absurdity.
My doctors both mental and physical tell me that my illness is real. They are trained to uncover fakes even those who are fooling themselves. While some of the damage done to me is psychological, the basis of it all is physical. Two centimeters of my brain stem governing autonomic body functions (breathing and heart beat are two common examples but there are so many more) tried to exist in the same space as two centimeters of my spine. No one knows how long this went undiagnosed but it was likely years if not decades. I also have an extreme example of tethered cord syndrome. The physical basis of my illness is the pressure damage to my autonomic nervous system and the spine. My brain sends out some of the wrong signals including pain and jerking movements and my spine garbles some of the signals even further. That's overly simplified and leaves out the damage from the botched first brain surgery but it's more than enough.
I am sick and sick people require more rest not less. I have adaptations that help me live a more normal life but I am crushingly ill on my best days. The Chiarian/Zipperhead motto is, "Be gentle with yourself." I need to remember how to reincorporate that set of adaptations with the ones I use to increase productivity. Maybe a nice cup of my favorite tea might set things on a slightly better path.
Thank God for Melissa in the literal sense. She was tired after a long day at work but she talked me down from the metaphorical ledge. She used my own logic to do it which helped her. I probably could have muddled through it on my own but I didn't have to because I have such a wonderful wife. There is no replacement for the voice of experience whether it comes from your own mind or a coach. This insomnia is becoming unbearable yet I know that it could be a good sign. These long sleeping droughts always break sooner or later. Usually, I feel ready to fall apart then sleep instead.
Insomnia ain't all sunshine and bunnies.
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