morning glory

I used to think that my not being able to get up in the morning was due to sheer laziness. Now, I'm not so sure. I tend to wake up earlier than my alarm, and just lay there and think, but not in a "oh jeez, I've got X, Y, and Z to do today" way. More in a "wow, my mind is calm again," way. I like musing on that.

When I [attempt] to go to bed at night, my brain is still on overdrive, hence my insomnia and nocturnal panic attacks. It's like a million voices chattering all at once, often about trivial things, but a million of them disguise it all as more important than it really is. I've tried the pills, the teas, the yoga, the meditation, the acupuncture, the caffeine and sugar avoidance, the writing it all down. Sometimes those things work, sometimes they don't.

And I wonder how all that stuff gets in my head in the first place every day, and I don't seem to realize it until I try to sleep. One therapist came up with the radical idea of letting myself panic, just to get it out of my system. She said I keep shoving It (whatever It may be) aside, and it backs up. So if I just opened the floodgates and let it all out to have its moment in the sun and to be acknowledged, which may be all It wants, I'd probably feel better, though I'd suffer a bit in the process. She said that's what meditation is really, just sitting and letting all that gunk drain out one thing at a time until your head is clear. The hard part is stopping yourself from wanting to analyze every little thing as it drains out - hold it up to the light to examine it, query it, fix it, etc.

The scary thought is how much of that gunk do I have backed up in my head? Years worth? Probably. One big massive panic attack to get it all out. Would I even survive that? It would by turns be terrifying and a relief.

I must admit that my panic attacks are not as bad as they used to be, and I do sleep a teeny bit better than I used to. Perhaps it is because I am now Armed With Knowledge as to what panic attacks are, so I fear them less.

I feel bad for my Calm Mind in the morning. The poor thing isn't going to last for long, so I stay in bed for a few more minutes each morning, not wanting to disturb it, and clinging to it like I would cling to my teddy bears when I was a kid. I wonder if I should get another teddy bear. I wonder how my cat would feel about that.