Sleep

I have a very complicated relationship with sleep.

I love sleeping, completely and totally love being in my dreamworlds creating stories for myself to live in. I've never been particularly good at falling asleep however. Primary insomnia. So innocuous sounding until you realize it means living awake for hours, desperately tired, wishing you could sleep. Now I have the pain and discomfort to make that even worse. And the medication to help the pain that makes me jittery. So I also have sleeping pills. Half an ambien used to knock me out. Now I don't feel it. A full one however means ill sleep at least 8 hours. God for it if I need to function before that however. Or for that matter if I get distracted and don't end up going right to bed when they start to kick in. 

Secondary insomnia. Waking up repeatedly and not getting into REM sleep. The pain makes this true. If I manage to fall asleep when the half an ambien kicks in I can stay asleep 4 hours at most. And then I wake up. Over and over again. Sometimes because of pain, sometimes because my body is now a combat zone.

I can't remember the third type of insomnias name but its where you have issues waking up. I wake up at least part of the way reasonably easy but not entirely. It's so easy when I should be getting up to just stay in the twilight world of sleep. It also means I deal with sleep hypnagogia - where you wake up but your body is still in lock down mode for REM sleep. You can't move and it feels like something's sitting on your chest and the suspension of disbelief from dreaming is still in effect. Essentially you're trapped unmoving in a waking dream. Fun fun. 

The first I've dealt with my whole life. I love being awake at night. I'm most Awake and alert then. But the world isn't so I got little sleep quite often. Now I can sleep during the day but even if I want to go to sleep I can't (like tonight) and I get to deal with all the other fun issues that come with chronic pain, fatigue, medication and of course, completely unstable sleep patterns. 

Oh, and sorry if there are any strange auto correct typos, I'm on the iPad and don't have my glasses on. My eyes hurt today sooo I am avoiding putting them back on. I have to take my little dog lux to the vet at 730 this morning. That's in 4 hours. My everything hurts and my chest is all inflamed again making breathing hard. Oh, and the damn rash on my hands went away for like 12 hours but ts back now. Goodie goodie gumdrops.