How Our Current World Climate Has Made My Insomnia Worse

Things have been difficult for everyone since the pandemic hit the United States. I’m not sure if difficult is the right word or if the proper word exists. For the last month, I have been feeling my depression and anxiety in a more invasive way. Not to mention so many different negative emotions that seem to pile up on me all at once. 

I pride myself on being a realist, but things feel like they will never be okay again. On a rational level, I know this is not true. But it is hard to be rational sometimes.

I feel the pain of my community

Inevitably, I am wide awake at 3 in the morning, thinking about the suffering in the world right now. People I love are suffering for many different reasons. But just seeing things like someone not having enough money to pay for the small number of groceries they have is heartbreaking.

It used to be mild sadness felt, but now it's as if we all feel that person's pain. I love living in a small community in East Tennessee because we will never let anyone go without. Able strangers will make sure that the person leaves with the food they came for. I worry about so many things and so many nameless people I will probably never meet.

New levels of bed dread

The early hours of the morning while I would lay wide awake with my family sleeping used to be annoying and frustrating. I always managed to find quiet things to occupy my time and eventually mastered the art of it. Now it is a time where I play out the worst-case scenarios for my family and me in my mind. My husband should be on the shortlist for vaccination due to his many health issues, but there just aren't enough. As of right now, they are only vaccinating those with chronic health conditions who are 70 or above.

An absolute dread falls over me when it is time to get ready for bed now. I know this new cycle I have developed after I wake up will start all over again. I was in a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) outpatient several years ago, and I have been retaking a CBT refresher online. It is slowly starting to help, but a lot slower than last time.

Coping mechanisms no longer work

Now that my husband is no longer working as a nurse in a hospital and working from home, I have someone to support me when I feel like I am falling apart in those early morning hours of sleeplessness. My life, like everyone else’s, has been upended indefinitely.

My unhealthy coping mechanisms of the past no longer work. I can no longer neatly pack my pain and fear away in pretty little boxes and hide them in my well-organized catalog of a brain until I have forced myself to no longer feel the experience.

I learned to do this at a very young age, and I have perfected it. The pain I feel now is visceral. I ache with the pain and sadness I have refused to feel again after losing my grandfather in the 3rd grade.

New worries fuel my insomnia

This upheaval has created new insomnia-related issues I have to learn to cope with. There have been other times in my life of uncertainty, but never a time with no end in sight. A pandemic that has caused, as of today, the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans alone.

It has been almost a year now since I received an e-mail telling me to prepare to work from home. At that point, I thought this would last a month, maybe two and then we would all go back to normal.

However, almost a year later it feels like we have gone backward. In the early days of COVID-19, restrictions were put in place before my area was hit hard by COVID-19. Now, with my county alone nearing 40,000 confirmed active cases, the restrictions are minimal. My current reality feels as if I am living in The Upside Down (for my Stranger Things fans).

Keeping my head above the water

As I find new ways to cope, I keep reminding myself this is just another way my insomnia has evolved in our lifelong battle with each other. I will eventually find a way to work through this; I keep telling myself, as I stare at my ceiling at 3:00 in the morning, with the same song repeating for hours called "Head Above The Water" by a band named Palace.

It is a perfect reminder to keep moving forward. My family needs me healthy physically and emotionally, so I have no choice but to keep my head above the water.