Day 3: Sleep is overrated anyway

Another night of not being able to sleep straight away. This is mad to me and out of character.

Weirdly I had a dream last night that I was driving my car and trying to take a shortcut down a single lane side street. The road I turned onto was heavily blocked with parked cars on both sides, that I had to try and slowly swerve through with only cm to spare. As I turned a bend, I looked ahead and I could see that the shortcut was actually a dead end. I went to reverse and slowly inch my way backwards the way I came, but both my front tyres had perished and I found I was riding on the rims, with no ability to steer, and only the sound of screeching metal against tarmac.

If that isn’t the perfect fucking metaphor for how I’m feeling right now…

The more I thought about sleep on my walk with the dog this morning, the more I think that maybe I don’t just fall asleep instantly it’s probably a combination of two things.

Thing 1: I’ve spent most of my adult life going to bed way later than is healthy. So If I’m going to sleep at 12:30am, 2:00am, 4:30am (this was a recent one) then of course I’m going to fall asleep immediately.

Thing 2: Having spent decades of late nights I was always up and at ’em between 7:30am and 8:00am. Having animals will do that for you, they need feeding and letting out for the loo. So the times on the weekend where I would decide to have a nap, I had instant sleep because I was sleep deprived.

When I began this process I was wide awake the first day at 6am, because I was able to fall asleep instantly the night before, due to catching up on a massive sleep deficiency.

What does this mean? I think I need to adapt things a little. I woke at 6am this morning and did not feel rested. I considered going back to sleep, and tried to do that, but it wasn’t happening in 15 minutes so I chose to abandon that course. I sat in bed for 15 minutes, and I used my phone to regulate myself with Instagram (Cold turkey isn’t good for you, I set myself a 15 minute timer and stuck to it), got up at 6:30am and walked the dog to the local shop and we got things in for lunch later. I got back, had a shower, fed animals, cleaned litter trays, made myself a pint of vitamin soup, loaded the dishwasher, and weighed myself.

My weight had crept up to 13st 9.5lb as of 1st January, so one of the things I have been trying to do (most unsuccessfully with depression) was to lose some weight. I think a good weight for me to be at would be around 12 to 12.5st. I’m down to 13st 1.8lb this morning, so nearly 8lbs lost. I feel good that it’s going in the right direction. I think cutting alcohol out of my diet has been the trick here, as I haven’t really tried with my diet.

I feel like I’m getting off course… Yes! adapting my schedule.

So a 10:30pm bedtime and a 6am rise in the morning gives me in theory 7.5 hours sleep, assuming I fall asleep instantly and don’t wake during the night. I don’t think that’s a realistic expectation.

I need to remember, I don’t need to be perfect. I just need to be adequate at this stage. That I’m not a failure for not being able to do what I set out to do. That the only failure lies in stopping trying.

So the adequate thing to do, would be to go to bed earlier or get up later, or a combination of both. To that end I’m going to set my wake up alarm for 6:30am and see how that goes.

I’ve been using video games as a way to curb my phone addiction. At least with video games it allows for long term attention span and goal achievement, as opposed to doom scrolling on my phone. It has been very effective and I’d say my phone use is down by 90% – But it’s still a stimulating thing to be doing before bed. Maybe going immediately from video games to try and sleep isn’t the best choice. Adaptation number two will be to turn off video games and screens in general at 9:30pm. See how that impacts my ability to fall asleep by 10:30pm.

I also need to print out my affirmations and have them somewhere I can easily see / read, as I’ve not done any of them yet.

I’m proud of myself for the changes I am making, and I’m excited for the changes to come. I don’t know who I will be without depression, and that’s scary to me. Maybe not scary, maybe it’s anxiety. Maybe it’s excitement. I don’t know. I’m not very emotionally aware, so I can’t pin it down.

Wait, that’s a statement of fact as though it’s who I am intrinsically. Let me rephrase. Emotions historically have been hard for me to access and understand. They don’t need to be that now or in the future. I can sit with this feeling without dismissing it or hiding from it.

[picture today is of the boy cat, who likes being held like a baby]