Mr Sandman?

This cannot be good.  This has to be so far beyond the worst that my brain can handle.  That my body can handle.  How long can a human body go without sleep?  There’s no real answer to that.  Some people claim that your body will eventually just shut you down and force you to sleep.  Except thats not entirely true either.  Before your body "shuts you down," it starts shutting itself down.  Like a massive computer sci-fy computer system, it starts by getting rid of processes that might take up a lot of energy but would still let you "live."  If you can call kidney failure and hallucinations living.  But those cases are people who were trying to force themselves awake.  They weren’t allowing their bodies to sleep, purposely depriving themselves for one reason or another.  

What I’m dealing with is not by choice.  What I’m dealing with is no sleep in 36 hours, a second double dose of sleeping pills, an exhausted body and a mind that refuses to let me sleep.  For the record, I took the first double dose of sleeping pills last night.  They did not help.  I stayed awake.  The second double dose was taken about 45 minutes ago.  And I’m still awake.  Not just awake, but mind-racing thought-dancing EYES WIDE OPEN awake.  Well, we all know how you like coffee.  How much did you drink today?  Excellent question!  What deducing minds are out there!  I drank about 3/4 of a 24 oz Dunkin Donuts coffee this morning before church.  I did not want to fall asleep in church.  That would have been bad.

Except this is worse.

I purposely left that coffee alone.  I purposely did not get more coffee after lunch.  I figured I could come home from night church and collapse into my bed.  But 45 minutes ago I was still wide awake.  Hence the sleeping pills.  Except….

I’M STILL AWAKE!

I don’t know if this is the storm before the calm.  Like will I start becoming drowsy and heavy-lidded in a few moments, just let this… whatever this is… pass.  

I don’t think its working.  If I spend another night watching the hours tick by on the clock, I’m going to lose my mind.  Quite literally, lose my mind.  As if I haven’t lost most of it already.

This is so not good.  This is so beyond not good, its further than bad, worse, horrible, unimaginable, and indescribable.  I have to gain control.  I have to find the upper hand in this.  I need sleep.  I can’t function on no sleep.  Well, actually.  Sadly.  I can function on no sleep.  I know how to function on about 4 hours of sleep a week.  I could do it.  But I don’t want to do it.  That person is not nice, and I do not have people around me who….

I don’t even know how to explain what James used to do.  Poke the bear with a stick to make it attack him instead of the other innocent bystanders.  Its a strategy ranked around with "Nya nya nya nya, you can’t catch me" and running as fast as possible, knowing its futile.  Knowing that which you’ve provoked is stronger and faster and smarter than you.  It was, on some level, sacrificing himself for the good of the whole.  But not only that, for the good of the thing which then turns and attacks him.

Goddamn it!  I miss real friends!  I miss people just looking at you and getting it, without words or explanation.  Just slide the Screwdriver down to me and back away slowly.  Friends who know when I’m drinking to destroy me and when I’m drinking cause I destroyed it.  Friends who don’t judge, who don’t point fingers, but do hold me accountable.  And there is a difference.  I need an accountability partner, but not a judge and jury.  I need a person who can call me on my crap, but won’t walk away when I am unable to straighten it all out.

That is, I suppose, what is keeping me awake.  The mind-bending fear and terror that all my ducks are not perfectly in a row.  That something somewhere slipped out of place and the glossy shine is nothing but a bit of polish and spit.  Its not the pressure in this job that is getting to me; its the pressure cooker of having no one to be my release valve.  Of having no outlet where I can scream and pull my hair – BUT be safe.  I’ve been incredibly lucky my entire life.  I’ve always had a safe place and venue for letting off steam.  I had a way to take the weight from my chest and stretch a bit before standing back up.  But a way that ensured me I would be standing back up again.  With all my of weight intact and untampered.

This cannot be making any sense to anyone, and I’m going to try the counting sheep idea again.