that’s how insomnia feels
how I overcame insomnia?
The inability to sleep at night despite feeling sleepy, tired, with eyes pleading to be closed and mind to shut down consciousness is insomnia.
I didn’t suffer from insomnia like others who had to take pills to sleep, but had days and weeks where sleep hardly found a trace in my life.
Life seemed crazy during those moments. I was highly active and conscious, and always had something to worry about and act upon. Life felt exciting. And terrible at the same time, being restless. Every swirl of wind pushed me to close my eyes, but every aura surrounding me kept me awake.
I didn’t know during those moments if any delusion or hope existed in the world deserted by love. Happiness still exists. I still found jokes funny, but nothing appealed to my heart. It only scared me out of my wits and kept me alive. I overthought the best and worst possible scenarios as much as possible in order to replicate the good part and avoid the dangerous side. Despite being in this constant battle of trying to protect myself, I lost every night in small conversations I had with my mind.
My life stories and incidents convinced me that my life is a tragedy that is designed to suffer from endless trials, pains, betrayal, and experience the negativity of the world. Maybe I was the strongest soldier on earth that God couldn’t take his eyes off, and enemies can’t accept me winning. So, they tried all methods, from natural to supernatural ways to get luck against me and destiny to pave the path of my end. Initially, I resisted losing and hated the idea of burning in agony. For me, life was more about love and loving than being heartbroken or left alone.
Life felt cruel. I worked hard day and night so that my body had no energy to keep its eyes open, but I lost every night. I overplayed conversations to have perfect endings or problems that had never been created, but my hope was so devastated that I couldn’t dare to escape reality. The reality was the most surprising incident that I could ever dream of or worst enough to deny dreaming of. It consisted of losing trust that shook my nervous system, and I could no longer allow myself to think it never happened.
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Every night, I lie in bed in hope that sleep may knock on my door today. I wrote affirmations to believe everything is okay and cried my eyes out another day, confronting that nothing is okay. Nothing changed. I still found it hard to sleep.
It was 2 a.m. then 3 a.m., and I don’t know when it reached 4 a.m. Finally, overplaying conversations led me to daydream for a moment, and I slept for an hour or two at 5 a.m.
Working tirelessly like a machine during those times only made my next day difficult to survive, not night easy to escape and dream. So, after a while, I finally stopped over-exhausting myself.
Later, I took medicine to sleep for a while, but it wasn’t a great experience, to be honest. It didn’t calm down my mind but only helped me close my eyes. Though in the eyes of others I slept, I was still so emotionally conscious that night felt tiring instead of refreshing.
I think what people don’t know about the ones who suffer from insomnia is that it’s not the chosen decision of patients to suffer. It’s just something they can’t deny and avoid easily. Crying may help us initially, but then it starts irritating us. It feels like paying a price for something we didn’t do.
We don’t share hope for the world to get better. We are practical beasts who only know uncertainty is inevitable and can only be reduced with attempts that turn possibilities to our favour. We become calculative, and we lose track of our emotions in day-to-day life. We laugh like nothing happened and cry as the world ended. Amid the chaos, we learn to build a bridge that keeps us safe from both escapism and reality. A bridge that is known to keep balance between our destructive emotions and emotions that lighten hope in us.
Slowly, we allow ourselves to think of a world where dark and night exist in a single breath. We start believing in ourselves. We don’t lean anymore on anyone to save us from those nights when our fears drive us. We just choose to allow our emotions to be expressed and acknowledged. We cry and sleep, but live every morning like a star that shines all day bright.
We don’t deny the pain that still cripples inside us. We just don’t let that pain drive our actions. We live like we were loved and celebrated so beautifully that no pain ever touched us. We smile and laugh.
I don’t know when and why. But we slowly surrender our story and acknowledge that we can never make someone love, choose, and respect us. Irrespective of how generous we are in our acts and how loving we are, we can’t make someone love us. We can only do our part. What we receive out of any relationship is always going to be uncertain in today’s world. So, not hoping from the world and believing everything is okay when we choose to do our part is the best thing we can do. We don’t need to worry about outcomes. Even if we live and love, it’s enough. We don’t need to sacrifice every bit of ourselves for someone who doesn’t even acknowledge our presence.
And slowly, that’s how I gained my ability to sleep back as if nothing can shake me anymore.
