My journey through pain - 17. Chapter 17 - Four factors

These last few days have been challenging. The lack of sleep came out of nowhere and shook me up worse than I expected. I still don’t know what is causing it, although I am trying my best to isolate variables. In general, it seems as though I have kind of a window at night for falling asleep without issue. If I try to sleep either before or after that window, I have a lot of trouble. It happens particularly if I try to go to bed after 11 PM. Since I know it is already late, at least for me, I begin to worry even as I am trying to relax in order to sleep. That sparks my anxiety and once it gets going there is no turning it off. I have tried several ways to distract myself enough so that this doesn’t happen and I think I am beginning to develop some techniques.

But my life doesn’t revolve just around my sleep, and I’m not letting it do that. Yesterday was a special day for me because it was the day I slept the least in the almost 2 weeks now that I have been having trouble resting. Nevertheless, and even though I was absolutely panicky when I finally gave up and stood up around 6 AM or whatever, I decided that I was going to live my day as though the bad night had not happened.

It was easier said than done, of course, but I did my best. Something that helped me a lot, and which may perhaps help someone else, is the fact that, the evening before, I had drawn up what I call my “emergency morning plan”. This is a list of activities which are very simple, but which I thought about and considered that I might be able to do even in the morning when I am feeling most stressed out. I mentioned them yesterday in a comment – they are not big things, but rather things like brushing my teeth, making my bed, writing for a little bit on this journal, and eventually working up to what to me feels like bigger stuff, like leaving the house to take the dog out, having breakfast, and eventually leaving for the gym. I was physically tired and I felt weird yesterday, but I held tight to the plan and I followed every step. It was hard, sure, but it gave me structure. In the end, I was able to avoid something that scares me, which is having empty time that I don’t know how to fill. After I left for the gym, my day just fell into place, working, doing stuff that needed to be done around the house, and so on until the evening, when I realized that my anxiety levels had dropped to something like a six out of ten.

Strangely, after the morning, I didn’t experience a lot of tiredness during the day, even though I had slept for so little. I’m not complaining – it was good because I was able to perform well at my job and I had energy to do all the activities that I needed to do. I was thankful, and I even managed to watch a little bit of a show I like in the evening and laugh at the silly jokes. I tried, as best as I could, to replicate everything I had done a couple of days ago, when I was able to sleep for eight hours. It worked kind of halfway, since I was able to sleep about five hours straight, but even that is an improvement over yesterday.

As the day was progressing yesterday, I was experiencing a lot of anxiety and deep sadness, a sense of loss, and I was plain and simple just feeling horrible. But, after the gym, I decided to try a new tack to see whether I could change the way I thought about things. I remember the moment very clearly: I was walking back from the gym when I suddenly asked myself, hey, why are you feeling so bad? Why?

I found no answer. There was no one big thing causing me to feel so horrible. And then I told myself, and this is going to sound funny but I took inspiration from a comedy video StonyCreeker suggested I watch a couple of days ago, and I said to myself: Stop it! You’re okay, stop it!

I felt a bit silly but I repeated it a few times, very firmly. As the day went on, I repeated it again and again every time I felt the anxiety creeping back up. I kept telling myself that there was no one enormous reason for me to feel bad and that I was okay. I’m not sure whether it was me repeating something positive like that, or the fact that I was able to have a productive day, or the combination of both, but by the time the evening came around I was able to think back and analyze what is happening to me right now with a little bit of perspective, for which I am incredibly thankful.

It’s like this. I have identified that there are four main factors bringing me down at the moment. The first and biggest one is that I still haven’t come to terms with the loss of everything I had in the relationship which ended so suddenly and so violently. As time goes by, I am less and less in survival mode and it appears I have more time to think back on everything that happened, the good and the bad. It hurts. It hurts particularly when I remember the good things, the special things. I am very slow to trust and the fact that I felt in real physical danger from the person I trusted the most is something I still can’t understand. That bad memory stands in stark contrast to all the good memories I built together with that person over the years and I still can’t reconcile both realities. Part of my mind still hasn’t accepted everything that happened and is desperately clinging to the past, which hurts. Nevertheless, time is going by and, where maybe a month ago I would wake up every night crying from a dream about my relationship or having very sharp, intense thoughts of regret, longing, loss, and so on every few minutes, now the dreams come only some days and the bad thoughts are not as frequent.

Factor number two is the sleep thing. However, I have decided that, if needed, I will go back to taking sleep medication to help me rest. I will give it a few more days to see whether I can get things to stabilize on their own, but if not I do have a way to help myself sleep better. My psychiatrist agrees, and this thought gives me some measure of control over the bad nights I have been having. I will try to tough it out some more, just because I was doing so well even without the sleeping aid, and I would like to see whether it was some external factor which triggered the insomnia.

Number three is the fact that sometimes I don’t know how to fill my days. I am working a lot but over the past months I’ve developed a very strong fear of free time. Since now, for whatever reason, I can’t really spend a long time doing the activities I used to enjoy, like playing video games or watching television, let alone a movie, when I don’t have work to do I panic very quickly. I am working on this, too. Just like yesterday, and today as well, with my emergency morning plan. Little by little, I am giving new structure to my days. It feels as though I am building from the ground up because I had to move away from what I considered to be my home so suddenly, and in this new place I now live I do not have a trusty routine yet. It gives me anxiety, but it is also a new opportunity to rebuild my life around good habits, like the fact that I stopped drinking so much soda despite relying it for an entire year as a crutch to fight off low energy levels. Now, the foundations of my new life will be firmer.

Number four deals more with the future. I have always tended to obsess about the future and now it is no exception. Since I am barely getting by, day to day, it causes me fear and anxiety to know that I am not working towards some larger goal in life and it makes me sad to see that all I can do now is survive another day. Sometimes I will be harsh with myself and tell myself that I am pathetic, that I have become someone with a sad life who will never amount to anything anymore. I fight those thoughts, though, as best as I am able. And I am trying very hard to allow myself to understand that right now is a time of change and a time of hardship, but better days might be ahead – I don’t know, but I can have hope.

And so, last evening I was able to analyze these four factors and see that I am already working on solving number two and number three. It’s hard, but I have the tools to make them either disappear or become far less important in making me feel bad. Factor number one needs time and time alone, which I am willing to give it if only I can keep on learning how to be patient. And factor number four is something I really shouldn’t be worrying about at all, not right now. Therefore, as I told myself last morning, I don’t really have a gigantic reason to feel so bad, and so, in this moment that I feel anxious because it’s early morning, I’m going to tell myself:

Stop it! You’re okay!

Not sure if it’s going to work. The day looms huge ahead of me, and as always I’m scared I won’t make it through. But I have my plan and I’m going to stick to it. I’m going to try and remind myself that I’m okay. Maybe I will make this day a good one. Maybe this is the last tough stretch of road I have to get through before I reach the other side.