Worst... trip.... EVAR
I've been out in northern Germany all week on business, usually I love business trips and I have a great time on them, but this one was hell. I think the only thing that made it bearable was that I was travelling with one of the managers that I actually get along with well, very cool guy, smart, fun to chitchat with (no he doesn't know about me btw).
I always have trouble sleeping the first night or two in a new bed, especially when stressed out about being in the field, but this time things we're taken to a new level. Didn't sleep on the plane, after being up for 30+ hours I only got an hour or two sleep the first night, absolutely no sleep the second night, a few hours the third and fourth, and last night, nothing again. This is all while working 12 to 14 hour days mind you, in a fucking country with no sun (just saw the sun for the first time since I've been here).
I don't know what others know of insomnia, but it really is hell on earth. When this hits me, the thoughts I have scare me. I want to scream, throw the TV out the window, break everything in sight, and while I don't want to off myself entirely, I have no problem punching things, or just slapping myself in anger ("why the fuck are you so fucked up that you can't even fucking sleep"), and the thought of just dropping dead sounds very inviting.
It scares me
I've also been incredibly short tempered with Becca during this time, who is going through her own trouble as she deals with a ceiling that almost caved in in one of our rooms. I get mad at her, I know I'm being stupid about it, which makes me angry at myself, so once I'm done beating myself up, I want her support, then when we talk, I just find a reason to get angry again. I see myself doing it, I hear the mean words coming out of my mouth, and while I feel justified in fury to say them, the second they come out I feel awful, which just repeats the whole cycle. I lay there trying to sleep, thinking over and over of everything that was said, the pitch it was said at, how it was said, and sleep just gets further and further away from me which makes me more and more insane. All I can hear is my heartbeat thumping, it sounds like its someone in the next room punching the wall, and I want to tear my ribcage open just to silence that incessant noise.
Every night, when I go to bed, a worrying thought goes through my head.... what if tonight, you won't sleep.... and about once every week or two, I simply wont be able to. I've been this way for as long as I can remember.
I try everything, warm milk, whisky, walking, reading, changing beds, talking to myself, counting things, different white noise generators, but the thing is, I'm so focused on how much difficulty I'm having trying to sleep, that I just make myself worse.
Becca keeps telling me to just let it go, to just find something to focus on. She sounds angry at me for not being able to follow her simple directions.... thing is.... when you're like this, simple instructions like that just infuriate you, yes it sounds simple to do, but to me, its as simple as climbing mount Everest while completely naked. Just the simple task of clearing your mind is one that I have never been able to do, the concept just doesn't make sense to me, even while typing this I'm thinking of work at the same time, and listening to the conversations outside my window, hearing a truck shift back and forth, wondering what happened for him to become so stuck, shit I can barely focus on one thing at a time let alone nothing.
Thing is, I don't know where all of this is coming from. And if I don't know that, how can I avoid this in the future?. I'm actually considering going on anti anxiety meds, my skyrocketing pot habit over the past couple of months has simply been a coping mechanism, lets face it, I may be finally going where I want to go, but it feels like its tearing my life apart at the same time, but I know I can't stop.
Becca hasn't looked at me without sadness and pain in months now, I can't bear to be around her family anymore whereas in the past I loved spending time with them, we look at pictures that we take of us, and I can see how sad she is looking at them, I'm not a guy anymore, I'm not a woman, that's for sure, but I am most definitely not a guy. I've been comparing myself to the 99% male workforce at this shipyard, I don't look, walk, talk, anything like these people, and they stare at me, they don't stare at any of the other guys I'm walking with, but they do to me, I wonder what they see when they look at me.
I hope I'm simply overwhelmed, I never do well during the xmas holidays, I find it an incredibly stressful time of year, and I had to cut the vacation short this year to work, and head out here, which really doesn't help either. But at the same time, this insomnia isn't normal, my freaking out at 3AM and screaming into my pillow for minutes isn't healthy, my looking forward to getting so fucking shitfaced tonight at the hotel bar that I can't walk or see, just to be able to sleep before flying home tomorrow, isn't healthy either.
Sure I'll talk to my shrink about it on Wednesday, but when this happens again (and it will), what - the - fuck - do - I - do ?. If this keeps going I'm going to die of a heart attack before I'm 40.
Becca says that I'm just too terrified of being alone, and all the stress of the situation is compounding that fear, so that when I try to get a hold of her and I can't, I flip and get angry at her once I can reach her. She's probably right, I try to reach out, can't, and feel sad, bad, depressed, lonely, and when I get in touch with her, its like I want her to feel what I was feeling, even though its not her fault or issue whatsoever.
I'm so tired, I just want to be able to flip a switch and turn myself off, but I know if I was given a bed now, as soon as I put my head down I would snap awake. It just feels like too much for one woman to take...
thanks for listening, hope you have sweet dreams
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