Sleep

The last time I really slept was more than a month ago. Most nights, like tonight, my brain spins with problems I need to but can't solve, and my body tells me I can't sleep until I fix at least SOMETHING. But, I don't even know which parts are broken much less how to fix them, so I wander--literally and figuratively. On the worst nights, I drive, hurtling further and further into the darkness in search of answers. Most nights, though, I spend wandering through the rooms of our house or into remote corners of the internet.

Wandering in late-night Kyoto.

In college, when my depression was undiagnosed and unmanaged, I avoided real sleep and chose instead to  string together a series of 20-minute naps over the course of any given night. When I did try to sleep longer than that, I found it easier to relax on the floors of friends' dorm rooms far from all the things that were worrying me. After I moved to Japan in my twenties, I had a standing invitation to use the hammock my fellow teacher had strung across her living room. She lived 10 miles away along windy mountain roads, but I still found myself there often. I can't think of a more generous act than letting someone sleep with you like that.

These days, it's a little harder to accommodate my wandering sleep habits. In fact, these days, a lot of of the self-preservation techniques I developed the LAST time I struggled with depression 25 years ago feel completely out of reach. Special needs co-parenting with a disabled spouse has shown me that ignoring my needs is the best way to get through most days, even it is a terrible idea.

Despite the reappearance of my symptoms, everyone else's needs haven't suddenly and miraculously disappeared. Ren still loses hours and days to pain and depression. Stow still melts down and engages in risky behavior. Sky still goes into anxiety spirals and wreaks havoc with his lack of empathy. The kids still need to get places and do things. Dinner still needs to be served. Clothes need to be washed and bodies bathed. And, of course, someone needs to make some money to keep the whole thing running. Who has time to be depressed? I mean, really!

Ironically, this experience will probably turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. Constantly running myself ragged and ignoring my own health is a terrible way to parent. I've known this for awhile but didn't see a compelling reason to change. Funny*** how depression has a way of forcing me to.

***By "funny," I probably mean "this is totally irritating and completely annoying," but since I haven't had much sleep, it's really hard to know.

Also, if you haven't read it, I recommend the short story "Sleep" by Murakami Haruki. It's in a collection called The Elephant Vanishes. "The Second Bakery Attack" and "The Elephant Vanishes" in the same collection are also pretty great.