...Get it? Because "Insomniac Games" make the Spider-Man games, and this is about insomnia...
Fuck it: Joke aborted. I knew I should have tried a Spyro pun instead.
I don't know if you could tell by my subtle and clever introduction, but I have problems sleeping. It's easy for me to stay asleep; it's getting there that's the tricky part. I'll go through periods where it's relatively easy and I'm on an... okay schedule, then there will be times when that is the exact opposite. And it always feels like it's the latter more than the former.
When I was a kid, I was afraid of insomnia. Being awake at 10:30 on a school night didn't feel like a treat, it felt like neverending panic. I remember one night being awake way past bedtime, and crying tears of desperation for sleep. My parents weren't even mad: Their idea was to have NPR quietly playing in my room, and it worked.
Turns out, it's a lot easier to fall asleep when you first calm the fuck down, and I've always been insanely bad at that.
Even when I can sleep, my sleep schedule for the most part is fucked. Most of that can be chalked up to almost a decade of working nights. The rest, of course, is because my God damn brain is broken. I used to take Advil PM semi-regularly, but was informed that was a terrible idea. Was it actually? Who knows. What I do know is that after a while, it kinda starts working when it feels like it. You'll take a couple and set your alarm for 6 AM; 3 AM comes along, and you're still wide awake with no signs of slowing down, so you turn your alarm off. Suddenly, you're out like a light, and you wake up at 11:30 dazed and confused.
Someone told me I should try melatonin gummies. I had no idea what those were, so I did some research. Side effects include heightened feelings of depression and anxiety. No fucking thank you; I got enough of both already, I don't have any room for more. Side effects may also include vivid dreams and nightmares: Two more things I have a surplus of. We don't need to turn a chemical imbalance into a toxic waste spill. Things are corrosive enough upstairs as it is.
For now, I'm gonna stick with my tried and true method: YouTube videos of attractive women whispering nonsense into my ears as I pray for a visit from the sandman. Worse case scenario is being visited by the wrong sandman, and getting beaten unconscious with a Singapore cane before cheap beer is poured all over my unconscious face.