“The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night's sleep.”

(Title quote by E. Joseph Cossman)

When I was in college, I had what I now consider a superpower. Purely by decision, I could fall asleep within about 30 seconds. 

I developed my self-imposed narcolepsy out of need. I had two majors and two jobs and not a lot of time to sleep. So when I had a few minutes (literally), I would will myself to catch a little REM (not the band, although they were a favorite). It was surprisingly effective. And disappointingly, a skill I lost when I no longer needed it.

Oh, how I envy that 20-year-old version of myself. 

When chronic back pain entered my life just a handful of years later, it came toting a popular companion: insomnia, although I much prefer the term painsomnia.

For several decades now, I have had cycles of really crummy sleep. Always able to fall asleep, annoying pain will often wake me up in the wee hours and prevent me from returning to my dreamy state. I have seen 3:30am and many sunrises over the years, rarely by choice.

A few months ago, the other version of insomnia introduced itself. Officially called “onset insomnia,” this is the type of insanity in which you simply can not fall asleep. IT SUCKS.

It started in January during an oddly cold, dry, high barometric pressure weather snap. After a couple weeks of uncharacteristically bad nights, I put a question on a local weather Facebook page asking if anyone else was experiencing recent sleep issues. The response was fast and validating. Lots of folks who were used to easily getting lots of quality sleep were now tossing and turning and dragging through the day. Blessedly, one wise woman commented that she had brought out her humidifier (rarely needed in the Pacific Northwest) and had been sleeping ever since. Brilliant!

Yes, of course my humidifier is a cow.
Steam comes out of its ears. SO ADORABLE!
And effective! Sleep was mine!

But then…despite moisture and low-pressure systems, the inability to fall asleep came back. Can’t tell you exactly when or why, but by the time we went on a trip to visit family in California the last week of February, I was sleep-deprived and nervous that I would ruin the trip by edgily staying awake the entire time.

The hotel’s change of scenery helped. After a couple of nights tossing and turning and cranking the AC both for the cool temps and the white noise, I finally slept. The next night, too. It was glorious! The spell had been broken!

Nope.

Pretty much as soon as we returned home, so did the maddening inability to fall asleep. All through March. Which was largely spent trying every trick, tip, potion, and gadget I could get my hands on. 

Melatonin, magnesium (powder, lotion, and pills), Benadryl, Dramamine, muscle relaxants, fancy ear plugs, breathing exercises including ones to activate the parasympathetic nervous system/vagus nerve, counting backwards from 300 by 3s and 7s, body scanning, meditation, boring books (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, anyone?), crying (a lot), lavender this that and the other thing, brand new Bluetooth earplugs so I could listen to things designed to make me drift off to sleep. Things like white noise, pink noise, and brown noise (who knew there were so many colors to sound??). Delta wave music, sleep stories, Tai Chi music my acupuncturist plays in her treatment rooms, music to soothe cats (not even kidding), 11 hours of a clothes dryer running and a railcar on a train track. So. Many. Things.

I got so desperate – and with resigned apologies to the deeply instilled Nancy Reagan campaign to just say no to drugs – I even tried CBD gummies. Granted, they didn’t have any THC in them, so Nancy shouldn’t have been tsk tsking me anyway. Despite being billed as “strawberry lemonade,” the chewy discs tasted like a dirty, oily weed that really should be spit out. While the gummies did indeed calm down my very active brain, they didn’t do anything to induce sleep. Yawn.

Even Rob joined the treasure hunt for The Thing That Will Work and started wearing a plastic contraption designed in Italy and mailed from China to reduce his snoring to a gentle, breathy hum…if he makes any noise at all. Although I would deem the QuietLab mouthpiece a miracle for mostly eliminating Rob's snoring, I became so obsessively focused on creating the perfect sleep environment, the “mostly” wasn’t good enough.

Somewhere in there, I saw my doctor who prescribed a new sleep med. The medication designed to address anxiety and insomnia was only randomly effective. However, I do smile at the thought that my medical records now include "dehydrated zombie" as my reason for abandoning hydroxyzine. I will be donating my bottle at the next Drug Take Back Day

Early April took us on a 16-day cruise across the Pacific Ocean and back, booked when I was sleeping like a normal human and had the guts to plan…anything. Since the California hotel had eventually induced sleep, I prayed the change of scenery once again – this time with the added bonus of a lightly swaying ship – would lull me to sleep. And eventually, it did. HALLELUJAH! I slept well almost every night of the cruise!

Rested, relaxed, and happy.
Sleep is a glorious thing.

Infuriatingly, two days after we got home, the insomnia was back. Somehow, my brain had decided that it could not sleep at home. As much as I love to travel, having to leave Woodhaven to sleep was both inane and unsustainable. 

Furious at my brain, I decided it was time to reprogram it. I called David, the hypnotherapist who helped me turn down the volume of my back pain by using a hypnosis “trigger” instead of a narcotic. I hadn’t seen David since long before Covid. I was grateful he is still practicing.

After two sessions with David, I was sleeping! Every night. For 7-9 hours. Without medication. It was incredible! I truly had not had that much quality, restorative sleep in 30 years. My brain was reprogrammed and my mind was blown. I was telling everyone who had seen my defeated, sleepy self about the magic and wonders of hypnosis. IT WAS AMAZING!

And then, it stopped working. But for a reason. 

A conversation one night left me pretty upset. So upset that I couldn’t sleep despite the hypnosis trigger. Although it is very natural to not be able to sleep when you are upset, my brain decided the inability to sleep meant the hypnosis didn’t work after all. As soon as I started to believe that, my sleep was once again doomed. Lordy, our brains are powerful.

After 4 nights of getting only 2-3 hours of nonconsecuative sleep, I was on the edge of my sanity and done trying to find The One Thing that would make me sleep. By 10:00am the next morning, I had appointments with my medical doctor, David, and my cognitive behavioral therapist. I was calling in my Big Guns.

That was one week ago. 

Thanks to a new prescription (Trazodone), David’s soothing assurances to both my conscious and subconscious minds, and some bewilderingly effective advice from my cognitive behavioral therapist (give your anxiety a name – like Martha – and talk to her with compassion), I am sleeping again! And with a level of confidence that I decided I could finally write about it. Because somehow this time feels different, in a very good, healthy way.

Wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night insomnia is typically due to pain issues; onset insomnia is typically due to anxiety issues. Having now experienced both, I will strive to never complain about painsomnia again. Onset insomnia is AWFUL, HORRIBLE, and MADDENING. The fact that my back hurts in the midst of it is rather trivial.

Languishing for hours in bed or around the house in different beds/couches is lonely and frustrating and defeating. Being so tired you are swaying and nauseous but still can’t sleep is confounding and scary. Believing you have somehow forgotten how to sleep is tempting and dangerous. Not being able to sleep creates anxiety which feeds on itself and it is incredibly hard to shake. It is frighteningly easy to start becoming obsessive and compulsive about what isn’t working and what to try next. Night after night after night.

It is a dark, nervous, frantic pit. No wonder I couldn’t sleep. 

I thank God I have loving, compassionate, helpful people – doctors, therapists, prayer partners, a husband – who threw me enough lifelines to finally climb out. After over 4 months of despair, I now have hope.