Ramblings of an Insomniac

Hello.
My name is Angie and I am an insomniac.
There are several factors involved.

First, I have always been a night owl.
No matter how early I woke up in the morning, I could not go to sleep at a decent hour.
Also, even when I went to bed at an earlier hour, I couldn't function properly until the afternoon.

In the past 2 or 3 years I have crossed the line from night owl to insomniac.
Partly because of my fairly recent diagnosis of General Anxiety Disorder, and partly because of the medication I take for it.

General Anxiety Disorder sounds pretty tame.
Don't let the name fool you.
It basically means that you have anxiety and panic attacks for no real reason.
It also makes it harder for me to sleep at night.

Add to that the medication that is a miracle in dealing with the anxiety, but just happens to have insomnia as a common side effect and we're left with one sleepy individual.

Most nights it's not too bad.
On a normal night I will fall asleep around 3 a.m. and sleep until noonish.
It's hard for me to admit this because it sounds downright lazy or even undisciplined.

Believe me, I have had to struggle with this for a very long time.
Not only wanting to sleep normally, but also feeling like a failure because I'm not awake at 9 a.m. every day.

I have tried everything- including making myself get up at 7 a.m., trying to use more energy throughout the day so I'll be more tired at night, cutting out caffeine and sugar, even staying up all night AND all day.
The result was always the same- I STILL could not sleep at night.
I tried taking benedryl and melatonin- they put me to sleep, but only for 2-3 hours.

So, I have resigned myself to the fact that I have different sleep patterns than normal people.

I am not normal.

That is hard for me to admit.

All I've ever wanted, my entire life, was to be normal.

And I'm not.

I never will be.
I have an anxiety disorder with a bit of agoraphobia.

I am beginning to accept that.

It's not easy, but it something I have to do.

Trying to be something I'm not, yearning to be different, only adds to the anxiety and stress.

That is not to say that I won't strive for self-improvement.
I will. I do.
It's simply accepting myself for who I am right now.

I had planned on writing about all the crazy stuff I do in the middle of the night, but this went off in another direction.
Maybe I'll save that for another time. :-)