I haven’t slept in two days. Which is pretty good.
Every night for the past 26 years, the task (because that’s genuinely what it feels like) of falling asleep is a neverending battle between my racing thoughts and exhausted body.
No really, because I remember struggling with this as a baby. Laying wide awake in my crib long after my mom had fallen asleep. Which makes me sound like a liar. And sometimes I am. Only because I hate making people feel bad, so I fabricate white lies on a daily basis. But not in this case. I’ve always had a razor-sharp memory because I have this sick (not sick as in “cool” but sick as in “this is deteriorating your mental health”) habit of replaying and ruminating on about every past experience in my head. Analyzing every single detail of it in an attempt to make sense of it all. Because for some reason I think understanding the whys, the what-ifs, and the “what did I do wrong and what will I do better next time?” will give me the insight I need to be perfect in future situations. Unpredictability scares me and by learning from past experiences, I gain that strong sense of control I so desperately desire over future scenarios. Because maybe if I act the right way and say the right things in this theoretical future scenario, then everything will work out the way I planned them to in my head.
Being present sometimes feels impossible to me. When I’m not evaluating the past, I’m trying to predict the future. Or preparing for it. Back to the baby memory. And this is slightly fucked up. Maybe normal, but I wouldn’t know because it’s not talked about. But on a weekly basis, I’d unintentionally wake my mom up with the sweet sounds of me hyperventilating in my crib because I had spent the night thinking about her and my dad dying. My parents raised me to be grateful for everything. To the point where I felt like I deserved nothing. As a kid I thought, how come I have to bow down to and be this appreciative for having basic needs met? Do I not deserve this? Is this not a given? Did I do something wrong? And often, the way they’d get me to be grateful was by reminding me, “We work hard every day to provide for you because we love you. One day we’re going to die and you won’t have us anymore” And that broke me. Like, yeah that’s a pretty fucked up way to get me to realize how fortunate I am, but I don’t blame them for that. They’re human and were just doing their best with what they knew. Like we all are. So I’d think about them dying a lot, because I guess that was my way of preparing for it. That way, it’ll hurt a little less when it happens. And now as an adult, I continue to lie awake at night thinking about every possible thing in my life that could go wrong. What if my apartment burns down and I lose all my meaningful and meaningless posessions I’ve been accumulating over the years? What if something bad happens to my parents but I can’t make it to them in time to help because they’re a 5 hour flight away? What if all my friends secretly hate me? Like, what if I didn’t do a good job the last time we hungout and now they won’t want to anymore? What if I like this person more than they like me and now they have the power to send me into a mental spiral so drastic that I start waking up wishing life wasn’t real again? What if I fall and hit my head on the pointy corner part of the counter, but since I live alone, no one’s here to call an ambulance? And I can’t move because I’m horribly concussed, so I have to accept my fate and bleed to death? Terrifying right? So, in my head, I’m like, I NEED to come up with ways to prevent all these worst case scenarios from happening. Or at least prepare for them. And I can’t sleep until I put those worries to rest by figuring out a solution to every single one of them.
Also, I’ve always been a chronic daydreamer. And I’ll go ahead and wind up one of the astrology haters by saying I’m suchhh a Pisces. I’ve always been more in my head than in this world. Especially as a kid. It felt safer there. Because although my childhood was filled with a plethora of bright memories I continue to replay in my head and wish I could relive, it’s also filled with dark memories I continue to be haunted by and wish I could forget. A lot of the time, I didn’t want to be here, in this reality. And I didn’t have to be. My imagination built me a sanctuary I could run to when I needed an escape from the scary external world happening around me. And I guess that safe place always stuck with me. Also, it’s fun to create a little world in your head! I used to daydream about leaving the toxic environment I grew up in to live a laid-back lifestyle in California by the beach. Apparently I was manifesting that whole time, because that’s my life now. Oftentimes when I’m lying in bed waiting to fall asleep, I’ll imagine myself in all these desireable scenarios. Sometimes I’ll even go through phases where I’m living through a specific storyline. And every night, the plot progresses. Which I know sounds insane, but it’s not much different from a fictional writer creating stories. I just make myself the main character in mine.
It seems like there’s always something to think about. And that can be nice in the sense that I’m an absolute pro at entertaining myself. But my thoughts are so strong that they continuously overpower half a bottle of melatonin and magnesium gummies. And that’s frustrating. Especially on days like today when I’m feeling the physically draining repercussions of my restless thoughts. It’s currently 10pm, so here’s hoping this insomnia episode ends up being the finale.
