Even as a child, I was an insomniac. My father worked the midnight shift, and I remember so many times just laying in bed, listening to him shaving and getting ready and driving off into the night, before I turned my bedside light back on and continued reading books.
As an adult, I have not actually slept in years, only sedated myself. At first melatonin was enough, then GHB, then Valium 6 years, now Valium plus Xanax.
Sleep apnea is horrible, could never get used to the CPAP, snore like a chainsaw and get no restful sleep at all.
Have tried Trazodone, Mirtazapine, Quetiapine and others with awful results, horrible nightmares and hangovers. Now they want me to try Amitryptilline, but I am expecting just more of the same.
Especially since my heart attack and subsequent heart failure, the anxiety and OCD are so bad it takes forever for them to work. And then the hangover to get up in the morning is awful and requires massive amounts of stimulants, which wreak havoc on my heart.
I just had open heart surgery (6 vessel CABG) and they had to break my sternum to get at the heart and graft the new arteries. But the broken sternum in combination with sleep apnea means there is literally no position I can lay in without pain. On stomach is forbidden, either side is excruciatingly painful, on back I stop breathing from sleep apnea. Can't even get into bed or out of bed without my wife's assistance any more, or change position without her help.
Asleep or awake, there is never a moment I am not in pain. I lay in bed gasping for air and praying to lose consciousness and never wake up.
But so far, no matter what I try, God keeps waking me up in the morning. And then the whole awful cycle begins again.
I pray that tonight is the night God lets me drift away in my sleep peacefully and never wake up again. That is my dream, the clean and quiet death.
But If it doesn't happen, then I have to find another way myself. Because I can't go on like this in agony all the time.
