What's the worst thing that can happen to a college student? Well, maybe not worse than a raging case of some incurable sexually transmitted disease, your professors hitting on to you even though they're three times your age and not your type, or running out of cigarettes during the middle of an hour-long phone call from your mom when you want nothing more than to watch a movie or read online comic strips. Other than these things, what is the worst thing that can happen to a college student? You guessed it: Insomnia.
In two words: It sucks. I mean, come on. We all slept like babies back in the old days. Remember in grade school? Sure, we never wanted to go to sleep, but even if our parents said we could stay up, it was only because they felt they had the energy to carry us upstairs after we passed out twenty minutes after our normal bed time. What about middle school—sometimes referred to as junior high by people other than me—and high school? Yeah, we'd stay up late on weekends and sleep in on Saturday, and even if we didn't fall asleep at a normal hour during the week, we would still manage to be in dreamland before 2:30 in the morning. But then, well, then we went to college and we met the dreaded thing that is insomnia.
Maybe at first it is the excitement of being in a new school in a new place. Maybe it's the nervousness of it all. Maybe we're afraid of our 6 foot 6 inch roommate who looks like he might eat your 5 foot 6 inch self for breakfast if you don't wake up before he does in the morning. But in all honesty, it's probably just the drugs. Or the beer. Maybe the sweet, sweet nicotine. Whatever it is that's causing the insomnia, the point is, it's causing it, and insomnia is happening. But enough about causes. Who knows what it is anyway? Maybe the Psych Majors know some causes for this nighttime disease, but last I checked, I was a Psych Major. And I haven't figured it out, though I sort of suck at being a Psych Major.
Anyway, some of you are probably nodding your heads right now, reading this at four in the morning, saying to yourselves something to the extent of "Right on man, insomnia is not a trip. Dude, why can't I sleep? My teddy bear is eating my soul." Others are saying, "What insomnia? And what's he talking about with this teddy bear?" I'm getting to that.
You see, the thing is, not many people believe in insomnia. Many people think that those afflicted by this so-called "sleeping problem" are actually just trying to stay up. Well, this is a lie! We can't sleep, dammit. I'm not going to get into the symptoms and different forms of insomnia, like the constant waking up, or the slow sleep, or the non-REM types, and whatnot. I have my little DSM-IV psychiatric diagnosis book behind me, but frankly, I don't feel like turning around. Therefore, you don't get a description of all the wonderful types of crap we insomniacs go through. You just get a description of mine. Here we go:
It's like this: we have 24 hours in a day. Yes, we do. Now, we're all supposed to get our nice eight hours, one-third of a day's sleep each night. Many of us can get away with less; many of us need much, much more. I used to be able to function fully on six, function on five, and make it through the day on three. Nowadays, that's just not cutting it. I need at least six to will myself out of bed and seven or eight to function as a human. "What's the problem?" you ask. Well, the problem is, 16 hours of wakefulness does not prepare me for sleep. It takes me at least 20 hours of being awake to be ready to go to bed, no matter what I do. Do the math: you'll see the problem. But I'm getting off topic.
How do you describe this wonderful insomnia? Well, at first you don't want to sleep. You're pretty energetic and you couldn't sleep if you tried. Then you get tired. Then you get really tired. Then you become mentally exhausted, and physically as well. But as hard as you try, you just cannot sleep. You're awake. And there is nothing you can do about it. So you stay up. And stay up. And stay up some more. With nothing to do. You're bored out of your mind. No one else is up. And if they are, you end up at Perkin's over matching cups of coffee, talking about abortion and God and Dr. Pepper while taking a break in conversation every five minutes to use the bathroom. Then the sun comes up; you've been up for a day and a half, and you decide you should go home. At this point, you get home, you look at the clock, realize you have two hours before class starts, decide that it would be a great idea to lie down, and fall asleep for four hours, missing your class. And that sucks.
Now people might ask, "Well, you were able to go to sleep, so why didn't you go to sleep earlier?" I answer by saying, "Because I couldn't, dammit." That's the fun thing with insomnia. You don't get to choose when you sleep. There arise windows of opportunity where it is suddenly possible. And you take them, or you're miserable. There have been times when I have been awake for 48 hours and I'm lying in bed, writhing in extremely tired, but can't go to sleep agony, and was not able to sleep. But maybe that's just me. The side effects are crap as well. Tired-looking, run down, never see daylight, pale skin, friends forgetting your name, not seeing your roommate for a week, people asking if you dropped your major and or out of school, missing classes, missing assignments, getting extremely bad grades, and so on and so forth. We try to deal.
And then sometimes, you win. You beat the insomnia. Maybe you get some sleeping pills. Maybe you make a sleep schedule that you can stick with. Me? I stayed awake for 36 hours so that I would fall asleep at 9:00 PM. And woke up at five in the morning. And did this for a week or two. It was bliss. I slept. I did work. I never got to go out with my friends because I was asleep before 11 every night, but I was sleeping. Than I got sidetracked one night and "BAM!" I was off-schedule again. Goodbye sunlight, hello insomnia.
This is why I'm writing this at 6:21 AM. This is also why this piece is all over the place, and is a piece, if you catch my drift. Because I have been awake. For a very long time. And while my body aches and my mind is tired, I cannot fall asleep. I know not why.
And as for the teddy bear? Well, stay up for a while. Don't go to sleep. Then, when you do, only get two or three hours of it. And then stay up again. Repeat until you see the teddy bear. Cover your soul though, or he'll take it.