Sleep and depression
Remember when sleep was normal? High school, maybe, when going to bed at midnight or later and waking up at 6:30 was OK? Sure, you wanted more sleep. You slept like a goddam rock on the weekends, didn’t emerge from your bedroom until noon. But during the week those 6 hours got you through a high school day.
Now, depressive bipolar has thrown my rhythm off to the point that I need 8, sometimes 9 hours of sleep each night. And it’s not as if I wake up refreshed from those long slumbers, either: I need multiple cups of coffee to get myself moving in the morning.
These days I’m forcing myself awake at 6:30 am to write. This means I crash at 10 pm each night — barely enough time to get home from work, eat some dinner and do a couple of things before dropping off in the middle of whatever it is I’m doing. The doctor says I shouldn’t need this much sleep, that 8-9 hours are excessive. I’d love to join the rest of America in its 6-hour slumber, but it just won’t work. The big D wins again.
Last year, when I first started taking Abilify for depression, I’d wake up at 4 am ready to go. Wide awake, full-on like bright headlights. I didn’t even seem to have bedhead when I woke up in the middle of the dark night; it was as if I hadn’t gone to bed at all, yet I was refreshed and alert. This mania subsided after about two or three months. I miss it. If I could go off Abilify then go back on again and feel that way, I’d do it. But I know it doesn’t work that way.
The most frustrating thing about my illness is how little I’m able to rely on myself. I don’t know what my mental state will be from day to day. Will I be sleepy-headed and cottony today or sharp and anxious? Those are my poles and the swing rate is about one week. One week on, one week off. But day to day variations sneak in to baffle my predictions and my plans for myself.
At least the illness spared me my high school years.