Sleep...or Lack Thereof

I have a problem. I never thought it would happen in a million years. I swore up and down that it wouldn't. But, here I am turning into my mother. At night, anyway.

Until recently, insomnia was a foreign idea to me. I could sleep anytime, anywhere, as soon as my drowsy head hit the pillow. Enjoying eight or nine hours a night in a semi coma-like state was the norm. Once, in my younger, single days, I even slept through an attempted break-in to my apartment. Cops showed up and everything, and I didn't so much as stir. When my roommate told me about it the next day, I refused to beleive her until she showed me where the screen door had been smashed in.

But lately, something has shifted. It feels like a hormonal thing. Not every night, but during certain times of the month, I lay awake for hours, my mind racing, my body totally exhausted but unable to get the rest it needs. I've tried a number of things. Herbal pills, and teas, and a recent prescription for Adavan my doctor suggested I take. Sometimes they work, but not always. Not on the really bad nights, when I feel like running a marathon at three in the morning. I probably could too, but I know I'd be even more of a basket case at work the next day. So I keep laying there, trying desperately to make my brain shut down and catch a couple of zzz's. And hoping it won't get worse like it did with my mother.

My mother has suffered from sleep deprivation for years, usually getting no more than four or five hours of sleep a night, and very often, only an hour or two at a time. When she still worked, she would then get up and put in a full day, sometimes doing 12 hour shifts.

It explains a lot now. I can understand her annoyance with us, which at the time I couldn't. And it was hard. There was a lot of internalizing and self-blaming. But as the saying goes, "You'll understand when you get older",  I suppose I finally do. I understand the irritable sighs and impatient, sometimes biting remarks were not my fault. I wasn't the cause, at least not directly, of her frustration.

I also understand being exhausted to the point of feeling nauseous, so dazed and out of it that it's probably not wise to be driving around the city, especially with a little boy in the backseat. A boy who likes to ask questions and talk and laugh and doesn't deserve to be ignored or snarled at because Mommy's too tired to answer. I also know I'm not the only sleep-deprived Mom out there on the loose.

So, I try to keep it together, at least until he's home, safe in bed and I curl up with a book and some warm milk and pray to the sleep gods to please just let me have a decent night's rest...

What do you do when you can't sleep? If anyone has any other suggestions, let me know - I'll try anything right now!