INSOMNIA

I have suffered from this mother fucking mind-sucking, soul-destroying condition my entire life. Lately (i.e. over the past couple of years really) I haven't had too much of it, because frankly, between work and constant fatigue, I'm exhausted at night. However, I've been off work for a month and for the past several nights have experienced the most brutal insomnia. I have been oddly anxious and wound up, so I've taken some tranquilizers - which are doing no good. I could take some Unisom but I swear I take 1/2 of those pills and I'm in a drug-induced stupor for a week. I'm honestly afraid if I just keep taking pills I'll end up like Heath Ledger.

But I'm LOSING MY MIND! I feel like my insides are trying to get outside me or something. I feel like scratching my eyes out, or pulling my eyeballs out. I want to shoot the TV and run down the street in the middle of the night in my nightgown screaming. I've rearranged myself in my bed about 600 times. I've switched pillows. I've changed the sheets. I've thrown all the blankets and sheets off the bed. I've turned the fan on, the heat on, the A/C on. NOTHING IS WORKING. I want to murder my bed. Would that be called....matrressicide? HAHA! Not even funny!!!It doesn't help that I got my period today, have had hideous cramps all day and night, a blinding headache and horrible fibro pain. I've gone off the Lyrica to see if it has had anything to do with some recent, odd side effects I've been having...but being off it also means being in an amazingly horrible amount of pain. I have Ultram, but it's only slighter more effective than aspirin at pain control. I wish I had a morphine pump. It's so sad, I can really see how Heath Ledger's death happened. You can't sleep, you start taking more and more pills, you forget what you've taken...it's so easy to go there. Which is why I err on the extreme side of caution and am typing this fucking blog at 3:40 a.m.

Went to the ob/gyn yesterday and had a long talk with her. It's highly unlikely I'm in perimenopause since I'm still having regular periods; I have tried to tell this woman for years I have pre-menstrual dysmorphic disorder (which is like the most hellish version of PMS you can think of) and she's always ignored me. I swear if you're not having a baby, this woman doesn't seem too interested in you. Anyway, for some odd reason, this time she listened to me and told me that new pill called Yaz has actually been OK'ed by the FDA to treat PMDD. She gave me an Rx and I'll get it filled tomorrow. Wouldn't that be a miracle of the highest order if I took something that relieved me of being an emotional and physical wreck 10 days out of the month? It's probably too much to hope for. I haven't been on oral contraceptives for about 4 years.

My friend, who is 48 and has already gone through menopause, started warning me that her 20 year old daughter took Yaz and had breakthrough bleeding. I mean, she warned me like the pill was going to make me grow two heads. Really? Hello? I was on birth control when your daughter was in DIAPERS. I know what break-through bleeding is. I think I can handle it if it happens. If it's too annoying, I'll stop the pill. I've been on a LOT of pills trying to control my PMS. I just get SO irritated when people act like I am mentally disabled. The pill might give me side effects? No shit! Oh and I've probably taken more prescription drugs in a year than you or your daughter have in your entire lives! I don't just have a PDR - I bought a NURSES' PDR because I end up on so many drugs and I need to know everything I can about them.

Really, I mean, she just wouldn't shut up about it. So what if her daughter had to stop it. I'm not her daughter. Let me deal with my own body. It's not like I'm freebasing here. Anyway. I made an appointment to get a mammogram on the 20th (ooooh, Day of Inauguration). The dr. would also like me to get my thyroid checked, just in case. I think stress is probably behind the last two months of wonky PMS symptoms but who knows. Thursday I have to see my ENT and I'm pretty sure I'll be seeing the rheumatologist this month too.

What would it be like to NOT being seeing doctors all the time? For that matter, what would it be like to FUCKING SLEEP LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING. I could strangle my cats, who are curled up into fuzzy, adorable sleeping balls, snoring away. I just want to jump up and down o the bed screaming "WAKE UP FUCKERS!"

Don't tell me I need help. I know it.

Photo: My cat Zoe, trying to sleep. She's really not nearly as fat as she looks but she is really getting on my nerves with her abilities to just KEEP FALLING ASLEEP no matter how many times I wake her up by tossing and turning in bed.