The Invisible Toll Of Insomnia

The struggle to live your life when you never fully wake up

I roll over in bed and look at my phone, the time 7 am blinks back at me. I stare at it in confusion. The bedroom was still dark, adding to my uncertainty.

I had gone to bed at 10, how was it 7? How could the time run backward?

Then it hit me — I had slept through the night for the first time in years.

I, like so many others, suffer from insomnia. According to the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 30% of the population suffers from some sort of insomnia symptoms. When you take into account that as of 2023, the world population hovers at just over eight billion people, this number is staggering.

Insomnia is characterized by difficulty in falling asleep, staying asleep, or both. For people who suffer from this sleep disorder, their daytime function is impaired, resulting in difficulty concentrating, headaches, memory loss, or sleepiness.

For me, insomnia was brought on by a serious concussion I suffered five years ago. You can read more about it here.

All of a sudden, the full night of sleep that I took for granted was a thing of the past. Now my nights were characterized by multiple wake-ups, long periods of staying awake, and racing thoughts.

Interrupted Sleep Was The Norm

For the past five years, it has been quite common for me to wake up multiple times through the night. I go to bed around 10 pm and I usually see every hour between then and 6 or 7 am when my five-year-old wakes me up.

Sometimes I am lucky and I go back to sleep in a few minutes after I wake up. I stay asleep until the next hour when it repeats. But more often than not, I wake up and stay awake for many hours.

For whatever reason, 2 am seems to be the time my body has chosen for this. Three to four times a week, I will wake up around 2 am and my body will be unable to fall back asleep until 5 am.

What do I do during that time? By and large my thoughts race and my anxiety skyrockets.

Racing Thoughts

Usually during these wakeful periods, I think about work — or stress about work would be more accurate. I think about all the things I need to do, or the mistakes I may have made, and my mind spirals. It is quite common for me to sit up in bed sweating, with my heart racing because I have worked myself up so much.

This, in turn, keeps me awake even longer.

I also think about embarrassing things from my childhood that my normal daytime brain has forgotten.

One time in particular, I vividly recalled a teenage me turning down a boy at a grade 10 dance. I don’t know why I remembered it — I hadn’t thought about the boy or that event in years. But for whatever reason, I couldn’t get it out of my head. It didn’t matter that it had happened almost two decades ago, I was sure that I was a terrible person and I ate myself up about it.

Occasionally, my mind turns to my writing and I draft story ideas or fill in plot holes in my novels. This may seem great — and in reality, I have come up with some of my best ideas this way — but I would much rather my body think of these things during the day.

As you can imagine, this chronic lack of sleep has negative ramifications on my daily life.

A Simple Task Isn’t Simple

Some days I can manage fairly normally, but if I go through a period where I am up for a two or three-hour stretch, multiple days in a row, my functioning suffers.

What would be a normal task for anyone else — remembering where you left the milk or remembering to bring the keys with you when you leave the house — becomes almost impossible.

My job requires me to write complex code and consume large amounts of data on a daily basis. On bad days, I have trouble even focusing on my screen, let alone understanding my job.

I find myself zoning out of meetings and needing to ask the same question again and again. At the end of the meeting, I still don’t remember what was said and I know I will have to follow up on another day when my memory is better.

When I organize my work week, I make a list of simpler tasks and more complex tasks. I have to ensure that on days when I feel a bit more awake, I tackle the more complicated tasks. If I don’t, I will fall endlessly behind or make easy mistakes that I wouldn’t normally make.

Headaches, Nausea, and Fatigue

On very bad days, I wake up with a splitting headache. Every step I take, makes it feel like a sharp spike is shooting through my brain. The 20-second walk to the bathroom to get Advil makes me hunch over the toilet and dry heave.

My entire body feels drained — it's like I am suffering from the flu. I know that once the Advil kicks in, I will at least be able to function, but my body will remain a sluggish mess for the day. I may be able to move without feeling like throwing up, and my headache may be reduced to a mild twinge, but I will still feel physically ill.

Insomnia Is Invisible

Many people are surprised to learn that I have insomnia when I tell them. It is not something that is visible. I still have to live my life through the fatigue, the brain fog, and the lack of sleep and so I, like so many others, power through.

When you tell someone you are tired, they empathize. “I am tired as well,” they reply. “I got to sleep late last night.” They try to understand, but they are unable to. They can’t relate to the total bodily exhaustion you are going through.

It’s like going through the newborn phase of sleep as a mother — forever.

A Broader Perspective

All of this is not to suggest or downplay any other invisible disorder. Thousands of people suffer from illnesses that they hide from the world — things that are much more severe and even life-threatening.

In this context, insomnia may even be considered mild.

However, I know the drastic ways it has affected my life in the last five years. Insomnia is an invisible disease, one that many people don’t fully understand — but it can be life-altering.

You never know what someone is going through — if they are suffering from a disorder they keep to themselves — or if they are just having a bad day. It takes nothing to be kind and to give that person the benefit of the doubt.

Don’t assume that the person is stupid or ignorant because you need to explain something to them multiple times. Try living a week in their shoes and see how you would cope. I guarantee the result would be eye-opening.