Friday, May 9, 2008

Longing for the test pattern

Do you remember when you would fall asleep with the TV on and about two or three a.m. there would be an announcement. “This concludes our broadcast day. Something something something something. And now … the National Anthem.” A waving flag would come on the screen while the music played, sans singing, and when it was done – the test pattern would come on. Just the test pattern. After that, snow. The TV day was over, it ended people. Every.Single.Day.


Remember when people would lie down and go to sleep at night the normal way? When they got tired? Remember when I used to have a mind?


Oh. Well, maybe you don’t.


Not too long ago the doctor prescribed something to help me sleep. After a while I realized it was not only giving me headaches, but it was making me somewhat depressed. That’s not a place I want to go back to so I decided I would have to go off the meds, and I did.


Next time I went to the doctor he asked how I was sleeping. I told him I had gone off the meds and was actually having trouble adjusting to falling asleep at a reasonable time on my own but I was dealing with it. He asked why I had stopped taking the medication and I told him it was giving me headaches.


I TOTALLY forgot about the other thing.


He was concerned that I’m still apparently not getting a good night’s sleep so he asked if I wanted to try the meds again but at half the dose, maybe I wouldn’t have the side effects but still get some benefit. Made sense to me so I said sure – why the hell not??


Because I’m a moron, THAT’S why not!!!


THAT’S why I’ve been in a funk. THAT’S why I “haven’t felt like it” – about everything. Where on earth did my mind go that at the moment my doctor asked me “why did you stop taking the pills?” my consciousness decided to go on vacation so what was left could give a canned response like “they gave me headaches?”


So I have decided I need to start getting ready for bed at night like most people do. With alcohol! Yeah, that’s the ticket! Okay, maybe that medicinal glass of red wine with all the flavonoids and antioxidants (which could be the same thing for all I know) will make me a tad bit sleepy and be good for me all at the same time. We will see.


But whatever I do, I need to get out of the funk and start getting some things done around here. It would probably help if the Internet had a test pattern at a certain time every day. It keeps me up way longer than the TV ever did!!



6 comments:

  1. sorry about that last one Bettejo .

    Its a problem this taking a pill for one thing and another problem being caused .

    Alcohol certainly worth a go ...
    Also have you heard of Paul McKenna , he has had a bit of publicity and some good results here recently with books helping re sleep amongst other stuff . Might be worth a look , there is a kind of plan with some useful tips

    Good Luck xxx

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  2. Most of us have trouble sleeping at some point. The problem is not just tv and the internet. Insomnia became more common with cheap electricity.

    In the old days, people went to bed very early to save on candles. Hmm, at the rate energy costs are these days, maybe we will all be going to bed early!

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  3. It's the worse thing not getting enough quality sleep, spoils just about everything.

    I find reading in bed makes me very sleepy.

    Hope you get back to normal soon :)

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  4. I'm mostly kidding about the alcohol thing. I am such a NON-drinker that on New Years - I forget to drink! So if I do have a glass of wine before bed it really would be medicinal because I don't like it enough to enjoy it. :)

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  5. You might want to look into massage or reflexology, they have helped me in the past. And Sleepytime tea is my new fave sleep "drug".

    And I remember the test pattern, it was very soothing. Now you just get bombarded with infomercials, bah.

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