Insomnia

Last night:

I return home following an evening of dancing. I pour myself a glass of wine. I try to watch a bit of TV but fall asleep on the sofa at around 12.30.

I rouse at 2.55, take my prescribed relaxant & go to bed. At 4.10 I give up trying to sleep and get up again. I’m tired but I know its pointless trying to sleep anymore. I read my e-mails and respond to one of them.

When this happened last week, I sat up and read in bed. I read for 3 hours without becoming drowsy at all. I eventually rose got on with my day.

Now: My alarm is set for 8.00 I’ll head back upstairs & turn it off presently. At 10.00 I have a karate class. I will go along and try to train if I can. When this happened a fortnight back I couldn’t train. Mind & body were just not up to it.

Last month someone asked me how long I had suffered with insomnia. I didn’t know how to answer them. I was still at school when I went to the doctor and complained about lack of sleep. He told me I was being ridiculous. A young person like me didn’t have sleep disorders. That’s how uk doctors were in the 60s.

Thinking about it, I’ve always had trouble sleeping. As a young kid of about 8 I remember lying in bed and staring at the wall in front of me. I used to imagine straight lines bouncing inside the rectangle of the wall. It was like the motion of snooker balls rebounding off the cushion, or the old computer game ‘pong’.

One thing is certain. The older I get, the worse the problem gets. The last time I spoke to a doctor about this I said I usually slept better when sharing the bed with my partner Jan. He advised me to move in with her permanently. I thought that was pretty funny, but he was being serious.

Ok, the sun is up now. I’ll post this now, disable the alarm & take a shower.