Does anyone else clean their bathroom at 11 pm because even though they are on day 14 of not sleeping much they are not tired? Because at night when you lay down the anxiety itch becomes real, and it makes it, so sleep is hard to find.
I have the bad habit of scratching all the time when I am in a situation that makes my anxiety roar. One of my coworkers yells at me for it. Another asked if I need the skin on my hand and pointed it out to me. It is a subconscious act.
This week has been worse than in the past. My skin feels like it is crawling and most of the time I can ignore it but at night it is so much worse and I have not been able to control it. I started therapy this week and attempted to get some temporary medication. Things I should have done years ago but didn’t.
In the past few weeks, I have been managing a wonderful four to five hours of sleep per night. This is not a new problem but this is the worst it has been. I was so excited to pick up my medication on Thursday night because not sleeping in your twenties and in your thirties is a different hurdle in the morning.
I have been prescribed something to stop the itch and help me sleep; lucky for me, the medication has yellow food dye in it, and I can’t take them. The pharmacist I think seeing my frustration said have you tried melatonin and I said yeah in the past and it does not work.
Earlier in the week when I was worried that the itch was actually an allergic reaction I took some Benadryl and to my dismay, the itching did not go away. The next day I was just irritable and tired. By Thursday I would have done almost anything to get sleep. So I bought the melatonin.
As predicted it did not work.
The itch is starting to subside but not completely gone. Matt would have to know what to say to calm my nerves but he is not here. So instead I clean my bathroom and think about adding shelves for the towels. I want to ask him what he thinks.
When I woke up at 4 am I decided to clean upstairs before showering for work. There is no reason that my body is this upset we have been through worse. But for some reason, I can’t gain control this time.
I am happy that I decided to seek help. This is different than before and it is not sustainable to continue at this rate of little sleep and long days. Hopefully, between therapy and maybe getting medication, I can get back on the healing track.
I am at the year ten and half-month mark and I did not think that would mean still being not able to gain control of my anxiety and making the itch stop and the sleep thing happen. Matt is probably watching me thinking what is she doing?
About Laurel Snook
Laurel became a young widow on October 2, 2020, her husband Matt had a heart attack he was only 37. Matt was a juvenile diabetic and they always knew he would die young but she never thought that she could be a widow at 32. Navigating grief with anxiety, regrets and guilt have been a struggle for Laurel. They had gotten into a fight days before he died and they had talked about divorce. One of the things that helped her the most is finding other widows who understood the pain she was feeling. In February she decided to start writing her story. Self-care is something else she started to do daily and art has become her outlet to get what she is feeling out which she shares on her Instagram. Being a young widow comes with its own challenges but we are not alone in this journey.
You can find her on Instagram @HealingPorcupine or her personal blog link- Healingporcupine.com.