Where lies sleep

I was always a champion sleeper. Put me on a rock-hard camp bed or a hammocky relic in a cheap B&B, and I'd be sparked out in seconds, no matter how inadequate the pillow or musty the blanket. I slept right through the famous Hurricane of 1987, which doubled my amazement on rising to an unrestricted view across a devastated garden which had previously held a dozen leafy trees. I once fell asleep at an REM gig, which may be easier to understand given the soporific qualities of Michael Stipe's whiny voice. I've slept soundly on sea-tossed cross Channel ferries, while all around me heaved into sick bags.

A couple of years ago, though, and completely without my conscious bidding, I became strangely reluctant to tumble so easily into the arms of Morpheus. It started gently enough; I continued to to wake up at 'work time' (6.30 am) over the weekend, when for decades I had given myself permission to snooze through till 9.00 - so I was downstairs with the newspapers, tea, and the early morning weather forecast while Himself, untroubled by my new wakefulness, snored on without me. It was irksome, but caused little enough damage. Sometimes I even used the time constructively.

However with the unstoppable force of an incoming tide, my sleep time has continued to be swept away in waves of sudden unbidden nocturnal alertness. These days it's an automatic 4am reveille every day of the week, month, year, regardless of what time I got to bed the night before, what I ate or drank, and where I happened to lay my head. Not a panicky, frantic, worried jolt into a stream of anxious thought or gripping rumination, just a simple, total, irresistible physical awakening as though the internal alarm has gone off and commanded my body to get on with the day. Very occasionally, if I lie still enough and completely empty my head, I will fall back into a very heavy, dream-laden sleep after about an hour, which ends an hour after that when the alarm goes off and leaves me disorientated and exhausted for the entire day. That's my worst kind of day. The best I get is the kind I'm having now, where I can register the residual ache behind my eyes and vague physical groan of my unrested muscles if I stop and scan myself, and where I'm typing slowly because I'm making lots of mistakes (six in that sentence alone, I've just corrected them. Seven...). My motor skills are constantly affected, and where I've always had a fantastic memory for detail without trying, I'm having to concentrate on concentrating with my patients - though fortunately I haven't made any big mistakes there (yet. The fear persists, and keeps me nervously on my toes.). It may not be a surprise that I haven't felt much like blogging for a while.

I tried various 'natural remedies' - melatonin worked for a while but made me feel miserable, Valerian worked for a while but then needed upping and combining with 5HTP, which also worked for a while but is now failing me too unless I take three of each, which will get me some sleep but leaves me thick-headed all the next day. Over-the-counter antihistamine based meds bought me a few hours, but made my eyes so puffy that the chorus of "ooh you do look tired are you ok" from friends and patients became embarrassing. My GP prescribed me a respite dose of fourteen Zopiclone pills which bought me a fortnight's medicated sleep; great while it lasted but strictly unrepeatable due to the addictive nature of Zopiclone (I personally felt it was the sleep and not the medication I was more addicted to, but hey, she's not giving me any more.). I've changed my pillow, my bedding, I've opened windows and doors, catnapped, resisted catnapping, cut out coffee, cut back carbohydrate, done everything but turn my bed to face east (someone I know swears by it but that's just too far up the Barmy Old New Age Cack road for me.). It seems I am stuck with wakefulness. And I am half mad with lack of sleep.

I continue to get to the gym three or four times a week, even when I feel I could spark out and start snoring on the cross-trainer, in the hope that physical tiredness of the good kind will prompt an eventual  joining-in from the bit of my brain that won't turn off, but so far my 4am automatic call persists, as regular and reliable as the Shipping Forecast. I imagine I'm now part of the Great Insomniac Community, and I must admit to drawing a tiny amount of comfort from knowing I'm not the only one lying there at 4.14...15...16 with stinging eyes and a heavy heart, that there are probably one or two other souls within a hundred yards of me who are doing just the same, separated by walls and united in desperate desire for sleep. It's a club I never expected to be part of, and one I don't seem able to resign from.