Healing And Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 8

I am today, manifesting a kind of behaviour that would make me suspect to the mental health industry. I have insomnia. It is 3:06 am and I have been up for an hour. I had a shower, cleaned my apartment, had some devotional time, made some coffee and now I'm waiting for my eggs to boil. My sleep has been broken like this for the past three nights, following a couple of weeks of almost seamlessly sound sleep. This is nothing unusual for me. Following breakfast I am going to curl up for a nap for a couple of hours, go for a long five mile walk then start my workday, this morning a meeting at 8:40 am, followed by two clients, a doctor's appointment, then another client. I expect to be quite whacked by the time I get home. I might even have a good full night's sleep. I am not particularly worried about this, by the way, and if any mental health clinician or practitioner or whatever impressive clinical title they want to be known by, even suggests that this is a symptom of illness, that perhaps I need medication, etcetera, then let me be the first to laugh in their face. I happen to know a thing or two about my sleep needs. I go through cycles of relative insomnia. I wake up after three or four hours, then I have to get up, start my day, have breakfast, then go down for another two or three hours for a nap. It isn't a perfect solution, but it works. I am also aware that the sleep difficulties usually arise with unusual stress. (Excuse me, the eggs are boiling) It is now nearly two hours later. The eggs didn't boil exactly, but the water they were in while on top of the stove. Details, details! Following breakfast I napped for more than an hour in my recliner chair. It wasn't exactly a sleep, more of a light doze while listening to a fascinating radio documentary about the current state of diversity in South Africa. I did dream a little bit, but really, I had five hours solid sleep during the night, thanks to getting to sleep super early at around 8:30. Now, about this insomnia, and why this doesn't make me mentally ill. First of all, there is plenty of clinical research that has found that human sleep patterns are varied and variable, and that there is a sizable population that has a natural segmented sleep cycle. I seem to inhabit this demographic and it has historical antecedents. Before we had electric lighting to keep us awake well into the night, people had a natural tendency of sleeping through cycles. They would fall asleep shortly after dinner, at nightfall, as there was simply not sufficient lighting for staying awake. Then many would wake up in the middle of the night, get up, do things, then go back to sleep for a while till the early morning and then get started with the business of the new day. In other words, a full eight hour sleep, from ten or eleven at night till six or seven in the morning, is a relatively novel concept brought on by industrialization, and doesn't necessarily correspond with natural human sleep cycles. So, don't expect to see me at the pharmacy counter, at least not for anything like that. I do of course have a pituitary and thyroid condition and today I will be seeing an endocrinologist for the first time in over a year. After I was hospitalized for almost a week almost three years ago because of a health breakdown allegedly from my malfunctioning glands, I was seeing a rather unhelpful endocrinologist every three months or so. I finally rebelled and refused to see this specialist, and only at the nagging of my health care provider have I agreed to see another endocrinologist, even though I'm feeling fine. I have also noticed that I am fighting cold symptoms for the past four days or so, and I am certain that this is a psychosomatic reaction to seeing a specialist whom I am going to instinctively associate with my hospitalization. Today is also the anniversary of my mother's death, which also often brings on sleep difficulties and physical symptoms. I'm not worried. These little farts in the road simply remind me of what I should already know by now: that I am a flawed, vulnerable and imperfect human being, nothing more, nothing less. And that as long as I take care not to stress or worry about this fact of mortality, I need not have to worry about making myself ill mentally, psychologically, emotionally or spiritually. In a viciously capitalist, brutally ableist society that celebrates strength, competition and winning, I think it is especially noteworthy that we recall, recognize and celebrate our human fragility, the brokenness that makes us so uniquely, so exasperatingly, and so beautifully human. And now I am going to have another little nap, Gentle Reader.