insomnia

i feel the need to mention that i slept for about three hours last night. i have no idea how i'm still conscious despite my efforts to surrender to the realm of dreams.

depersonalization

i'm not depressed.

i just feel really detached from everything.

normally the right use of pathos will get me, usually by making my heart flutter.
if a certain song came on the radio that made me feel particularly nostalgic, often times i'd have to fight back tears. at the same time, movies that were notorious for being a tear-jerker usually didn't phase me. there were some things that hit me hard, and others that did nothing for me.
my emotions, on a normal basis, were pretty stable. i didn't cry over everything, but i wasn't completely cold-hearted either.

then came my weird emo phase. (though this was before "emo" really existed. i didn't get an asymmetrical haircut and wear skinny jeans. i just mean everything, and i mean everything affected me emotionally) i was so freakin' sensitive. to everything! watching The Little Mermaid made me sob once, despite the fact that i had already watched the movie about 50 times before. commercials on TV for diapers would make me teary-eyed because seeing a happy, laughing baby - for whatever reason - made me sad. i couldn't listen to the radio because any song that came up that reminded me of high school resulted in sobbing. if i laughed too hard at something funny, i cried.

that lasted for a long time.

then i went back to normal. figured it was just hormones or something.


and now....


i'm just going through the motions.

nothing feels real. i feel like i'm just going through this long, slow dream.
i'm not sad. if anything, i'm actually feeling quite indifferent. though i don't seem to care about much i am, at least, rational enough to realize that this isn't normal.

or is it? maybe it is normal. maybe it'll only last for a little while.

(see how i always second-guess myself?)

i'm not reacting to things properly. my father-in-law was taken to the hospital the other day. he was at the doctor's office for a routine check-up, and the doctor didn't like what she saw on his EKG so she called for an ambulance and had him sent off to the hospital.
when my mother-in-law called to tell me, i said oh so casually, "ok, i'm heading over right now." gently put the phone down, drove over to pick her up and listened to her freak out all the way to the hospital. i managed to calm her down a little bit, pointing out the fact that if he hadn't had a heart attack. and not to mention that since he was able to pick up his cell phone to call and casually tell her, "i'm going to the hospital. i feel fine, so don't worry. it's just a precaution." that he's alright.
i didn't get that sense of dread i usually feel upon arriving at a hospital. not that i've ever had a bad experience at one, but i don't particularly like the way they smell. and i feel bad for all the sick people. and i'm a teeny bit of a germophobe, convinced that i'll contract something just by walking around. but...none of those usual feelings hit me this time. i walked into that hospital and into his room like i was at home.

i adore my father-in-law. i know that under normal circumstances i'd feel something about all this. concern, at the very least. yet i still felt...well....nothing. i joked around a little bit to release some of the tension. he did look kind of worried. apparantly his father had heart problems. scary.
i wasn't worried. it's not like i didn't care. i did care. i do care. but my heart didn't give that lurch i usually feel at the mere thought of a loved one getting sick or hurt.

so at first i though, "hey...maybe i'm just a lot more stable now with the emotions! i'm cool as a cucumber! that must be it." even "denial" had crossed my mind.

but i dont think i was merely remaining calm. even if you're able to maintain composure, either the emotions are buzzing around within your mind or they'll resurface later if you're able to block them out completely for as long as necessary. i'm feeling....well....nothing.

things that normally annoy the hell out of me don't phase me.
i used to take everything so personally. if a stranger was mean to me i'd dwell on it for hours, wondering why they had to be so rude and what i had done to deserve it in that i'm so polite to everyone.
now, i barely even notice if anyone in public addresses me, let alone insults me. (this one day i had gotten really bent out of shape because the Starbucks barista at my school had greeted everyone ahead of me with a "good morning!" and a smile, and when i came up to the counter i smiled, said "morning" just to be greeted by a half-hearted, "hi". this had severely hurt my feelings to the point that i never bought coffee at school after that. i'd go down the street instead. ridiculous!)
i used to cringe every time my parents started bickering. which is always. no matter where we are. now, i barely even hear them.

one could argue that i'm just developing a shield. does having thick skin seriously mean you don't care about a single thing?

i don't think so.


i catch myself zoning out while people are talking to me. doesn't matter who it is or how important the conversation is. i have to struggle to pay close attention, otherwise i just drift off into the world in my head. (it's okay, they know me there!)


all this change in personality and emotion (or lack thereof) started about 2 years ago.
i'm not particularly bothered by any of this. but i am rational enough to recognize the fact that this isn't "normal".



maybe it's a side-effect of the insomnia. it is, in fact, 4a.m. and i haven't gotten a good-night's sleep for days and days. hmm.

hooray for sleep deprivation! no...wait...

i've always been nocturnal. a creature of the night! for me it's normal to want to sleep all day and stay up all night.

throughout my entire childhood my parents had trouble putting me to bed. when i was a baby my grandfather noticed that i always fell asleep on car rides, so at night he'd strap me up in my car seat and drive around the neighborhood till i dozed off.

how cute is that?

to this day i sleep very well in a moving vehicle. luckily when i'm behind the wheel i don't get drowsy or anything. unless of course i've been up for x amount of hours, like i wrote about in my 2nd blog entry (ack! sparrows!). i do get reeeaaally bored when i'm driving though. but that's what music is for. XM radio....even better!

when i was a kid my bedtime was at 9pm. naturally, i expressed my strong objection to this every single night. after my dad would read to me i would just lay in bed... in the dark...bored out of my mind. hours later i'd finally drift off, usually waking up multiple times throughout the night/early morning.
most nights i spent under the covers with a flashlight and a book. good thing i had a lot of books. i guess that's how i maintained my sanity!

kindergarten was great because i only went for half a day, in the afternoon class! so i'd sleep in till about 11a.m. every day. i still had difficulty getting up at 11, though! and when i started the 1st grade...man! talk about a rude awakening. for 10 years, every single weekday morning throughout the entire school year was miserable.

high school wasn't so bad because i found out that i could function rather well with a mere 3-4 hours of sleep each night. i'd go to bed between 2-3 a.m. and wake up at 6 to be at school by 7. I actually felt more alert and had tons of energy when i got less than 5 hours of sleep.
hmm...now that i think about it...i did occasionally indulge in the art of napping.

on the weekends i'd get 6-8 hours of sleep. i'd stay up till 5am or so...stumble out of bed in the afternoon. as long as my parents let me get away with it, that is. but i'd feel so sluggish for the rest of the day.

well anyway. i seem to always give so much background information.

i am so irritated with the fact that:
a) it takes me forever to fall asleep, no matter how tired or sleepy i am.
b) i dream every single night. sometimes my dreams are fun and interesting. other times, they're stupid and pointless. really think that my nighttime head trips just tire me out.
and i can actually read in my dreams. i don't think you're supposed to be able to do that. if i'm not mistaken, the portion of your brain that reads text isn't active as you're sleeping.

ooh, maybe i'm not dreaming and actually traveling about the astral plane!

cool!

yeah, i don't know about that.
but, hey. who knows?!

could it be lucid dreams? would that tire me out, though? hmm. i have some research to do.

c) when i finally do fall asleep, in between dreams, i wake up throughout the night. sometimes it's two or three times. other times it's every hour or so.

i'm not anxious. i meditate. i practice yoga. i don't play video games/use the computer/watch tv/get overly excited before going to bed. i have a few hours of "quiet time" to just wind down. sometimes i'll read or listen to some relaxing trance or classical music.

i remember there was a time when i couldn't sleep without the radio on. but that was when i was in high school.

i really don't know what to do.
i guess i have some kind of a sleep disorder. i don't think there's anything really wrong with being a night person *hisses at the sun*...but there is something wrong with waking up 5,395 times a night and sitting around for hours waiting for the sandman to come (did he get laid off?!?).

i don't like the idea of taking sleeping pills. the last thing i need is to develop an addiction.

maybe i'll look into going to a Sleep Center. let them stick those...erm...thingies all over me and monitor my brain waves, breathing, heart rate...all that stuff.

(note to self: invest in a vocabulary builder. thingies? come on, now.)

oh well.

carpe noctem!