I woke up to pee at 3:30, and then lay awake with agitating thoughts until I finally gave up at 5:30. I tried the whole “let the thoughts just wash over you while at least your body gets some rest” method, but I am not good at letting the thoughts wash over me. I keep grabbing them and wringing them until I’ve gotten out every last scrap of adrenaline; then I put them aside to let them plump back up so I can wring them afresh. I do a little better with the “write the thoughts down on a pad of paper by the side of the bed,” so now I have a nasty little list waiting for me to try to figure out my nighttime handwriting.
Some of my agitations were pretty dumb. I will give you some examples. A week or two ago, I ordered a bunch of Halloween candy from Target, remembering how the school supplies were available online/drive-up until suddenly they were in-store only, and wondering if the same thing might happen with the Halloween candy; and then yesterday Halloween candy went on 30% off. Without saying exactly how many pounds of Halloween candy I had purchased per person in our household in order to salvage what joy we could out of it, I will say I could have saved significant dollars, and I spent some time pointlessly doing the math again and again to make myself keep wincing. I also spent some time mentally composing emails to my high school boyfriend telling him all the ways in which he’s handling a particular situation with his grown daughter totally wrong, even though I already answered briefly and satisfyingly when he asked for advice and now I’m not doing any further answering, since “not having to hold his hand and walk him through situations he’s not smart enough to understand” is one of the best parts of not dating him. And then I spent some time reflecting how the Republican Party has become a party of lying cheating corrupted power weasels, but apparently there isn’t anything anyone can do about that now, nor apparently was there any way for anyone to prevent them from gerrymandering the hell out of the country so that they can’t be voted out even by a majority, and also now we can’t leave. And then I worried for awhile about how the high school sent an email asking us to submit school-photo-like photos of the twins for the yearbook, but they didn’t say when the deadline is, what the requirements are, or where to send them. Just a bunch of little things.
And now it’s DARK when I get up. I don’t like the weather where I live, it’s nearly always too hot or too cold, but one thing I am going to miss about the too-hot is that it was nice and LIGHT out. If I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep, generally the sky was ALREADY beginning to lighten, and by the time I gave up and got up it would be FULL SUNNY and I could go for an early walk if I wanted to. Now it is dark, and there is the pressing knowledge that it will be getting EVEN DARKER for the next FEW MONTHS, and will also be too cold. Well. At least this means we are getting into String Light Season.
Why is it always 3:30? What’s so special about 3:30 in terms of Worried Thinking? This is just an expected wake-up time for me now. I am pleasantly surprised if I DON’T wake up at 3:30, instead of feeling like sleeping through the night is How It’s Supposed to Be. (I have started a new regimen of getting out of bed, in the dark, and doing some light stretching/yoga-esque things on the floor, and then going back to bed. It has helped so far but I’m guessing it will stop helping at some point.)
Listen, you did the absolute right thing with the candy situation. Even if you had waited until the discount, possibly/probably your candy of choice would have been sold out. OR, more likely, it would have SEEMED like it was in stock, so you’d be happily anticipating it, and then BAM! right at the last second (right before the curbside person hands it to you; right before it ships) you’d get that too-cheery email that says, “So sorry! We had to cancel one of your items!” So you did the best and most prudent thing, which is to snap things up when you need them. No one wants to pay a premium for “almost definitely getting the thing I need” but such is the time we live in.
My personal time is 4am, so the two+ hour Fret Time ends JUST as my alarm goes off for the day. Maddening.
And – I don’t know if you want advice – but regarding the Halloween candy changing prices: this happened to me once and I emailed (or live-chatted?) Target about it and they happily credited me the $15 difference. Might be worth a shot!
Absolutely agree with Suzanne in the candy situation. You might’ve saved money, but more likely you would’ve missed out on the item(s).
I normally consider myself aligned more Republican than not, but this entire last four years has been so disheartening and after Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing (may she rest in peace), I am just sickened at the about face some have made in what the Rules Should Be. How do they not apply now?? Infuriating. We need the balance of both sides. I didn’t always agree with RBG, but I could absolutely see her point of view and understand why she interpreted things the way she did. I cannot say the same for some of these GOP people, and we are/were on the same team.
I agree–I am Catholic and one to lean pro-life if possible. But I can’t live with some of the SCOTUS candidates whose names are being brought up. If we are nominating someone for life, we need a moderate court. Your feelings are valid. Please consider voting for a new president in November!
Thinking of you. Re: the candy. You did the right thing buying early, even though it went on sale, because SO MANY THINGS have had shortages, and so you paid a fee for your own peace of mind about it being available. (This is how I’m thinking of these things now: I’m not being gouged, I’m paying extra for the peace of mind).
Re: the Republican Party. Amen. They keep me up at night, too. I sleep better when I do phone banking for Dems.
Re: the endless darkness of Winter. My husband has a thing where he notes all the milestones that happen during winter, like: “Okay, this is the shortest day: from here on every day will be longer and brighter! So winter is almost over!” “Today is historically the coldest day of the year, so from here on every day will most likely get a little warmer! So winter is almost over!” It works for him (it doesn’t work for me).
Re: the pictures. THAT IS SO ANNOYING.
What IS it about 3:30? I could literally set a watch by my wake-up-and-fret time, plus mine has a side order of hot-flash-night-sweats. It’s so awesome.
Thanks for the tip on the candy, I literally stopped reading your post long enough to place a pickup order for later today. We never get trick-or-treaters so I normally don’t buy it, but this year we’re doing a trunk-or-treat and I’m SO EXCITED. With a newly empty nest I need A Project and this is just the thing.
Trunk-or-treat? Tell me more!
“lying cheating corrupted power weasels” is my new favorite descriptive phrase :)
And as someone who also struggles to turn her brain off, I sympathize. Once I manage to fall asleep, I can usually stay asleep, but if something wakes me up, I’m toast. My brain resets back to go through all of the nonsense I had to go through before I could fall asleep the first time.
This morning I dragged my tired self out of bed to walk the dog, discovered that one of my neighbors put up a little RBG memorial and cried for a quarter mile.
” I am not good at letting the thoughts wash over me. I keep grabbing them and wringing them until I’ve gotten out every last scrap of adrenaline; then I put them aside to let them plump back up so I can wring them afresh.”
Haha. Oh, that’s great. I love it.
“lying cheating corrupted power weasels” is so pleasing to the ear. If only it weren’t so horrifyingly spot on.
Re 3:30, my own experience is that after age 70, the regular wake-up-to-full-awake time changed from 3:30 am to 1:30 am. I’m now relieved if I look at the clock and it’s already 3:30. The change from 3:30 to 1:30 was sudden but is apparently permanent. It happened after something Trump-related and even more horrifying than usual.
A bad night sleep due to a racing mind is one of my biggest hang ups in life. I feel for you.
We are living a fairly nightmarish situation with our oldest, recent college grad. He has an undiagnosed mental illness. I believe strongly it is a personality disorder. He comes and goes and spends many nights not coming home. He has a job but is barely making more than min wage. When he is not home he is sending us crazy, insulting, nonsensical text messages. He is an adult so we cannot force him to get help.
So right now I am always elated to get an actual full night sleep.
I hope Target gives you the diff in sales price vs full price.
I’m so sorry. I’ll light a candle for your son, and all of you.
BSharp- thank you so much. We really appreciate it.
I am so sorry for your situation with your son. All the well wishes and prayers and good thoughts and vibes while you navigate this truly nightmarish situation.
ItsJustMe- Thank you for reaching out. It is a lonely journey. I have my husband but it is a fairly private battle. People tend to believe we are just struggling with a kid who is not adjusting well after moving in following college. So much bigger.
Just sending some useless but heartfelt support your way. It sounds so hard.
Sending light your way. It is such a difficult thing to carry that kind of burden when you can’t necessarily share the burden with your usual support system, because it’s not your story to tell. Hugs, internet friend.
Why is it always reassuring to learn that others share something like this crazy middle-of-the-damn-night wringing-out-of-thoughts about something that could better be wrung-out in the middle of the day when things might not be so……worrisome….
I have feelings of overwhelming dread, mostly based on the current administration, especially now that the abomination will get another Supreme Court justice.
On a lighter note, I keep buying Halloween candy and my family (OK, me too) keeps eating it. I don’t even know if Halloween will happen this year. My kids are too old to go out. But we’ve eaten 8? 9? bags of candy in the past three weeks. It’s all stress eating. Probably related to feelings of overwhelming dread…
I don’t have sleep issues often, but when my thoughts are going in circles I put on a non-fiction podcast with a sleep timer of about 15 minutes set. Not on a topic that will rile me up; one that is interesting-to-me (but not riveting!), neutral information. Like, for instance, on the topics of economics, science, psychology, or history. Bonus points for a pleasant voiced-host. This will keep my brain engaged enough to distract from the fretting, but not so engaged that I feel I have to stay awake to learn every nuance being discussed. Plus I get exposed to some interesting material I wouldn’t have ever learned about if not for doing this.
I’ve tried with audiobooks, but I always am too keen to hear what’s going to happen next so I always reach the end of the timer and start it up again, which can go on for many 15-minute increments.
Most recently this happened to me but it was a work idea, that I just KEPT playing through in my head, how/when was the best time for me suggest it to the team (not now, after X sale, but before X meeting), and how I would WORD that email/post. I mean, I wrote the post forty-five different times that night. I’d try to get myself to LET IT GO but no, thirty minutes later when I bounced awake again, I had to re-write it.
Infuriating. (It’s not even that great an idea.)
I read/write at night until I feel sufficiently sleepy, and then the second I turn my light off my mind races, and then I count the hours until I have to get up and stress that the longer I stress the less sleep I’ll be getting. Writing down the stresses helps, a shot of rum helps, but some nights neither of those things help!
So I used to be firmly in the camp of “not even putting my phone on the bedside table;” I’d leave it in another room.
But! I really like the sleep stories from the Calm meditation app and can nod off more quickly when I have one of them on. They are usually between 25-40 minutes. I usually sleep better in general if I have played a Calm sleep story too, precisely because my brain has had something neutral to engage with before dropping off.
I particularly like the nonfiction ones, and particularly the ones where people read stories about train routes. Cillian Murphy has recorded a new one, and Laura Dern has one of my other favorites. There are also a couple of ones about sporting rules that I like – there’s one about the rules of cricket and another one about the rules of tennis read by John McEnroe that is oddly soothing.
I also
Augh! I also… what?
I too have the Calm app (it can be expensive but there are discounts to be had sometimes) and while I thought I’d like the rain soundscape, there’s something about the crickets that just makes me feel happy and soothed. Maybe because it’s a summer sound, and that’s my favourite season?
I also have the Calm app and the sleep stories are the best thing I have discovered all year. When I am having a hard time getting to sleep, or when I wake up in the middle of the night, I almost look forward to listening to someone tell me a long, calm, quiet story about trains. Most of them work so well I have never heard the end of them.
I remember last winter, one of your posts was about how bleak everything was after the holiday lights came down. And I had the idea to keep twinkly lights up, changing colors with the season. By the time March hit, even that didn’t seem to be able to make a dent in the bleakness so I gave up.
But I did buy some Halloween twinkly lights that I might put up so I hope that will help.
Everything feels bleak.
My husband and I both used to have horrible trouble sleeping due to racing mind. And then 15+ years ago we stumbled on listening to an audiobook at night, but for a book you have already read. It gives our mind something to focus on which settled the brain down, but because we already know the plot we don’t stay awake waiting to see what is next. We loaded the book set from CDs, so they only play a disk at a time. On a bad night, we might start them multiple times a night but no longer do we lie awake for hours. And we’ve been using the same series so long now, that falling asleep within a couple tracks is pretty much a conditioned response! I don’t know how well this would work if only one partner was using it, though. The advantage for us is that even if we wake each other up starting it, we go right back to sleep.
This is pretty much my exact strategy as well, except I use ear buds and play the audiobooks digitally on my Kindle. I am charmed by fact that you and your husband do this together though! My spouse is very kind about constantly waking to find a Kindle jamed against his back, but doesn’t seem interested in listening with me, lol.
I’ve also started doing this, but I put in my earbuds and listen to the movie “Aladdin” (the original 90s Disney version). Like… every single night, these days. But because it’s so familiar and now such a sleep cue, I’m usually asleep before Jasmine even sneaks out of the palace ;-)
Just feeling all of this, so much.
I’m not typically an over-thinker-of-personal-embarrassing-situations type, but last night for some ungodly reason I couldn’t sleep because I was replaying a scene from a music composition class from FRESHMAN YEAR OF COLLEGE – this is well over 20 years ago – where I was extremely disappointed with the piece I wrote, partly because I knew I half-assed it, partly because it truly was no good, except at the time I had to hear it played to understand exactly HOW bad it was and what I should have done differently. I HAVE LITERALLY NOT COMPOSED MUSIC SINCE THAT FRESHMAN COURSE. Why on EARTH would this come up and bother me now!?
I’m wondering if you have an alarm clock in your room? I find knowing the time is the worst! I have trouble falling asleep so if I can avoid seeing what time I actually fell asleep at I feel better. What I do is set the alarm on my phone and then place it under my bed so I can’t see it.