Addiction to sleep

To those of you who have read my book, you know that due to medication and Generalized Anxiety Disorder I cannot function without at least eight hours of sleep and i would actually prefer ten to twelve. My husband sometimes laughs, sometimes hurts but in general understands. However, i was very happy to find a post by Leila Macor, a Venezuelan journalist and blogger (escribirparaque.blogspot.com). With her permission i translated her post into English to the best of my abilities and i bring it to you.

I should note that my husband was greatly alarmed when he read this post. He could not believe another person so alike to me existed much less that she was so happy and proud of her need for sleep. I had outrageous fun reading this to everybody who knows me and specially those who give me all kinds of remedies for my eternal need for shut eye time. To them i say: Me, let me sleep.

And now by Leila Macor,
Morpheus' lover (Morpheus is the god of sleep)

A long time ago, a friend showed me a video titled “the nap of a cat.” The edited video showed the small animal lying next to a window. While the sun shifted from morning to night, the cat only made small movements without waking up or upsetting himself.

I thought the video was funny, but I recognized that I am just like that feline. My mother always joked that I am alike our Lomuffin, my cat, because when he gets thrown out of the living room he just moves to later be found asleep in a bedroom. When Lomuffin is thrown out of the bedroom he moves to a chair to keep asleep. Well, I get thrown out around but I still sleep my naps.

I am addicted to sleep. When I go to sleep, I calculate the hours of sleep I will have, if they are a too few, I sleep hurrying while I anticipate the morning headache. Even worse, sometimes I am so worried about the lack of time for sleep that I cannot fall asleep. On the other hand, if I have ten or more hours for sleep, I fondle the blankets and wake up now and then just to prove I still have a lot of time to enjoy. I always wake up swearing and while I eat breakfast I calculate the hours I slept. According to the result, I decide what kind of disposition I am about to have for the day. If I stop by home from one activity to another, I lay ten to fifteen minutes which could add to three or four mini-naps per day. I usually sleep after dinner and wake up only to put on my pajamas and get under my soft covers.

Because of those miserable evening naps, I have done the worst of things. To delay a date with the excuse that I cannot find the car keys. To tell someone that I could not go to an event due to a unexpected storm. To rob half an hour from the job arguing an accident delayed me. To be late to a party and arrive without even lipstick on to show I did not have time to even do my make up. To spend a bunch of money on a taxi to get home as soon as possible and sleep before going out again. In the same fashion, I give preference to sleep to any other urgent matter I have to do… sometimes I had a report due or something to study but I preferred a thousand times to go to sleep at six and wake up early at three or four in the morning to do my homework. Of course, I still would wake up in a haze.

I have learned to sleep in all kinds of conditions. I sleep with the lights on, with noise, in stranger’s homes, on the floor, sited, and even once in a camp after a three day rain on my wet sleeping bag. I was drenched, the camping tent looked like a water bed and still, I slept.

I take the bus wherever I go and no matter where I go or what time, I do not notice if the bus took a different route, if new stores just opened, new buildings cropped up. “But you pass by every day!” people tell me. And it’s true but I pass by while asleep. If I am going to be honest, one of the reasons why I didn’t insist to my parents for a car, it’s not only that I am afraid to drive next to other cars, buses and taxis but because I cannot sleep while driving like I do in the bus… everyday. I am so pervasive with my bus naps that when a student from my high school with whom I was friendly started taking the same bus, I started to hurry at work to leave fifteen minutes early and not find him at the bus. I was friendly with him and content at first, but when around the third encounter he noted “I always find you asleep” and would start a conversation to keep me awake, I knew it was time to find a solution. If I saw him on the bus calling me from the window I would tell him I was going somewhere else and wait for the next bus. The story would have been very different if he had offered his shoulder for me to sleep on…

There is nothing that makes me as mad as someone interrupting my nap, it’s something I don’t forgive not even the love of my life… imagine now what other person would get from me!

I am contagious. Since me and my boyfriend started our relationship we set “five little minutes” to sleep together. We mean real sleep, in any bed, sofa or bus that we come across.
Now I clearly see why is not a good idea for me to have dogs, although I have two already, I had no time to walk them. I rather sleep with the cat. Fortunately, my dogs have no dignity and if I decide to take them out at 10PM, they are as happy as at any other time.
Because of scheduling, this week I started working evenings and I have no time to go back home for lunch so I have to sleep on my desk. But that was only before I called my best friend Daniela whose house is about 15 minutes from my job. I was seriously considering bringing my sleeping bag to the office in order to sleep after lunch and in between jobs. But I hope to have the keys to Daniella’s house soon and believe me, I don’t care if she has a microwave oven to heat my “lunch,” wireless Internet to spend the time, TV or even a bed… she still has a nice cool floor where I can lay my sleeping bag and sleep at least for half an hour to avoid feeling like the day was “not enough to do anything.”

I am sick envious of the people who can sleep four or five hours and wake up refreshed, go for a run at the park and still have a couple hours before they go to work. I also cannot believe those people who say “I cannot go to sleep until 10… I just can’t, I wake up and I cannot stay in bed.” But the worst are those who question my naps alleging that I will have time to sleep when I am dead. To them, sleeping is a small death that stops them from reaching goals, reading, working, studying or exercising, and hence they see sleep as a daily shore they must do and finish as soon as possible.

To those who deny sleep to themselves, my addiction to sleep looks like an adolescent rant, a depressive symptom or a total incapacity to reach success in life. Let’s be honest, no entrepreneur, genius or conqueror went into history for being a good sleeper. On the other hand, in history I would be a useless human who sleeps while those, the triumphant ones, would live twice as much as me. My bed and me however, know that this is not important because the planet is already full of successful sleepless dudes. So explain to me Why does the world need me? Me, let me sleep.

Dieting and on antidepressants

Well, here I am again. Fat and desperate to lose the weight. I have gained 35lbs steadily during the past three years. I was not too worried in the beginning until I jumped one size… and then another. I started my old diet protocols: no snacking, no fried food and less bread. It did not work and I gave up. Then I started to really look for an answer. Why had I gained so much wait so fast? Yes I ate more but not so much more, right? I started counting calories and registered about 2200 a day which granted are not those of a very slim person, but not those of a size 12, 5’6”, 185lbs woman either. Hmmm. The culprit? Antidepressants of course. According to different sources I found, antidepressants keep more of the serotonin (the neurotransmitter antidepressants affect) circulating on the brain before the brain itself absorbs it. So, the brain figures there is enough serotonin and stops making serotonin overtime. So, even if the antidepressant keeps serotonin at a comfortable level, overtime it can slow the brain production of serotonin. What is the implication? The person will crave carbohydrates, a raw material of serotonin. And craving you do! My favorite fix right now is a donut. When I sit to eat, I cannot live without bread and before going to sleep I have a cookie… or two. I used to have perfect self control of my eating. No more.

Before I learned about my body’s need for carbs, I stumbled upon a couple of books on dieting that claimed to help people lose weight on antidepressants. (Write to me and I will give you the titles for your own information.) The first was an overpriced little piece written by a fellow who supposedly had the secret to losing the weight. His website also has a free e-book on how to go off the antidepressants and diminish the withdrawal by taking in specific supplements and foods. Well, as soon as I received the book I felt robbed. It calls for 3-4 expensive supplements to be taking constantly. Of course, the supplements were sold at this fellow’s website. The book had so little information it was already defeating. But, I gave it a try. I followed the protocols, took the supplements and lost exactly 000.000lbs. At the end of the book, the author says if none of his prescriptions work, then you have to choose between the antidepressant and being thin.
Oh thank you!!!!! Where are my $15.00 I paid for this pamphlet??? In my hall of shame of wasted money.

I did not give up and soon found a diet guru that had a low-carb program with plenty of supplements and specific food choices. It promised you would lose about 5% of your body weight IN TWO WEEKS. And I did! I lost 12lbs in two weeks. I crave carbs of course but I was not particularly hungry. But oh oh. The taste of the food was just horrible. I had to stop salting food, eat eggs (horrible, I hate eggs), stop drinking anything but water and non-sweetened natural cranberry juice (tart and really really bad tasting.) Salads with flaxseed oil were the staple (tastes like I imagine hell tastes.) I was not permitted any artificial sweeteners only stevia so I could not even chew gum and I also had to buy a bunch of expensive supplements. But it worked. The first 4 days I had a killer headache since I was “detoxifying.” According to the author, the key to losing the weight is to clean the liver, the organ antidepressants load the most. Of course, no alcohol permitted. By the second week I was so proud of my self-control and so happy, I started pulling my old pants from storage. But by the third week I started feeling depressed and later so sleepy I was unable to drive. I started taking the bus to work and I fought the sleep all day at work. No caffeine at hand (not permitted by the diet), I would have to go around my desk every ½ hr to get some air and not fall asleep on the desk. Finally, my very well known symptoms set in: burning in the face, headache not giving to any pain medicine (mind you, the diet tells you to minimize use of any drug other than your prescriptions), rapid heart beating… Anxiety. I panicked, went to my psychiatrist and got an increased dose of Paxil, which helped enormously.

ATTENTION TO ALL ANTIDEPRESANT USERS!!! DO NOT GO INTO A LOW-CARB DIET. YOU NEED CARBS TO FABRICATE PRECIOUS SEROTONIN!

It took me about 2 months to feel really better, and then I had gained the poundage again. I researched again and found a Serotonin-oriented diet that I hope will help. I am planning follow some of the ideas on the low-carb diet, like a protein shake for breakfast and drinking lots of cranberry juice (1 part of the juice to 12 parts of water!!) to help clear the liver. I eat more eggs now although not as many as the diet calls and eat as much vegetables as I want (that’s not a lot ha ha.) But, I eat carbs at specific times and with a specific goal: to maintain my brain producing serotonin.

Be careful out there and whish me luck. I am at 185lbs and shooting for 155. Enough to return me to my size 8 regular self.

Welcome

Welcome to the "Purring Cat Inside my Chest" blog. This space is dedicated to anyone interested in the book by the above title and/or the subject of the said title. Generalized anxiety disorder affects many of us and the tools to fight this disease are limited. Other types of anxiety such as societal anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder are also difficult to treat. Let's share our stories, our feelings as sufferers, family of patients, friends of patients. Let's learn together, laugh together, cry together.