There are several stages to insomnia, but those suffering from this terrible affliction are actually in all the stages at once, rather than, as you might expect, moving from one to the next until they fall asleep. If only it were that simple.
As with grief – and insomnia certainly comprises a form of grief at the loss of sleep, inner calm, patience, hope, unblemished skin, earning potential, youth, joie de vivre, and driving skills – insomnia tends to start with denial. The victim will lie in bed, trying to convince herself that she is about to fall sleep. Denial includes thoughts such as, “I’m so exhausted. My body can’t possibly stay awake another moment”, and “Gosh, I thought I would have fallen asleep ages ago. Well, I know if I got out of bed I’d be too tired to stand, so I must be about to sleep.” and “For fuck’s sake, I can’t have insomnia yet again, can I? I don’t. I can’t. I just can’t. I really don’t. I’m about to sleep, I’m sure of it.” The body seems to laugh at such repudiations of what is self-evidently about to turn into an incredibly long night, and joins the brain in the task of keeping the victim wide awake.
Soon, anger joins the lonely midnight party. The insomniac will begin to feel a sense of impending panic and dismay. She might check her phone and become infuriated when she sees the time and realises that the night is ticking by at an all too rapid pace. And while she’s at it, she might as well check the news and scroll on social media – just to keep up-to-date, you see – and then she notes that her cousin-by-marriage has posted a terribly unfunny and racist meme; that is just like that unpleasant relative, and our sleepless woman spends the subsequent few minutes imagining what she will say to that person about their unacceptable views the next time they meet at a family reunion. Oh, and a fight has erupted in one of her groups on social media, and some people are writing all in caps but they don’t even have the facts right, and, um, what’s this? Did her colleague actually send out an unproofread and completely improper email to their potential new client? (Oops, yes, she opened her work email while she was on her phone.)
Meanwhile, her partner is snoring serenely next to her, taking up more than half of the bed and nearly three-quarters of the duvet, and as much as she likes her partner during the day, this night-time version is absolutely about to get smothered by a pillow. How is it just for other people to be able to sleep while she, apparently alone in the world, is awake, worrying about what she did yesterday, what she might do tomorrow, and what any of it even is for? What is the point of all this? Life isn’t fair, sure, but does it have to be this unfair?
The sufferer forces herself to breathe. Not one of those deep, meditative breaths where you count from one to four as you inhale, then hold your breath for four, then slowly exhale to the count of eight, because she’s absolutely in no state for that. Rather, her breathing is raggedy and harsh, her heart is racing, her skin is hot and itchy, and if anyone so much as suggests that she do some mindful breathing or listen to a meditation app on her phone, she will happily shove said phone down their throats. She forces another calming, cleansing breath or, to be perfectly honest, an uneven inhalation that sounds like the snorts of a raging rhinoceros.
By now, the insomniac is getting increasingly desperate. “Please,” she thinks, her words not directed at anyone in particular, “if I could just get some sleep, I’ll be a better person tomorrow. I swear, I won’t watch any TV shows in the evening. And I promise I won’t eat any cheese on crackers before bed, because I know it gives me gas and bad dreams.” She tosses around in the bed, accidentally-on-purpose elbowing her partner who grunts but stays insensible to the world, then she gets up and stomps to the toilet for yet another pee. In the darkness of the bathroom, she vows, “I’ll be kinder to my children in the morning. I’ll apologise for that awful comment I made to my friend back when we were ten years old. All I’m asking for is four hours of sleep.” She knocks her elbow clumsily into the sink on her way back to bed and cries out in pain. “I’ll take that bruise, if only I could just get some rest. A bruise, or even a broken bone if I have to. Three hours would be great.” She tells herself she knows she can do it, she can go to sleep. She’s done it before, and she’ll do anything – ANYTHING – if only sleep would overcome her.
While continuing to bargain with the uncooperative Sandman, restlessly shifting in her bed, the victim of this nightly affliction is surprised to discover that tears have begun falling down her cheeks. She’s in despair, convinced she will never sleep again. Her thoughts spiral: if she doesn’t sleep at least seven hours a night, there will be a detrimental impact on her health, which means she will have a heart attack and die while still just middle-aged. She’s going to leave her children motherless and frightened, and all because she is a fucking idiot who does not understand what the rest of the world gets effortlessly – how to close her goddamn eyes and turn off her mind and just go to sleep. Somehow that life lesson has passed her by, and because her parents were shitty and her childhood was tough in a privileged sort of way, she has no skills in what should be a total no-brainer, like, the most basic thing humans can do – other than breathe (and we already know she can’t do that either) – and therefore she’s developing an ulcer and may be bringing about a stroke, too. She wonders if her will is in order and if there are any documents or emails on her computer that she wouldn’t want people to read in the event of her death. She’s positive her heart is beating so irregularly that she’s bringing about the heart attack this very minute. Now, she’s weeping freely, pressing her face into the mattress so as not to disturb her partner, although a hug certainly wouldn’t go amiss. But no, her partner stays motionless and unaware. Well, isn’t that just typical?
The insomniac finds herself swinging wildly among the stages: she’s pretending this isn’t happening, sobbing with a crumpled tissue pressed to her face, pleading and promising, as well as raging. The room is too hot and she kicks off the cover, but a moment later she’s chilled, her foot flapping around to find a warm patch. Then she notices that the sky around the edges of the blinds on her window is lightening, turning from the darkest blue to a paler shade, tinged with violet. A bird twitters, another responds, and now she is certain that sleep will not visit her tonight. It is too late, too close to the time when she needs to get up. She sighs deeply, wipes her nose, and considers going for a cup of a tea. That would be soothing, as her throat is sore from all the crying. She could even bring a mug up for her partner, placing it on the bedside table as a fragrant surprise for when her partner awakens. It’s been a long time since she did something like that. Yes, she might as well accept that she won’t be sleeping and do something kind for her partner. And she will just get on with things – all those emails won’t write themselves, after all, and there are lunchboxes to be made, too, and really, the house could do with a good hoovering, and there’s an enormous pile of laundry, and she mustn’t forget that she ought to revise that report for work.
She feels a new energy, despite the throbbing tightness in her head, as if the new day is dragging her along with it, no matter how exhausted she might be. She swings her feet out of bed, preparing to rise, then checks her phone again and is disheartened by the time. It’s just an hour until her alarm will ring, and now she is hit once more by overwhelming sadness. What could she possibly do in that hour that wouldn’t disturb the rest of the household? More importantly, how did she get into this mess again? Did she truly spend all the hours of the night lying in bed, fidgeting, torturing herself with bad memories and criticisms of her past actions? Why didn’t she just close her eyes and snooze? She is furious with herself and with the poor genes that make her liable to have such sleepless nights. Tears begin to burn under her eyelids yet again, and she is abruptly yawning and crying at the same time, the brief burst of energy replaced by an aching weariness that hollows her out.
And thus, the stages of insomnia all jumbled up inside her, the insomniac brings her feet back into bed and turns on her side, pulling her duvet up to her chin – not noticing how it flaps off her partner, leaving a leg exposed – and promptly falls asleep for a full forty-five minutes. She feels she’s scarcely closed her eyes when she’s angrily slamming her hand down on her phone to stop the infernal ringing of her alarm, and, due to her prodding, jabbing fingers, she somehow inadvertently re-shares that racist post her relative put up yesterday. But fuck it. She’s too tired to care. She’s going back to sleep for five blissful minutes, until her partner pokes her and grumbles about the snooze alarm going off.
Her partner will say, “You must have been deeply sleeping if you didn’t hear your phone, you lucky thing.” Then her partner will complain about being tired and not having had a good night of sleep.
“You’re tired?” she scoffs in her head. “You don’t have a clue. Not a fucking clue.”