witchcraft
it's too painful to live but I'm too afraid to die
- Nov 27, 2024
- 172
I think one of the biggest reasons I want to CTB is actually a yet-to-be diagnosed sleep issue I have. I don't think it's insomnia... at least, not how I've heard some people describe insomnia, which sounds like Hell.
It's simply the inability to maintain a sleep schedule. Because I can and do get tired...Eventually, well after the time I needed to go to bed in order to get ~8 hours of sleep.
And that leads to another facet of the problem: needing to get up at a certain time because I have to be somewhere. Most of the time, that "somewhere" Is somewhere I don't want to be, school when I was younger and work nowadays. And that's not something you just have to do once a week. That's something you have to do almost every day.
Thus is the conundrum: why do I want to sleep? Because I *need* to get sleep because I *need* to go somewhere tomorrow / later in the day. But the problem is that I don't want to be at this "somewhere" in the first place. I don't want to go do whatever it is that I need (not want) to go do; it used to be school, now it's work. As far as I can tell, this has led me to being largely unable to sleep when I'm not exhausted. If I stay up for 20+ hours, then yes, I will start feeling tired and passing out. Other than that though, no, I can't just command myself to fall asleep. You know what happens when I *try* to sleep? It's not like trying to use the bathroom before going on a road trip or something, where usually if I give my body 5-10 minutes it'll do the process.
Nope. I just lay there with my eyes closed. I could be doing anything else remotely enjoyable with that time, because I'm not sleeping. It doesn't even matter if I'm relaxed—however, I usually get frustrated with myself, which then spirals into being frustrated with my life circumstances at that moment, and even many doctors will say not to associate bed and/or sleep with such frustration. That would only compound the problem. The recommended advice is to actually get up and do something.
They probably mean doing something relaxing like reading a book or... well, I literally don't know what else you would do unless you have a hobby that isn't video games. I do acknowledge that lots of screen time, particularly within a couple hours of bed, isn't good. I have been reading through the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes stories by Doyle, and the irony is that I actually enjoy them because I have a bookshelf of things I actually want to read. While the vast majority of these stories aren't long, and most other books have chapters, it still means I'm reading for at least another 45 minutes to an hour. There goes more sleep.
What do I do on weekends? I sleep in and destroy my sleep "schedule" because I finally don't have somewhere that I need to be and don't want to be. Weekends when I was younger meant no school, same in university if I wasn't working like during COVID. During holiday breaks and summertime I would have no sleep schedule, but that didn't mean I wasn't getting 8 hours, I was often sleeping 10+ hours even if I woke up once to use the bathroom. Even now as an "adult" there are plenty of places around that are open well outside of normal business hours, places to get food, supermarkets that close at midnight or even a 24/7 Walmart which is 25 minutes away. I don't like Walmart though.
Anyway, my seemingly unbeatable problem with sleep (going back to my childhood, as early as elementary school by the way) is I think a huge reason why my life is so fucked up and why I've been driven to contemplating CTB. Here in the wonderful country that I live, I am no longer covered by my parents' medical insurances or whatever, and my parents never in the past 20 years decided to have my sleep looked into. Maybe all these external contributors to sleep issues, like screens, just weren't a problem back in their boomer days when few people had a TV, there wasn't much to watch on it anyway, there were no video games yet, etc. And I don't know if this is true but it just seems like sleep medication has its significant downsides... Even my mom, the numero uno pill-popper that I know, does not take a sleeping pill with her cocktail of daily meds and arsenal of vitamins.
So my whole life I've never known what the hell is wrong with me. But I have had issues with sleep. Or maybe the problem is that I actually *do* know what is wrong with me, I just described it in this post, and there is no solution. Luckily I don't have a complete inability to sleep, no, I am fortunate (having read what people experience with true insomnia). I just cannot maintain a sleep schedule. At best, my sleep schedule might last a week until I have something that throws it off one way or another.
I hate being alive. I'm convinced that if I was rich and didn't have to constantly by anywhere, and therefore didn't have to constantly sleep at a certain time, I probably wouldn't be the healthiest (because there are health consequences) but I'd be happier. And not just for the obvious reason of being monetarily rich, but being time rich. I could sleep whenever I want. I would probably still struggle with sleeping before something that I wanted to do, but I could choose how often that that happens, maybe once a week, twice a week. If I wanted to see a movie I could stay up and go to the earliest screening, then come home and sleep, or I could wake up and go to the last screening.
HAVING, NEEDING to sleep at exactly a certain time in order to get exactly 8 hours before HAVING, NEEDING to do something that makes me want to CTB is just impossible.
I hate structure, because it must constantly be built around something that I hate. Even when I've had a job, I can't hold it for very long, maybe 9-12 months at most. Eventually the sleep issues catch up, the warnings and then punishments for arriving at work late, being tired at work, etc.
If I could have one meager super power, it would be to sleep on command, and for the precise amount I needed to sleep for to feel refreshed. To always get the necessary amount of sleep, to not have to fight with myself every god damn night to sleep, and to not wake up feeling tired. If there is anything worse than my other issues with sleep, it's that when I manage to get sleep, it feels like sleep didn't work. That happened today actually, but thankfully I'm unemployed. Had weird dreams about me being at a house party, which then turned into being locked in a house with a psycho who would dress as a clown and play baseball, the dream implied he killed the ump for a bad call, then became a murderer, and now he traps people in his wannabe SAW movie house. I warned a guy to not look through the peephole of the door and then instead drills came out of the floor and went through his feet. Then I was in a pool with Call of Duty 4 military dogs as an audience of people watched. That's what happens when I finally get sleep, it's lovely. I'm glad it turned out to be one of those weird nightmares where I wasn't really afraid for some reason, it was like I had enough control over the nightmare to survive but not escape.
It's simply the inability to maintain a sleep schedule. Because I can and do get tired...Eventually, well after the time I needed to go to bed in order to get ~8 hours of sleep.
And that leads to another facet of the problem: needing to get up at a certain time because I have to be somewhere. Most of the time, that "somewhere" Is somewhere I don't want to be, school when I was younger and work nowadays. And that's not something you just have to do once a week. That's something you have to do almost every day.
Thus is the conundrum: why do I want to sleep? Because I *need* to get sleep because I *need* to go somewhere tomorrow / later in the day. But the problem is that I don't want to be at this "somewhere" in the first place. I don't want to go do whatever it is that I need (not want) to go do; it used to be school, now it's work. As far as I can tell, this has led me to being largely unable to sleep when I'm not exhausted. If I stay up for 20+ hours, then yes, I will start feeling tired and passing out. Other than that though, no, I can't just command myself to fall asleep. You know what happens when I *try* to sleep? It's not like trying to use the bathroom before going on a road trip or something, where usually if I give my body 5-10 minutes it'll do the process.
Nope. I just lay there with my eyes closed. I could be doing anything else remotely enjoyable with that time, because I'm not sleeping. It doesn't even matter if I'm relaxed—however, I usually get frustrated with myself, which then spirals into being frustrated with my life circumstances at that moment, and even many doctors will say not to associate bed and/or sleep with such frustration. That would only compound the problem. The recommended advice is to actually get up and do something.
They probably mean doing something relaxing like reading a book or... well, I literally don't know what else you would do unless you have a hobby that isn't video games. I do acknowledge that lots of screen time, particularly within a couple hours of bed, isn't good. I have been reading through the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes stories by Doyle, and the irony is that I actually enjoy them because I have a bookshelf of things I actually want to read. While the vast majority of these stories aren't long, and most other books have chapters, it still means I'm reading for at least another 45 minutes to an hour. There goes more sleep.
What do I do on weekends? I sleep in and destroy my sleep "schedule" because I finally don't have somewhere that I need to be and don't want to be. Weekends when I was younger meant no school, same in university if I wasn't working like during COVID. During holiday breaks and summertime I would have no sleep schedule, but that didn't mean I wasn't getting 8 hours, I was often sleeping 10+ hours even if I woke up once to use the bathroom. Even now as an "adult" there are plenty of places around that are open well outside of normal business hours, places to get food, supermarkets that close at midnight or even a 24/7 Walmart which is 25 minutes away. I don't like Walmart though.
Anyway, my seemingly unbeatable problem with sleep (going back to my childhood, as early as elementary school by the way) is I think a huge reason why my life is so fucked up and why I've been driven to contemplating CTB. Here in the wonderful country that I live, I am no longer covered by my parents' medical insurances or whatever, and my parents never in the past 20 years decided to have my sleep looked into. Maybe all these external contributors to sleep issues, like screens, just weren't a problem back in their boomer days when few people had a TV, there wasn't much to watch on it anyway, there were no video games yet, etc. And I don't know if this is true but it just seems like sleep medication has its significant downsides... Even my mom, the numero uno pill-popper that I know, does not take a sleeping pill with her cocktail of daily meds and arsenal of vitamins.
So my whole life I've never known what the hell is wrong with me. But I have had issues with sleep. Or maybe the problem is that I actually *do* know what is wrong with me, I just described it in this post, and there is no solution. Luckily I don't have a complete inability to sleep, no, I am fortunate (having read what people experience with true insomnia). I just cannot maintain a sleep schedule. At best, my sleep schedule might last a week until I have something that throws it off one way or another.
I hate being alive. I'm convinced that if I was rich and didn't have to constantly by anywhere, and therefore didn't have to constantly sleep at a certain time, I probably wouldn't be the healthiest (because there are health consequences) but I'd be happier. And not just for the obvious reason of being monetarily rich, but being time rich. I could sleep whenever I want. I would probably still struggle with sleeping before something that I wanted to do, but I could choose how often that that happens, maybe once a week, twice a week. If I wanted to see a movie I could stay up and go to the earliest screening, then come home and sleep, or I could wake up and go to the last screening.
HAVING, NEEDING to sleep at exactly a certain time in order to get exactly 8 hours before HAVING, NEEDING to do something that makes me want to CTB is just impossible.
I hate structure, because it must constantly be built around something that I hate. Even when I've had a job, I can't hold it for very long, maybe 9-12 months at most. Eventually the sleep issues catch up, the warnings and then punishments for arriving at work late, being tired at work, etc.
If I could have one meager super power, it would be to sleep on command, and for the precise amount I needed to sleep for to feel refreshed. To always get the necessary amount of sleep, to not have to fight with myself every god damn night to sleep, and to not wake up feeling tired. If there is anything worse than my other issues with sleep, it's that when I manage to get sleep, it feels like sleep didn't work. That happened today actually, but thankfully I'm unemployed. Had weird dreams about me being at a house party, which then turned into being locked in a house with a psycho who would dress as a clown and play baseball, the dream implied he killed the ump for a bad call, then became a murderer, and now he traps people in his wannabe SAW movie house. I warned a guy to not look through the peephole of the door and then instead drills came out of the floor and went through his feet. Then I was in a pool with Call of Duty 4 military dogs as an audience of people watched. That's what happens when I finally get sleep, it's lovely. I'm glad it turned out to be one of those weird nightmares where I wasn't really afraid for some reason, it was like I had enough control over the nightmare to survive but not escape.
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