I can't sleep. I can't sleep, I can't sleep, I can't sleep. Why do I sleep late every day? Because without the aid of sleeping pills, I CAN'T SLEEP.
I try to sleep. I go to bed at 12, at 2, early times for me. But then I lay there for the next few hours, listening to the cat snore, listening to the rain, listening to the call to prayer, listening to every damn thing that confirms to me that I'm not sleeping.
Not that sleeping helps. Oh no, hahaha. That would be too kind for my brain. No, no, when I sleep it's the most restless, active-dreaming sleep that when I wake up, I realize I've been asleep. There's virtually no difference! Not even the pills help with that. By pills I mean the PM versions of common headache medicines. Lest you think I've gone the rock star way. Not quite nightmares but by no means pleasant dreams, just weird stories that disturb and sadden and confuse me, every night. And thus, I never wake up rested no matter how late I get up. But Leyla, you say, when the body sleeps more, it feels more tired. Of course you don't feel rested, you're sleeping too much. I beg to differ kind, disembodied voice. When one falls asleep around 5 and gets up at 1, that's not too much sleep. That's the normal amount of sleep the body requires. So technically I should wake up refreshed! Ready! Happy to take on the day! But that would be too kind, no, I should just keep on waking up feeling like something really heavy ran me over. Not a car, not a tractor. A monster truck maybe. One that has a personal vendetta against me.
I have too many thoughts in my head. They swirl around and repeat themselves and spawn many other tiny thoughts like those asexual organisms you learn about in biology. They don't need a mate to reproduce, they just build up and up and then through mitosis or osmosis or some other reaction, they make another. But my thoughts don't let that stay put, oh oh! No, they'll then analyze the meanings of osmosis and mitosis and add meiosis and all the useless information I have stored in there will unravel and join the thoughts until my head is so full, my brain begs to be let out.
You could make a science fiction movie out of my mind. The Girl Who Thought Too Much. You know what the finale would be? Complete, psychotic breakdown. The brain devours the girl, then everything else until the world is a black hole created by a monstrous brain. Hmm. Is this what happens when I stop the Paxil? I thought I was doing fine but then, I could sleep with Paxil. The thoughts wouldn't mutliply like bunnies in heat with Paxil. I didn't grit my teeth, to fight the weird about-to-cry-ness that always seems present, with Paxil. The weird, about-to-cry-ness that comes with any excess of emotion, was never present with Paxil. Supposedly, the reason people cry is because our bodies over-react and produce chemicals and hormones. Well, bottle me up, because apparently I have enough chemicals and hormones to appease both junkies and the sexually confused alike (respectively, the junkies get the chemicals the boy-girls or girl-boys get the hormones.)
Once upon a time, people were scared of anti-depressants including a girl named me. What if they made you a zombie? And not the cool kind of zombie that ate brains (oh-ho, want mine? It's chock full of yummy thoughts), but the kind that had no personality and was numb to the world. But then the girl named me was prescribed Paxil. And it was all right. It made the choking feeling and the heart racing stop and the personality stay the same. And then she went off it and thought, hey! No side effects! She was smart and didn't do it like the last time where she forgot the pills when she went to visit her boyfriend's family and ended up vomiting the entire night from withdrawal and the worst fucking headache a head has had to suffer. In the world. Ever. Your boyfriend's mom's chocolate cranberry brownies ain't so tasty passing through your throat the opposite way. This time, she slowed it down and cut it off. And she was fine and wondering what good were they really? Was it all psychosomatic? Maybe it did really help because right now she's feeling more of the psycho without the somatic. Or is it because she knows, and the brain knows, and the thoughts know, she's off it?
My brain hurts. The thoughts hurt it. And my jaw hurts. The teeth gritting hurts it. Especially since teeth really have no control over eyes and tear ducts as much as we'd like them to.
Sometimes little girls have to ask, Universe? I hope you have a fucking plan because days like today happen and I just can't understand why. Tossing and turning in bed doesn't help especially when your fickle cat growls every time you come near her rear (which sets off even more thoughts, seriously the slightest thing; did the cat suffer some horrible rear-end situation in a past life? In this life? Do cats get reincarnated? What was the cat's life before she found the little girl? Was she happy? Is she happy now? What if something happens to the cat? Will the little girl be okay (NO))? And so on. Oh and don't even get the girl started on life without the cat because right now, the unsuspecting creature is pretty much all that's holding her together.
Little girls aren't as little as they would like to me. They get tired of bullshit and thoughts and mouth aches and lack of sleeping. It's not fair to count on Paxil and pills, because it's just asking too much of them. It's too much pressure for the poor little pills. And the brain. And the jaw. And the eyes. And the head. And the heart.
So Universe, help out a not-so-little little girl. OR AT LEAST LET ME GET SOME SLEEP.
No comments:
Post a Comment