Another Sleepless Night

It's 1:20AM. It's very quiet except for the tinnitus that's always in my head. 

Nuria and I were in bed but I woke up and couldn't return to sleep, so I got up. That happens often. In fact, it happens almost every night.

I reflect now on my life. Parts of it have been a private hell. I didn't go to war, like some of my friends. I didn't start and struggle to run a business, like some of my friends. I did seem to hang on to my sanity with my fingertips for years, and I saw a lot of psychotherapists who could not help me. I did suffer in silence countless times. I tried to look normal but on the inside I felt anything but normal. 

There was Connie, who had her own problems not unlike mine. Maybe like attracts like. She was eight years older than me. The last time we talked, she called me and I answered with the little flip phone I used at the time. As we talked, the phone signal dropped out. I couldn't call her back because she didn't have a phone in her room. (She was in one of those places people are put when they can't live on their own any longer.) But a minute later, the phone rang again and it was Connie. She yelled at me, "Never hang up on me again"—and then she hung up on me. I couldn't call her back. A year later I found out that she had passed away. 

I could measure my life by the number and type of therapists who have treated me. There was a therapist in Burlington, NC, that I saw weekly for two years. There was a therapist in Richmond, VA, that I went to only twice. He was a hypnotherapist but he couldn't hypnotize me. There was another therapist in Richmond who practiced progressive desensitization. I went through a series of sessions with him twice, but none of it helped me.

There was another hypnotherapist in Roanoke, VA, that I saw for a while. He specialized in regressing patients through past lives. But he couldn't hypnotize me deeply enough for it to work. 

I went to an Indian doctor in Roanoke for a year or two. He couldn't help me. 

One day I read about a medication—a class of antidepressants called SSRI—that, as a side effect, could help treat the condition I had, which, by the way, is called panic disorder. I blogged about it here in 2016.

Somehow after going through all this, I ended up with a woman who cares for me and puts up with my quirks. She just had a birthday yesterday. I ordered a cake from Publix. It's the best-tasting birthday cake I've ever tasted. I customized it—I chose the flavors and colors of the various parts of the cake. If you put a gun to my head, I don't think I could order a duplicate of this cake, because there were so many options to customize. But it really was a tasty cake.

And of course I bought her flowers. And I suggested that we go to the mall and shop for something else she would like, but she declined.

Mother's Day was three weeks ago and Nuria has three grown daughters, but I knew they wouldn't send her anything special, because in Costa Rica where her family lives, El Día de la Madre is held on August 15th. So I bought Nuria this Russian Ring necklace with her daughters' names engraved on the rings.

I feel I need to do more, but I always feel that way, no matter what I do, so I'm never sure if I've fallen short or whether I just feel I have.

It's 2:45AM now and this blog post has wandered all over the place. Maybe it turns out that I really had nothing important to write about, after all.

I'll call it a night and rejoin Nuria in bed. She says my typing keeps her awake. But I have to write when the "inspiration" is there, such as it is. Goodnight, everyone. Or, goodnight to all three of you. Or to both of you. Or, goodnight to you who are reading these words at 3AM. I'm sorry to know you can't sleep either.