I'm still working on it.
Hmm. Maybe 'working' is part of my problem.
After a night of virtual sleeplessness on Sunday, and then quite a healthy sleep on Monday night, I had only a few hours (3 or 4) last night, and no success at napping. I never was a good napper.
Tomorrow I go for a massage and then I have an acupuncture appointment on Friday. That oughta help, right?
Right now, in this moment, I am super super tired. I'm just gearing up to hop in the shower and go to work. I am that place where I honestly can't image myself doing what I have to do physically in The Comedy Of Errors tonight. There is, thankfully, another part of me that knows that I will be fine, that I will get energy and do the show, and all will be well.
The great frustration that I've had has been with the sleeping medication and the side effects. Now that I'm off it, I wonder how much dependency I developed in 18 nights, and after reading about the effects of withdrawal from Zopiclone, I wonder how much of what I'm experiencing in due to that, and how much is due to just being overtired and anxious about not getting sleep.
All I know right now is, enough. Enough already. I am done. If there is something in me that needs to be released, or looked at, or dealt with, or processed, then I'm ready to know what it is. I ready to let it out of me and let it go. I surrender. I just ask for it to be revealed to me, and I will take full responsibility for it and work it out.
My life is awesome. I am so deeply blessed with so many wonderful things, including great friends, even people who aren't that close to me, whom i know care about me and have taken the time to send me their thoughts and encouraging words. How awesome is that?
So, if this is a worry issue, then I need to get over it. I have no need to worry. If this is a physical response issue, then that's okay but let's get on with it. What else could it be?
A woman I met for the first time the other day told me about stuff going on in her life that she is ready to just be done with. She said something like, 'I've done all this work on myself, and then all of a sudden I had three big car accidents in one year. I know this means something about me but what?'
And then i said something like, 'When people go through that, I think it means that deep deep down inside them, they are desperate to change. It, to me, is just a huge deep-rooted urge to transform. A signal that you are transforming.'
Is that what's happening with me? Am I turning into something? Is this sleeplessness a resistance to the change? Am I afraid of what it might be?
Hmm.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
I Have To Say...
Wow.
And thanks.
I have been feeling so super alone with this sleep issue thingy, and once I posted yesterday's blog, I got so much support and good advice. So helpful when you just aren't thinking clearly.
I think the best thing I learned in the last 24 hours is that I'm actually doing extremely well. Period.
Over the last few days I took the reading that I did about insomnia to heart. It's described by the medical profession as a symptom and not a disease.
Most often it's a symptom of stress. So I had to ask myself, what am I so stressed about?
I came up with a list. Things in my life, in my experience, that are uncomfortable, that I feel like I've been carrying for a long time, that cause me to, well, worry, I guess.
Last night as my partner drove us home in his Jeep, I told him what I thought, and recited my list of stressors. I realized two things as they came out of my mouth: first, that they were not unfamiliar to him, and second that they didn't sound nearly as stress-making or fear-inducing speaking them out loud, being driven home by someone who loves me very much.
I took my pill last night, but woke up really early, so I guess I could be described as tired.
Whatevs.
I'm done.
I went to the gym with my partner and we had an awesome workout. I don't have to be at work until about 7 and I have the day to relax and putter.
I also got a residual cheque in the mail for $300. You gotta love that.
Right now, I feel so grateful for the people who read my wee blog and responded with symapthy and advice. And for my partner who looked at me like I was a little crazy when I confessed my Big Scary List to him.
All is well.
And so it is.
And thanks.
I have been feeling so super alone with this sleep issue thingy, and once I posted yesterday's blog, I got so much support and good advice. So helpful when you just aren't thinking clearly.
I think the best thing I learned in the last 24 hours is that I'm actually doing extremely well. Period.
Over the last few days I took the reading that I did about insomnia to heart. It's described by the medical profession as a symptom and not a disease.
Most often it's a symptom of stress. So I had to ask myself, what am I so stressed about?
I came up with a list. Things in my life, in my experience, that are uncomfortable, that I feel like I've been carrying for a long time, that cause me to, well, worry, I guess.
Last night as my partner drove us home in his Jeep, I told him what I thought, and recited my list of stressors. I realized two things as they came out of my mouth: first, that they were not unfamiliar to him, and second that they didn't sound nearly as stress-making or fear-inducing speaking them out loud, being driven home by someone who loves me very much.
I took my pill last night, but woke up really early, so I guess I could be described as tired.
Whatevs.
I'm done.
I went to the gym with my partner and we had an awesome workout. I don't have to be at work until about 7 and I have the day to relax and putter.
I also got a residual cheque in the mail for $300. You gotta love that.
Right now, I feel so grateful for the people who read my wee blog and responded with symapthy and advice. And for my partner who looked at me like I was a little crazy when I confessed my Big Scary List to him.
All is well.
And so it is.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Zopiclone, The Greek Godess of Sleep
An ex-of mine, a really smart, wacky theatre artist, had to go on sleeping medication at one point during our relationship. He was prescribed a drug called Imovaine or Zopiclone, which worked really well for him. It was said to knock you out quite solidly for an eight hour period, with no morning doziness or drugged-out feeling. I remember once, while we were still together, going through a period of restlessness and taking one of his pills. I LOVED it. Got knocked right out, and woke up surprisingly refreshed. Actually, if memory serves, I only took half a pill, and it was brilliant. The wonderful thing about this ex of mine was his sharp mind and brilliant wit, and as an expression of his delight with this effective drug, he began to call it Zopiclone (pronounced zoe-PIC-lon-EE), The Greek Goddess of Sleep. You know, like Persephone or Hermione. It cracked me up.
I work mostly as an actor in theatre. I guess that's still true, although when I look at the way my career has shifted in the last few years, I question whether that is really true or not. I teach playwriting, write plays and have them workshopped and produced, and I do film and televison. For some reason, my work in live performance has become limited to doing mostly big musical production, at least here in Vancouver, and if not musicals, with lots of jumping around singin' and dancin' and being funny, then in being hired to do comedy.
I've had the great fortune to be hired to perform this summer in one of Vancouver theatre success stories, the Shakespeare festival known as Bard on the Beach. I'd been wanting to be a part of Bard (here's a link: http://www.bardonthebeach.org) for a few years now, so I was thrilled to be included in the Mainstage Company this year. My main role is in The Comedy of Errors, playing Dromio of Ephesus, the slave separated from his twin at birth, and who receives pretty much non-stop cudgelling from his arrogant master Antipholus, or his twin the other Antipholus who continually mistakes me for his slave... you get the picture. At any rate, the show is an extended lazzi for me, a series of comic scenes where I get the crap beat out of me, but happily am reunited a the end of the play with my long lost twin slave, the other Dromio.
I'm a youthful 45 year old. I've been staying in good shape. The (brilliant) young actor who plays my twin in 20 years younger than I am. Let's just say that despite it's mercifully short length (just over 2 hours), the show is demanding physically. Layers of slave wear and a long wig in a tent in the summer... a little toasty at times.
The period leading up to opening is a three week period of long days (about 12 hours) in which the company opens one show (in our case this year Othello) and while it previews and performs that one, rehearses the other show during the days. It's a demanding schedule. As we got into previews for Comedy, I'd come home all wound up on physical energy. I have a snack and stay up a while. My partner and I have a routine of getting up early, which I LOVE, so it was tricky for me to sleep in. As opening approached, and my nerves took over, I'd find myself running scenes in my head as I tried to fall asleep. My sleep hours became fewer and fewer. You can see where this is going.
Soon I was barely sleeping. And heading into rehearse and perform. My eyes felt like they were retreating into their sockets, leaving deepening dark circles where they used to be.
Blearly, bitchy, weepy and whiny, I found myself at my doctor's office, a day or so after opening the show. Despite the absence of opening night pressure, despite the fact that the show had been so well-received, I still wasn't sleeping. Just toally physically wound up, was my thought. Still running loops of dialogue through my mind. Other people's monologues that lead up to my entrance, as though I was constantly checking to see if I knew my cues, to make sure I knew when to enter. If I couldn't remember a word of line, I'd start the speech from the top...
"Patience unmoved! No marvel though she pause,
We can be weak when we have no other cause..."
Shit. What's next?
As I sat across from my doctor, I went on a rant about how I couldn't sleep, how tough my job was, how physically wound up I was at the end of the night and how I really needed to sleep or else...
He looked at me like I was crazy and said, 'You just need sleeping pills. What's the big deal?'
I left with a prescription for Zopiclone. The Greek goddess of Sleep. I was relieved.
That night I selpt beautifully.
Two weeks later here I am. Still on the pills. I had originally imagined that I'd take these pills for two or three days until I got my energy back, and then tuck them away for some other time, or chuck 'em out.
Nope.
I have tried to get to sleep many times since that first night without taking them, but an hour into sleeplessness I cave in. I need to rest, I think. I've got a responsibility to a show. I HAVE to perform.
I don't believe I actually need them. I believe my body wants to sleep for real. But every night when I drive home, I think, "What if I can't sleep again?"
It's the side effects that are killing me. A creeping sense of anxiety. Moodiness. A feeling of distance. Weird vision stuff. A feeling like my eyes are crossing. Seriously.
I just want me back. I want to feel like myself.
I believe that when we want something, really want something, we make it happen. I also believe in healing, in the power of the mind to change things, to make miracles happen, to transform our experience.
So here are my questions:
Why don't I want to sleep?
Why am I making myself tired?
What am I tired of?
Why do I believe in the power of Zopliclone, The Goddess of Sleep, more than my own ability to sleep?
This last question intrigues me the most. Do I still need to believe in a god outside of me? Do I still need to give my power to a being outside of myself? Am I afraid to take the last and GIANT step toward myself, and say, with absolute conviction:
"I am my own God. I decide. It's up to me. I have the Power."
The answer is in me.
I work mostly as an actor in theatre. I guess that's still true, although when I look at the way my career has shifted in the last few years, I question whether that is really true or not. I teach playwriting, write plays and have them workshopped and produced, and I do film and televison. For some reason, my work in live performance has become limited to doing mostly big musical production, at least here in Vancouver, and if not musicals, with lots of jumping around singin' and dancin' and being funny, then in being hired to do comedy.
I've had the great fortune to be hired to perform this summer in one of Vancouver theatre success stories, the Shakespeare festival known as Bard on the Beach. I'd been wanting to be a part of Bard (here's a link: http://www.bardonthebeach.org) for a few years now, so I was thrilled to be included in the Mainstage Company this year. My main role is in The Comedy of Errors, playing Dromio of Ephesus, the slave separated from his twin at birth, and who receives pretty much non-stop cudgelling from his arrogant master Antipholus, or his twin the other Antipholus who continually mistakes me for his slave... you get the picture. At any rate, the show is an extended lazzi for me, a series of comic scenes where I get the crap beat out of me, but happily am reunited a the end of the play with my long lost twin slave, the other Dromio.
I'm a youthful 45 year old. I've been staying in good shape. The (brilliant) young actor who plays my twin in 20 years younger than I am. Let's just say that despite it's mercifully short length (just over 2 hours), the show is demanding physically. Layers of slave wear and a long wig in a tent in the summer... a little toasty at times.
The period leading up to opening is a three week period of long days (about 12 hours) in which the company opens one show (in our case this year Othello) and while it previews and performs that one, rehearses the other show during the days. It's a demanding schedule. As we got into previews for Comedy, I'd come home all wound up on physical energy. I have a snack and stay up a while. My partner and I have a routine of getting up early, which I LOVE, so it was tricky for me to sleep in. As opening approached, and my nerves took over, I'd find myself running scenes in my head as I tried to fall asleep. My sleep hours became fewer and fewer. You can see where this is going.
Soon I was barely sleeping. And heading into rehearse and perform. My eyes felt like they were retreating into their sockets, leaving deepening dark circles where they used to be.
Blearly, bitchy, weepy and whiny, I found myself at my doctor's office, a day or so after opening the show. Despite the absence of opening night pressure, despite the fact that the show had been so well-received, I still wasn't sleeping. Just toally physically wound up, was my thought. Still running loops of dialogue through my mind. Other people's monologues that lead up to my entrance, as though I was constantly checking to see if I knew my cues, to make sure I knew when to enter. If I couldn't remember a word of line, I'd start the speech from the top...
"Patience unmoved! No marvel though she pause,
We can be weak when we have no other cause..."
Shit. What's next?
As I sat across from my doctor, I went on a rant about how I couldn't sleep, how tough my job was, how physically wound up I was at the end of the night and how I really needed to sleep or else...
He looked at me like I was crazy and said, 'You just need sleeping pills. What's the big deal?'
I left with a prescription for Zopiclone. The Greek goddess of Sleep. I was relieved.
That night I selpt beautifully.
Two weeks later here I am. Still on the pills. I had originally imagined that I'd take these pills for two or three days until I got my energy back, and then tuck them away for some other time, or chuck 'em out.
Nope.
I have tried to get to sleep many times since that first night without taking them, but an hour into sleeplessness I cave in. I need to rest, I think. I've got a responsibility to a show. I HAVE to perform.
I don't believe I actually need them. I believe my body wants to sleep for real. But every night when I drive home, I think, "What if I can't sleep again?"
It's the side effects that are killing me. A creeping sense of anxiety. Moodiness. A feeling of distance. Weird vision stuff. A feeling like my eyes are crossing. Seriously.
I just want me back. I want to feel like myself.
I believe that when we want something, really want something, we make it happen. I also believe in healing, in the power of the mind to change things, to make miracles happen, to transform our experience.
So here are my questions:
Why don't I want to sleep?
Why am I making myself tired?
What am I tired of?
Why do I believe in the power of Zopliclone, The Goddess of Sleep, more than my own ability to sleep?
This last question intrigues me the most. Do I still need to believe in a god outside of me? Do I still need to give my power to a being outside of myself? Am I afraid to take the last and GIANT step toward myself, and say, with absolute conviction:
"I am my own God. I decide. It's up to me. I have the Power."
The answer is in me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
