I'm overtired

I have noticed that I usually drive myself until I can't feel anything from being overtired. So it is this week - I do things that I have to do, but after I'm done, I feel like I have to do more, and I see that there is more to do. I can't stop - I power through my tiredness, I power through hunger, though lack of sleep, and I do more work. I finish it, look around, and I see that there is more to do, and I begin doing it. At this point, my eyes don't see anymore, my head doesn't function, my body aches, but I persevere. I breathe in and out and I get into a state of numbness where I don't feel anything - as if I'm made of rubber. I keep doing what I have to do. I get to the point where my body threatens to fall sick - my throat hurts, my eyes water, my head aches, my hands shiver - I keep going. I keep going until I literally fall down from exhaustion - until my eyes close themselves, until my back has to be flat on bed to relax, until the fear of falling sick for real takes over. But here comes the next challenge - when I do finally stop and go to bed, I can't fall asleep. I'm overtired, and my brain keeps working, I toss and turn and I give up and go do more work. Because in my mind tossing and turning is a waste of time. I keep going until it is almost morning, and then I think - why should I go to bed now? It is already 6am, and at 7am I have to wake my son - so I power through it. I go until it is lunch time, and then I can't go anymore - I eat and I fall from my feet. But now I think - I can't fall asleep now - because if I do, I will sleep probably 3 or 4 hours, and then I won't fall asleep in the evening. And so I stumble through the day, somehow, without falling asleep, until around 8pm I finally crash.

This Sunday I slept for 11 hours - if my son wouldn't have woken me up at 11am, I probably would have kept sleeping. This Sunday I remembered what my therapist told me - I need to learn to stop running. My whole life I was running away from my ugly reality. I thought, if I'm busy, maybe nothing will happen, if I'm busy, I don't have to think about what comes next, or about what my father has done to me, and how a father could do such things to me, and how come my mom doesn't believe me, and how come nobody believes me, and how come my aunt hates and beats me, and how come my grandma beats me, and great grandma beats me, and I'm hungry all the time, and my body hurts, and I have nightmares, and nobody ever comes to visit me because we live in such filth and poverty, and when my father will come, I have to pay him for his love and affection - and he will buy me candy and gum, and I will eat it, later, after. I thought, maybe if I will be busy all the time, I won't notice any of this and I will just grow up, so quickly, that I will be able to run away, to run away as far as I can. And I did it - I did what I told myself I will do. I ran away as far as I could - farther is only Hawaii - I have made it to the other side of the globe, but I kept running. I blocked the reality to such extent that I had amnesia, I forgot everything, and I didn't know anymore why I was running, I just kept doing it, like a mechanical toy.

I now know why I'm unable to stop working. I'm working on breaking this habit, and this month I was able to go to bed, alone, without doing any prior work, just because I wanted to - 3 times. This is a huge victory for me. I didn't have to wait for my husband (my fear of the darkness and of the bedroom is beginning to fade), I didn't try to do just one last e-mail, just one last run of laundry, I simply went to bed. And once in bed, I didn't try to play games on my iPhone, I was ok with being with myself. The most wonderful thing of all - I was able to fall asleep without sleeping pills. I closed my eyes and I fell asleep. This alone was worth going through months of therapy - my fears are giving way. My fear of darkness, of being alone, my obsessiveness over watching out for some disaster to happen, my fear of nightmares, fear of not being able to fall asleep, and the frustration around all of this.

Tomorrow I'm seeing my ADD doctor for the last time. I've been off the pills for the last two months - off two of the daily pills and one for the night - and I feel better than ever. I know he will be surprised - I was too. But I feel lighter - a weight has lifted off of me, and every day a bit more floats off.

I'm overtired right now, I haven't written my blog for two days because I was overtired. I'm powering through my tiredness now as I write - I hope I will be doing less and less of this in the future. Im working on it, and it's slowly happening.