I had an unexpected and unpleasant bout of insomnia last night. It may have been caused by the large Fruit and Nut Toblerone that I ate my way through while watching the snooker. I'm not exactly a fiend for sugary stuff these days and chomping through a chocolate bar the size of a small Swiss mountain may have overfuelled my body and overexcited my brain.
About 2.15am, I awoke with a sense of dread and with a voice in my mind telling me everything that is wrong about me and the way I live my life. I hope that doesn't make me sound insane, because it wasn't quite that bad, but I did find myself questioning a lot of things that I do, and wondering if I do them adequately, let alone well. I love my sons and I would do anything for them, and I would do anything to provide for them, but the true meaning of my responsibility as a father seemed to be weighing heavily on my chest and making me almost breathless. I was thinking about having to keep them safe and secure for the next twenty years, about having to be a decent role model as a man, and a husband, and a dad, and I was thinking about what I would do if one of them became ill or injured. My suspicion is that it would destroy me and I would be a useless, gibbering wreck, and that's what my 'overnight voice' was pointing out to me (by now it was about 2.55am).
This has all happened before, and the good thing is I'm better at dealing with it now. I know that any decent parent in the world has times like this, when they wonder whether they're doing anything right, or whether they're ruining a precious life that they are responsible for. I also know that the naughty voice is not me, or my intelligence, or my subconscious, it's just another side of my psyche that is there to provide alternative views on things, and sometimes it gains in power and strength and starts to take over my thought processes; normally when I'm tired or have been a bit too busy. Just because I hear it, doesn't mean I have to listen to it, and just because a thought pops in my head, it doesn't mean I have to believe it. I can just acknowledge it and then let it go, and I'm thankful that I was able to do that last night.
And when I said 'I hear it' I don't mean that literally - it hasn't got to the stage where I am actually hearing voices, but I'm sure you know what I mean. I have a great imagination and oftentimes my thoughts resonate in my head as pictures and sounds, not just as random words. When I'm problem-solving or thinking about things to do with work, that can be an amazing tool to have, but when my mind is less active with plans and is able to roam free and do its own thing, it can often turn itself down a dark, unhelpful cul-de-sac. Especially when it's dealing with enough sugar in my system to keep a classroom full of children dancing for days...
So, anyway, I ignored as much as I could, told the rest to piss off, and eventually managed to get another hour or so of sleep before Mathew came crashing into life at 6am. It will be a day of tiredness and caffeine, but at least I'm not dwelling on the bullshit that my own brain was creating in the wee small hours of the morning, and I'm confident that tonight will be a better, longer, less-interrupted sleep.
I'm going to stop now before I really do start to sound insane.
RC 1-5-23
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