My insomnia has gotten so bad that I’m now letting a woman named Janet stick needles in my body in hopes of curing it.
Have you ever tried acupuncture? It’s bizarre. You do the consultation, you learn about energy imbalance, you lay on a table while someone sticks needles in your face and ears and hands and legs and arms and feet, and then you’re told not to move for 30 minutes while the needles do whatever energy clearing thing it is that they do.
In my first session, Janet asked me if I’d ever been completely still for 30 minutes. NO, of course not. If I could be completely still for 30 minutes, maybe I wouldn’t be suffering from a raging sleep disorder in the first place. I mean in theory, being still for 30 minutes is totally feasible. But in practice? I thought I was going to die. It was the longest 30 minutes of my life, which made me realize that my obsessive iPhone checking, email refreshing, Twitter updating, stimulation overload day-to-day existence has made it impossible for me to just be.
I did it though, I stayed still. Because really, what choice did I have? I was completely terrified that if I moved even a tiny bit, I’d accidentally pierce some vital nerve with a shifting needle. Acupuncture is totally like fear-induced meditation. Kind of like how this sink with a fishbowl on top uses the fear of killing the fish to teach people about water conservation. Hey, whatever works.
When she came back in, Janet told me that my insomnia is a sign of energy imbalance. She said that my Qi (“chee”), the vital energy that animates my body and protects it from illness, needs to have its flow restored. I asked her if she knew that Qi was an accepted word in online Scrabble. She shook her head and raised her eyebrow in a way that said, “I’m too zen to waste time with shit like online Scrabble.”
Over the next two months, I’m going to do five more sessions and start a combination therapy that also involves the ingesting of powdered Chinese herbs. If I weren’t so desperate, I’d be laughing at myself. Powdered herbs? Needles? But, the desperation to sleep trumps all.
Insomnia is one of those conditions that sounds sexier than it really is. Before 2007, when I slept just fine, I always thought insomniacs were lucky. So much extra time! Such creative and fast moving brains! Sleep? Incredible people don’t share the boring need for sleep! They’re too busy going on manic productivity binges night after night, penning the next great piece of literature, starting companies, crafting policies, painting masterpieces, and pacing up and down the halls of their apartment bursting with unbelievable ideas.
This is not at all what it’s actually like.
The reality is that, when you don’t sleep, you’re never really yourself. You’re in slow motion and everyone else is in normal speed or hyper speed, and you can’t keep up. Listening is exhausting. Forming a sentence is exhausting. You’re doing the bare minimum you can do to make sure you don’t fall over in the middle of the street and collapse into the fetal position, crying about how everything hurts and everything is awful and no one understands.
I’m sick right now. Not sleeping means my body can’t rest and rejuvenate, which means my immune system is horrible, which means I get sick all the time. Not sleeping makes me sick. I haven’t been sleeping, so therefore I’m sick. But now that I’m sick, I can’t stop sleeping, which is some seriously ironic horse vagina. Also, I’m pretty sure I have carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand and am therefore the asshole who types like two words per minute using only the left hand.
Do you want to hang out this week? I’m so much fun.
Posted in: big giant life list, day to day shenanigans
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My mom gets acupuncture for her chronic migraines, and I think it TOTALLY helps. And a required 30 minutes of sitting still might be good practice for you.
P.S. If you need soup. I’m so totally close to you the fact that we haven’t met is kind of ridiculous.
Do I have to be the one to make a Qi Qi joke?
because I’m immature enough to do that.
acupuncture can help with your carpal tunnel syndrome as well. let your acupuncturist know, so she can help address that too. it’s helped me in the past with healing after surgery and general back pains.
i usually fall asleep [perhaps from boredom or maybe relaxation] during the 30 minutes, so time goes by quickly. :/ moving around just a little bit with the needles in is not going to make ‘em move, but i know how that is. i usually get cold and have a blanket on top, so when i get an itch on my nose, ugh, i can’t scratch it for fear that the blankets will squish the needles and impale me.
“Qi” is TOTALLY an acceptable online scrabble word (also a Words with Friends acceptable word). Use it often, especially on triple word scores. (look at me… freaking Confucius. Put me in a fortune cookie.)
I think acupuncture is a crcok of shit. But that’s just my opinion. I rank it right up there with hypnosis.
I was an insomniac until my doc recently prescribed me Ambien. I sleep now. Try that.
ambien is my drug of habit also… though it says it isn’t habit forming and may cause drowsiness. It will also occasionally make me send crazy ass emails and phone calls that I don’t remember, but no sleep eating yet.
I have to cut myself off from things a few hours before bed if I don’t want to suddenly find myself being up until 4am. No computer, no phone, no tv, and so on. Without those things reading is fine, unless it’s such a fast moving and engaging book that it forces me to turn the page. If I want to get to sleep by, for instance midnight, then it’s off with the extraneous sensorium ticklers at 10.
I’m terrible at doing these things, but it’s the only thing that works reliably for me.
I love acupuncture. It’s one of those subtle things where you can’t “feel” anything at the moment, but the ancient practice helps. I haven’t had insomnia or it treated with acupuncture, but I’ve had other physical and mental ailments that is has helped realigned.
It is a liiiiittle awkward as they tap those little needles in weird places like the tip of your ear or toe and I feel so weird, but I just do it.
May you sleep better
xo
I play way too much Words With Friends because that wad the first thing I thought of when I read “qi”.
Wait, so you’re saying instead of popping an Ambien nightly, I should let some woman make a living voodoo doll out of me? NO THANKS. If being drug free is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.
As a fellow insomnia suffer, I hate to be the bearer of bad news and tell you there is no simple/magic cure like needle prodding or herb snorting. The cure for insomnia is a whole new lifestyle change – getting into a routine of going to bed at the same time and getting up at the same time daily, eating right, drinking less, exercising more, not being a slave to caffeine, etc. Basically, its doing the total opposite of everything you probably do now.
Also, that “reading before bed helps you fall asleep” line only works for actual books. If you are reading online or messing around on any other electronic device, that artificial light actually stimulates the brain and makes you think its daytime. Yes, brains are stupid like that. So instead of lying awake in bed coming up with amazing ideas on how to become the next Randi Zuckerberg, chances are we are both being kept awake by the same thoughts, which of course are vagina thoughts.
By the way, its 1:40am here and I cant sleep. So Im up reading blogs and giving out long winded advice to others who also suffer from sleepless nights. Gotta love the irony.
I’ve always wanted to try acupuncture but I’m to chicken. I really like all that Chinese, body energy nonsense. It’s the only reason I drink tea religiously. I hope you insomnia goes away, that’s something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I had a brief time in my life when I couldn’t go to sleep either. I felt like I was underwater all the time. Look at the bright side, atleast your not a narcoleptic!
Ahhh, Ambien… And if that isnt working well, add on a Benadryl chaser… It works! I have recently tried Imovane. Its not approved in the good ol` US of A, but, it is available in Mexico. And the pharmacist will prescribe it right there. However, it IS addicting, and the side effects really suck. REALLY. So, I use it only when nothing else is working.. for several days in a row.
I could never try the acupuncture… Needles freak me the hell out!! I would be the worlds worst drug addict, I swear.
COOL, on the Qi on words with friends! I havent tried it yet, but I am going to! I think I have a game in progress right now, where I have a damn Q, and nothing to do with it!
I wouldn’t have called myself an insomniac, so maybe I shouldn’t be giving advice, but I definitely had a SEVERE lack of sleep for many years. That is, until I got a job that required me moving to a house in the middle of a forest where there was no TV or Internet. (However, I did manage to get internet after two months). When there was nothing to to do, well, I just started sleeping! Now, I rarely go on my computer in the evenings and have realized if I do, I ALWAYS have trouble falling asleep, and wake up almost every half hour until morning. My advice: Put down the iPhone, turn off the computer, turn off the tv. Every night. I’ve had people telling me in the past that the reason I could never sleep was becuase I was too technologically-wired. I guess all those people I doubted were right! If only I listened to them ten years ago…!
I can’t drive home from work without refreshing my email on my phone. I also suffer from what people who know me call “the night time crazies.” Which really is just a fun way of saying I’m a fucking ball of unproductive energy right when it’s nighty night time. I find the best way to deal with it is working out, oh and sex probably doesn’t hurt either. Go have yourself some sex!
Fellow night crazy here! Do you do that thing where you just suddenly freak out about your future??
I actually just started seeing a hypnotherapist for my insomnia. Each session she tries to hypnotize me into a state of relaxation so that I can then apply that to my restless sleep blah blah blah
For the four months I was on Lamictal, the evilest piece of shit drug on this or any planet, I did not sleep. On a good night, an hour or two, but it got to where I’d stay awake 36+ hours straight and still unable to fall asleep. Bonus: Lamictal also made me batshit nuttybuckets. I wanted to rip my retinas out through my nostrils.
Anyway, I remember reading something about lamic-shit in an earlier post. You don’t take it anymore, do you? When I stopped it, my sleep problems disappeared.
I’ve always been a big fan of nyquil. I’m a little scared of ambien. A friend of mine takes it, and is always wanting to know if he told me anything embarrassing. So, of course I fuck with him and make up shit. On the other hand it could be fun for your friends!
I’m not sure how I stumble to your blog but I love it!!! (which is pretty rare coming from me) N- who I would love to hang out!!!! (assuming the last sentence here is for reals)
Needles? Yikes, how drastic. …Have tried draining an entire bottle of wine? That works. I mean, so I’ve heard. O___O
PLEASE let us know if it works. I will take needles over hallucinations any day.
I’ve started taking Calms Forte. It’s natural and it seems to help. My problem is staying asleep. I can pretty much crash anywhere but one hour after that I’m up all night long. There’s also Calms which is a lighter version to help “settle” the nerves.
Acupuncture did not work for my insomnia…FACK it sucks!
Acupuncture I am going to leave … no thank you. It was bad enough I let a ex chinese gymnastics sports coach massage me to the point of making my back black and blue … I do not trust those people … And I never went back.
Insomnia I haven’t had to the extent you do. I’ve come close though … and that was bad enough.
You poor thing! I get it too but I’ve never had it last more than a week and even then….it takes a huge toll on me. I’m grumpy, tired, broken, can’t concentrate on anything. Hope you get better!
i had bad bad bad insomnia from when i was about 14 till 24.
in those 10 years i wish i could tell you i was super productive and got a lot of shit done.
instead, i mainly used that time to make bad decisions and then write in my journal about them.
i still have the occasional 24-40 hour bender but i’m better now. when i lost the feeling of my life being out of control, i could finally sleep. there’s something to be said about waiting for the other shoe to drop – sometimes you wait so long that it’s actually the next day and then you’re like “oh shit.”
Not gonna lie – the thought of needles all over me freaks me the fuck out but I’ve heard about 114 stories from friends and relatives about how it’s awesome and makes everything so much better. Fingers crossed it works for you too!
My insomnia has never been severe, just episodic (that’s a word, right?) but I thought your description was really apt. I have tried sleeping pills and meditation, but the thing that works best for me is using my vibrator. Seriously. Even if I’m not horny. I think it makes me stop thinking and just start relaxing and enjoying and then boom. And then sleep.
I hope you find whatever works for you soon.
To combat insomnia we use essential oils, a blend called Tranquility or the equivalent and Lavender, along with melatonin.
Also, a company that has my complete trust has developed a new product to aid sleeping naturally called Vemma PM. I haven’t tried it yet but I would believe that it works as well as the rest of their natural products. You can order it at 1-800-Minerals. The main company is called New Vision.
I hope it works!
Haha. As an on-again off-again insomniac, I feel your pain. My late-night productivity usually consists of staring at the ceiling and listening to music for hours. Coffee and naps the next day. Repeat as necessary.
I had true insomnia like you. Once I pulled myself from the zombie life I was in and rejoined the living, I realized how often people say that they have insomnia. It always makes me mad because Im like, No, I had real insomnia. Not the I-was-in-and-out-of-sleep-last-night kind of insomnia. I was out-and-out-of-sleep for months kind of insomnia. I was so terribly desperate to sleep that I can 100% see how people O.D. on sleeping pills. I feel lucky that I didnt. I was trying everything I came across times ten and all at once. I never thought about acupuncture. I really feel for you going through this. Really. Its funny that you mentioned what you used to think of insomniacs. Multiple sleepless nights, I would think about the same. I would think, you know what I could do with all this time? I should think up something genius. Maybe I could be a genius artist or write something spectacular with my fried mental state. It would be like the genius of heroin rocks stars but not. Instead, I couldnt give up hope that tonight I would fall asleep. So, every single night, hope won out and Id lay in bed, waiting. Waiting. Ill definitely be thinking about you and sending my positive energy in your direction.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this, Nicole. I hope the acupuncture works. I’ve always wanted to try it especially ever since I had my knee surgery. Alas, I cannot afford it. I will be sending good vibes your way. Thinking of you.
I’ve suffered insomnia and it is NOT fun. Hopefully acupuncture helps – for me I just got 2 jobs and was working so much that I got home exhausted. Probably not the best solution. However, now I don’t have any job and can still sleep so there’s that.
Also, that fish tap is amazingsauce.
I suffered from slight insomnia in college, which led to tripping balls on tylenol pm. Try taking an 8am philosophy final fucked up from sleeping pills that never put you to sleep…Im pretty sure that’s why I aced it.
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