The Lioness Sleeps Tonight (I hope!)

The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep

-          WC Fields

I'm only a little ashamed to say that I might be too contrary to write a blog this week.  I'm practically psychotic.  Nobody in our house is having a great week, as I seem to be determined to make everyone as miserable as I am.  I didn't go to sleep until 3:30 on Monday morning, and 2:30 on Tuesday morning.  I don't think I've ever hidden the fact that I'm a person who likes her sleep, and doesn't cope well without it. I am, as His Nibs would say, like a lion.  

Also, my hormones are at me.  They are making me contrary, which makes me impossible to talk to.  Poor His Nibs is going around the place submerged in a fog of fear and confusion.  He asked me, the other day, to pass him the salt.  Unforgivably, I instantly started shouting that I have to do everything around here, that it's not fair, that if he isn't willing to pull his weight why is he here? etc. etc. before practically throwing the salt at him.
It goes without saying that he has no idea what's going on.  He probably thinks I’ve had a complete mental breakdown. Maybe I have.

The difficulty that His Nibs finds himself in, in these circumstances, is that I'm so rude and horrible that he can't ask me what's wrong with me, without risking my roaring abuse and accusations at him.  And God forbid he ask me if I have PMT or if my hormones are at me.   A fate much worse than death.  Because even though I have, and they are, if he as much as suggests either he'll be eaten alive, the poor innocent sod.

I'd imagine one of the worst things, for him, has to be the unpredictability.
I flatter myself that I'm not the most demanding of wives.  I'm not a great fan of housework, and His Nibs is worse.  So we don't do it.  Until one of us is suddenly possessed with the need to live in a clean house again, (about once a week) or we run out of clean cornflake bowls - whichever happens first. I don't torment him about it.  Mainly because there's no point, but also because I don’t care about that kind of thing.
His Nibs and I usually have a very happy routine.  Because it's just the pair of us, we have a lot of freedom.  Not to run off with other people, you understand, or take up drug habits.  Just to do whatever we want, usually without question.  I can disappear for a nice night away in a spa hotel with my much loved friend Laura, or he can spend his time wandering off to hurling matches for endless periods of time, and nobody gives out. It all works out very well, usually.
But this week, I'd say the poor soul is afraid to even suggest he go anywhere. Or question my plans.  He's walking on eggshells, and I know I'm being a super bitch.  But I cannot stop myself.
The usual hormone swings are made much worse by the insomnia.  On Sunday, I was busy writing something, which caused me to spend the day thrown on our bed, surrounded by my laptop and various bits of paper.  His Nibs was in Croke Park at a hurling match, and in the evening gained almost
endless brownie points by arriving home with a chicken fillet burger for me under his arm.  I hadn't really had any lunch, being an undomesticated eejit, so I was delighted with him.

That night, I went to bed at my usual time.  Too late for a work night, but normal for me.  I lay down in the dark and waited patiently for sleep to overtake me.  Nothing happened.  So I moved around a bit, turned the pillow to its cool side, did a bit of kicking around trying to get comfy, all to no avail.  I tried meditative breathing, counting sheep, letting my extremities get relaxed and trying to let the feeling to spread, the whole usual routine.  Nothing was working.

I decided I'd watch some rubbish on Netflix.  Something silly, that would make me go to sleep.  Half an hour of trash television later I was more awake than I had been before I started.  I read a book for a while.  But I still wasn't sleepy.  Then His Nibs started snoring.  So I spent a happy few minutes waking him up and giving out stink to him while he blinked uncomprehendingly in the light.
By this time it was around half past one in the morning, and His Nibs was due to start his boot camp style roaring and shouting at me to get up and go to work at ten to six.  I was just starting to count down how many minutes and hours of sleep I'd get if I went to sleep immediately, when for no reason the Swiss Roll that was resting itself in the kitchen popped into my head.
I was lying in bed, His Nibs was snoring.  I couldn't sleep and there was cake in the house.  What would you do?  I stayed where I was for a while, telling myself that I'd already had a chicken burger, there was no excuse for adding fuel to the fire by adding cake to my daily calorie intake.  But nothing helped. If the cake had been performing a striptease at the end of our bed, I couldn’t have been more fascinated by it.  I couldn't stop thinking about it.  I finally decided there was no point lying there in misery when I could be downstairs, happily eating cake.

Up I got, and ate a slice of the Swiss Roll, and had a good look around in the fridge.   Happily, there was nothing in there to tempt me, so I had to settle for a glass of milk. 

"That’s it", I thought to myself.  "You've watched television, you've read a book, you've done a bit of giving out, and eaten cake.   All your favourite things.  It's time to go to sleep".
Instead, I lay in bed for a while wondering what kind of a savage gets up at half one in the morning to eat cake.  Did this mean I'm going to end up on one of those television shows where the fire brigade has to come and rip your house down to get you out?  This line of worrying went on for a while.  Then I started thinking about how unfair it is that society makes us feel so bad about eating cake, even though nobody, never mind society, even knew I had eaten it. 

I found a number of things to worry about for the next couple of hours.  What’s going to happen with the US and North Korea?  Will the cake settle on my stomach or my thighs? The usual late night worrying.  This went on until half past three in the morning, when I finally dropped off, only to be woken by a shouty His Nibs less than three hours later, and deposited in the car.  I stumbled around the office all day, moaning and looking for sympathy, and practically attacking people, until it was time to get back in the car in the evening, where I had a lovely car sleep.
Unfortunately, when we eventually got home, I was as fresh as a daisy from this nap, which kept me up until half past two on Tuesday morning, and so the whole nonsense started again.
I was psychotic with exhaustion before the hormones even kicked in.  Now I'm almost dangerous.
His Nibs is not the only one who suffers because of my mood swings.  We've been a pair for a long time.  He has fought like a tiger never to learn how to cook or to clean a bathroom, but proved a very quick learner when it comes to my bad behaviour.  He does not retaliate.  He just looks confused or offended and never shouts "Shut up you contrary old bag" at me.  If he did, of course, I'd probably burst into noisy tears and insist he doesn't love me and that we should get divorced.  No.  Instead he is kind and puts up with me until the storm passes.  Then he walks around looking innocent and relieved that he's no longer being attacked by the person he loves. 

But once the trouble is over my stupid conscience starts at me, and I look at him and think things like "I can't believe I called him a controlling pig and said I was leaving him,  just because he made me tea instead of coffee."
So then I have to go overboard being nice, and making meals and doing the housework without his assistance.  And it's all just a complete pain.  It takes me at least as long to make up for the bad behaviour as the time I'm actually unreasonable.

Feeling Sleepy

Ongoing trouble in Chez His Nibs and me.

You may or may not have read at the weekend that I have become a martyr to insomnia.

It doesn't suit me. 

It's been going on for about ten days now.  A friend of mine offered to give me a sleeping pill on Friday, but I refused on the grounds that they're addictive and make you groggy and if I'm not able to sleep, one of my great skills in life, I may as well give up the ghost now.

It never dawned on me that she might be offering for her sake more than mine.

I think it's possible that His Nibs is finally getting a bit afraid of me.

The whole bank holiday weekend passed, with me being absolutely no fun and getting grumpier and grumpier, and His Nibs doing everything in his power to avoid me, and probably saying private novenas that I'd go to sleep for pity's sake.

I arrived in work on Tuesday morning, in even worse condition than I'd been on the Friday. A good friend took one look at me, and suggested that maybe it was time I started thinking about dropping in to the doctor, just to get one or two sleeping pills to put me back on the straight and narrow.

I was caught at all times between shouting and bursting out crying.  I was staring at my computer as though I'd never seen one before.  I suppose poor Julianne could no more face the thought of a day in my company than His Nibs could.  Or, for that matter, no more than I could face the idea of listening to myself whinging for another day.

By half past nine, I was ready to give in, and went to the walk in doctor's surgery around the corner.
The doctor in there seems to be demented, and kept me talking for thirty five minutes.  Not, as you might imagine, about the reasons for my insomnia, but about how the roads in the republic are now better than those in Northern Ireland.  And I still didn't go asleep.

In the end, he gave me the prescription and sent me on my way.

I've never taken a sleeping pill before.  The doctor suggested that half a tablet might be enough, and in fairness the pharmacist said the same thing.  He also said I should take the tablet at least an hour before I wanted to go to sleep.

At around nine o'clock last night, I took half a tablet. I was in bed by half past nine. I wanted to be ready if I suddenly conked out, I didn't want to end up sleeping on the stairs. I assumed that once the tablet kicked in, I'd lose consciousness immediately.

His Nibs, interested in the experiment, decided that he should go to bed too.  He lay there in silence, perking up every few seconds to inquire whether I felt sleepy yet.  That was no help.

I don't know why I'm telling you this, but at a quarter to twelve, I sat up in the bed and burst into tears of exhaustion and temper.

His Nibs suggested I might like to keep the noise down, so I started shouting.  About how I'd probably never get a night's sleep again, how I couldn't be expected to keep up full time work in these circumstances, and that he'd better start looking for a better paid job to make up for my wages.  Then I turned around, took a good look at him, and announced that I didn't like him anymore, and I didn't know why he was still living in our house.

Fair play to him, he didn't announce that he didn't know why he was still there either.  If it was me, I think I would have jumped out of bed and started packing my bags. 

Instead, he remained silent for a few minutes, probably trying to resist the temptation to give me a belt in the chops for myself.  Then he quietly suggested that maybe I'd like to go downstairs and have a chocolate biscuit and a glass of milk.  And maybe the other half of the sleeping tablet. 

I'm not a fool.  Hysterical and all as I was, the thought of a chocolate biscuit soon quietened me down.

Suffice to say that I took him up on the suggestion.
I was asleep a few minutes later.  Thank God.  Six full hours later, His Nibs woke me to go to work.  Again, he managed not to kill me when he shouted upstairs ten minutes after we were due to leave, and I finally woke up.

Obviously the doctor only gave me a limited number of tablets.  I hope to Christ they work, and that my brain soon realises that I'm supposed to go to sleep when I go to bed.

But scarce and all as they are, I won't be messing about with any more half tablets, I can tell you that. 

No Sleeping Beauty

Guess what my latest carry on is?

Insomnia.

I don’t mean the type I used to suffer from when I was young and had fire in my belly and needed about three hours sleep a night, and actually couldn’t go to sleep if I’d had more than five hours the night before.

I mean proper, grown up insomnia.  The kind where you go to bed and demand complete darkness and silence, and practice all sorts of mind relaxation techniques on yourself and have various oils and unguents and potions that are supposed to assist a good night’s rest stinking up your room.

The kind where you don’t drink any caffeine after five in the evening and don’t do anything stressful and go for a nice walk and then have a warm bath and get into bed and get warm and cosy and think happy thoughts, and four hours later you’re still lying in the bed wishing the stupid night would end.

The worst night was last Wednesday.  I was wide awake, His Nis was making his incredible snoring noises beside me.

Obviously I gave him a good few pucks for himself.  And said “Stop Snoring” about four million times, in ever more hysterical tones.  The last time I woke him he became a bit hysterical himself and told me to stop whinging.  When I objected to this, he told me that he saw no reason for both of us to be up all night.  I couldn’t really argue with him.

He’d been patient, I suppose.  This was at half past two on a Wednesday night.  I’d started moaning at about eleven, moved on to banging my heels on the mattress to signify my unhappiness  at being awake.  My hope was that because I was sighing but not swearing, he might wake up and be nice to me and make me a cup of tea or something.  Nothing doing. When I banged my heels so hard that the dog almost fell off the bed, and His Nibs still pretended not to notice, I gave it up.

Eventually I stormed into the spare room.  I could still hear his snoring, of course.  I’d say the couple three doors down could hear it, but that wasn’t the reason I couldn’t sleep, to be fair.  I’ve been able to nod off despite his pig noises for twenty years. 

Still, it’s nice to be able to blame him for my suffering.

It was just insomnia.  I honestly don’t believe I got more than an hours sleep on Wednesday night.

On Thursday night I went to bed at eight fifteen.  This might seem over the top, but I allowed that I had to get to sleep before he went to bed, before the dogs started jumping on and off the bed, and he started turning on the light every few seconds to find important things like his car insurance documents or the spare house key.  Just because he likes to know where they are.

I threatened His Nibs.  I told him that fire was literally the only excuse I would accept for waking me.  And I wouldn’t be accepting any excuses about how it was an accident, or it was my own fault or anything else.  I said that if I was woken up, for any reason, the party responsible would be spending the night in the kennel in the garden.  I made it crystal clear that I included my husband in this threat.

He didn’t wake me.  In fact, he and both the dogs went directly to the spare room at bedtime.  (A practice which is strictly forbidden, as it happens.  It’s the only room in the house the dogs are not allowed in.  Obviously once I’m asleep anything goes).

I sat bolt upright in the bed at eleven o’clock.  My first thought was that I might go downstairs for a cup of tea, and maybe I’d forage around to find out if there were any biscuits His Nibs hadn’t found.  But I decided against it.  I knew that if I went downstairs I’d end up turning on the television, and lighting a cigarette, and I’d have to brush my teeth again, and that I was better off just going back to sleep.  It took quite some time.

I did nod off again in time to wake at two in the morning.  At that stage I was so wide awake that I jumped straight out of bed and went to the airing cupboard, to tidy it up and sort it out at last.

One look into our airing cupboard though, would drive anyone to go to bed and pull the covers over their head, and that’s what I did.

I was awake for another while from four till sometime after five.  Needless to say, when it was time to get up for work an hour later I was absolutely worn out, there was considerable risk of tears before I even got into the car.

I’m wrecked.  I’m absolutely exhausted.  Most days I find myself walking around like a zombie, even my gait has changed.   I wasn’t graceful in the first place, these days I’m thumping around like a cross elephant.

 And I’m like a nettle.  I have had to ask people in work not to speak to me,  because I’m so contrary I’m afraid they’ll all hate me by the time I finally get some sleep again.

And strange to say, when I see my friends and loved ones they’re immediately able to sympathise about the fact I’m still not sleeping.  Even before they ask me how it’s going.

This is despite the fact that once again I have fallen for the beauty counter patter and spent eighty euro on a bottle of shite with the actual blurb that “We can’t give you a good night’s sleep, but we can make you look as if you’ve had one.”

Eighty pigging euro.  It’s no wonder I can’t sleep at night.