It’s funny. When I was writing the first item in my FAQ last month, I was thinking about how easy-going I’ve become over my odd sleeping habits. I used to really resist the sleep cycles and try to force some sort of “normal” sleeping, which only made me more frustrated and cranky.
But even though I’m cool with sleeping three hours for every 30 awake (on average), there are times when I suffer from insomnia, and when it gets bad, I become someone else. Seriously. I am NOT me, when I really really really don’t sleep.
Like the past five days or so.
Thursday was fine. Friday, I started getting overly emotional. Saturday, I was really annoyed with life. Sunday, I could no longer formulate complete thoughts without a supreme amount of concentration. And Monday morning, I worried I would step in front of a bus, as I was teetering as I walked across the street (seeing double).
The few moments I did sleep between Wednesday night and Monday morning (calculated at about 45 minutes, total), I was grinding my teeth or waking myself up with my breathing, in a panic. Believe me, it was easy to get way pissed off after a few days of this.
So, Monday morning, when I visited my doctor, I couldn’t really articulate what was happening to me. Luckily, he is brilliant and he put ice packs all over me and suggested that I needed some quality sleep.
Yes. Sleep. Please.
As my body temp dropped (and he’s right: ice packs on pulse points do a much more efficient job of cooling a body down than 12,000 BTUs of Happy ever could), I began making a bit more sense (still not much, though), and agreed when he offered to put me on a concentrated valerian root, passiflora, magnesium carbonate blend so that I would actually sleep for more than a couple of minutes at a time.
This was at 10am Monday.
Cut to 2pm Monday, when I awake for the first time in days, feeling as though I have, in fact, slept. And suddenly, I am me again. Praises be!
From 2pm ’til 8pm, I was able to wheel and deal with agents and managers, confirm appointments for actors’ auditions, detail the finer points of nudity riders and SAG contracts with two different producers, make a formal casting offer, and–most importantly–make sense like a Bonnie should!
And then, from 10pm ’til 3am, I slept some more.
Holy crap, do I feel GREAT! I’m my-freakin’-self again!
I finally GET why it is that people react the way they do, to hearing that I sleep so very little. It is eventually impossible to function without sleep. Wow! I totally get it now.
Sleep = Happy
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Nobody understands us crazy, weird insomniacs. I have the same sort of sleep pattern – a batch of hours at night then some during the day. That’s normal for some of us. But I’ve been there on the blurry days. Glad you found something to get you back on your “normal” track!
Sleep is a serious narcotic.
Bonnie, only you will appreciate this anecdote: I was in a friend’s parents house this weekend shooting for the 48 hour film festival here in San Diego, and i walked into the living room, and what did I see but cray-cray’s stuffed kid standing in the corner. I am not kidding. I lost it. I mean, ITS IN THEIR HOUSE, NEXT TO THE TV!!!
Nikki!!!!! Nooooooooooooooooooo! They let that cray cray bay bay into their HOME?!? Noooooooooooooooo!
San Diego! I thought better of you!
*snork*
Thank you for sharing that, Nikki.
Ed, Susan, thanks for the love! Definitely happy to have my sleep back… whacked out schedule that it is. Definitely helps. Woo!
Glad you finally got some sleep! It’s truly one of the greatest things ever.
(Second only, perhaps, to being highly motivated and living your dreams in every available moment until you eventually burn out and well…sleep.)
xoxo,
the sleep fairy
OK Bon-bon – here’s my pitch. “Cray Cray’s on a (mf) Plane.” Will you cast it for me?