Insomnia

Insomnia has been a regular companion over the last couple of years. My thoughts seem to be especially negative at night. I lie there groggily and think about what I might change. Usually this leads to thinking about suicide.

When I took the problem to my doctor, I wanted it to be mechanical.

My wife had noticed long intervals when I would stop breathing while sleeping. It turned out that I suffer from moderate-to-severe sleep apnea. I spent months and plenty of money with a specialist who had me fitted with an oral appliance designed to hold my throat open enough to breathe while I slept. It mainly caused me trouble sleeping, because it's hard to sleep well with a big plastic thing in your mouth that advances your lower jaw and makes you drool.

More than half a year and several time-wasting adjustments later, yet another test confirmed that the appliance had no discernible effect. The specialist suggested other options. I decided to hit the pause button on treating the sleep apnea.

This summer I had the occasion to take an entire month off. By the last third of the time off, the insomnia had clearly disappeared.

The night before I returned to work, the insomnia reappeared as if it had never left. It has stayed with me since my return.

So, in a way, the problem is mechanical.