02
I lie in bed and feel not only the absence of tiredness, but a seething restlessness. That was something I must’ve felt on some level as a kid. My mum would push the drawers up against the bed because I had a tendency to roll out. But I grew out of it. As a teen, I slept okay most of the time. At thirty, a psychiatrist prescribed me Aropax (aka Paxil) for panic attacks, OCD, and depression. The start-up side effects were debilitating – dizziness, disorientation, stomach aches, insomnia, hot flushes, among other things. Eventually, some of those side effects settled. Some of them. But the Aropax did it’s job…
Twenty-Five
The close of work for the year dovetailed into some heavy Christmas rains and a bout of overdue laziness, which meant I didn’t take a daily walk, and I didn’t exercise in any way. My one recourse in trying to address my sleep difficulties has been to tire myself physically, but now I was lazing around in my first week of holidays. Come the night, I would lie in bed, restless and hyperalert, the furthest thing from tired although I should’ve been due to the collective lack of sleep. Images flashed through my head – landscapes, and stars, and other things which, in retrospect, makes me think I must’ve been…