Insomnia

Last night, I couldn't sleep, for many reasons. At first, I couldn't really think straight... And every time I tried to fall asleep, I'd get an itch or something that would jolt me awake again. Finally, I got up and thought, "Okay, it's morning, right?" Checked the clock. Midnight.

I laid back down, trying to fall asleep, but a sudden tidal wave of anxiety hit me. I was lying in the wrong position, or I was itchy, or I couldn't relax. My muscles got all tense, and I started shaking. Finally, I just couldn't stand the feeling anymore, and got up. Only Adam (my stepdad) was still awake. I told him about how anxious I felt, and how I couldn't sleep. He let me stay up with him for a bit, and we watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother on-demand, so I could calm myself down. After the episode, he suggested I try to sleep again.

Back in bed. It was one in the morning. Since I sometimes like to fantasize situations in order to fall asleep, I tried imagining what friends would say if I went to them for help. I was startled by what I came up with: most of them just wished me good luck and left me to deal with it on my own. A, who I mentioned in the previous post, was the one I couldn't come up with a response for. I had no idea what she'd say. I don't think she'd be sympathetic.

I shook off the feeling and tried to fall asleep again, and keep myself from crying. I still felt itchy. And then, the problem arose... My uncle.

He slept just across the hall, and his breathing was abnormally shallow and irregular. Since he snores, I could hear it very clearly. For some reason, I have trouble breathing right when I don't have something to level my breathing with. Normally, my heartbeat works fine, but if I hear someone else breathing, I try to synch up with them instinctively. Since he was breathing too quickly and irregularly for me, I started getting anxious again. I tried covering my ears, but I could still hear it, quietly. I tried leaving my room, but there was no place in the house I couldn't hear the snoring, or Adam's CPAP machine (he had gone to sleep by then), or both.

So I left.

I put on my jacket, pants, and shoes, and just left the house, taking only my cell phone and a broken piece of tile I got from the State Farm floor. I was in Florida, not Boston, because of vacation, so it was warm. I wandered around the streets, completely alone. It wasn't anywhere near as silent or dark as I imagined it'd be. I had no trouble seeing, since street lights were lit up all alongside the road. There was a noise in the background that sounded kind of like traffic, but it was the same constant volume and sound the whole time, not growing and fading like you'd imagine traffic would do.

At one point, I wondered what it would feel like to run at night. I tried it, but it didn't really seem different from running during the daytime, so I stopped. Unfortunately, while I was running, the tile flew out of my pocket and I lost it in the gravel road. I walked slowly again, not worrying about where I was.

I finally came back in at around 2:45. I played my DS for a little while, and at 3:30 I just went to sleep. The snoring was gone, for some reason, so I didn't have any trouble sleeping then. I woke up at around 8 in the morning. I'll probably take a nap today.