Insomnia and Me

My name is Pam, and I am a recovering insomniac.

I don't say I had insomnia, because I truly feel it's something I'll struggle with for the rest of my life. But I'm lucky; I haven't had an episode in about 4 months.

Let me back up, and begin at the very beginning, which is a very good place to start (what tune did you sing that to? Any fellow Sound of Music fans here?)

I was in grad school working towards my Master's in Biology. I was a teaching assistant, as are so many science graduate students. My insomnia came on gradually. Naturally a shy person, I was sleepless the nights before I had to teach. I came to dread teaching, which is odd because I loved and was very good at my previous job as a taekwondo instructor for 10 years.

During my first two semesters, I didn't recognize my symptoms as insomnia. I knew I was nervous about teaching, so I simply chalked it up to sweating in front of my students. During my interim summer, I struggled with sleeping even more. This was a non sequitur. After all, I was working with sea turtles, which is what I love to do more than anything. Some nights I'd stay up, cashing in my bad luck, some nights I'd call it a draw (what tune did you sing that to? Any fellow fun. fans here?)

Then I started my third semester. I had secured a position as the Vivarium Assistant, so I didn't have to teach anymore. I felt a profound sense of relief, because I thought my sleeping woes were ending. Little did I know I was about to fall into a black hole of despair and sleeplessness.

This sounds melodramatic, but that semester was the darkest time of my life. I was absolutely miserable, day and night. Before I developed full-blown insomnia, smaller and smaller things would induce sleeplessness. First, it was classes. The night before I had a class I would be sleepless. I only had classes 2 days a week, so I thought I could live with that. But then I became sleepless before I'd go back to my summer field site, and then before I had to give a talk, and eventually, I didn't sleep at all. For months.

I've never been suicidal. But I did catch myself thinking facetiously that I wouldn't be so tired if I were dead.

Before I go on, there's one thing you should know about me. I hate going to the doctor and taking medicine. I remember refusing to take antibiotics when I had a very bad cold when I was a child. The only time I've ever taken antibiotics is when I had my wisdom teeth removed, and even then I only took half the bottle. So, being the fiercely independent woman that I am, I decided to try to cure my insomnia alone.

First, I tried eliminating exercise and screen time right before bed, just like Google tells you. When that didn't work, I tried Melatonin. When that didn't work, I tried yoga and breathing techniques. When that didn't work, I tried non-prescription sleep aids like NyQuil and ZzzQuil. When those didn't work, I cried. I became so stressed by the mere thought of nighttime approaching that I resorted to less savory methods of self-medication.

I was painfully unhappy and overly stressed by this point. I couldn't focus on my thesis or my classwork. My roommate was terribly worried about me. My labmates were terribly worried about me. I tried to hide my insomnia from people, but it came out. I was irritable, lazy, and above all, stressed. I was stressed about sleeping, I was stressed about working, and I was stressed about stress.

So I broke down and do something I very rarely do. I went to the doctor. I vividly recall the phone call I made for my first appointment. I was crying and barely able to breathe. I felt like I was admitting that insomnia had defeated me. I felt helpless. I felt inhuman. That is a feeling I strongly associate with insomnia. Inhumanity.

The doctor (actually, physician's assistant) prescribed Xanax. She was kind, and more than sympathetic. I cried when I got home.

The Xanax worked. Sort of. I slept about two-thirds of the time, enough to feel human again, but that was about it. I was exhausted when I woke up, but hey, at least I was waking up. I continued using Xanax for the remainder of my graduate studies. Since Xanax is a controlled substance, I had to go back to the doctor every 3 months to renew my prescription. Every time, they lowered my dose, tried to switch me to another, less addicting drug (Trazodone), and told me to avoid caffeine and stress. None of those ploys worked, and soon, I became wildly stressed when I was close to running out of Xanax, because I knew I had to go back and try to convince them to give me more.

I also felt ashamed of using Xanax. I told my roommate and my sister-in-law, but no one else. I still haven't told my mom.

Eventually I graduated and moved back across the country to my hometown. I was stressed about this, too. What if my new doctor refused to renew my Xanax prescription? I nervously scheduled an appointment and to the doctor's office I went. My new doctor was young. Startlingly young. My age young. He didn't want to renew my Xanax prescription, either. I felt my heart sink. He developed a plan to wean me off Xanax. He would renew my Xanax prescription, but he would also prescribe Trazodone, and he wanted me to take both simultaneously, slowly cutting back on the Xanax until I was only taking Trazodone. Then, almost as an aside, he recommended I try cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT.

I bought a CBT workbook on Amazon and started working through it while I took my Xanax and Trazodone simultaneously. I remember crying while reading the introduction to my workbook because it felt like the author was talking directly to me. I couldn't believe that other people not only had experienced what I had but that they'd figured out how to cure it. I voraciously read the book, weaned myself off all drugs, and am now a recovering insomniac.