A few weeks ago I met a patient with insomnia and he was under psychiatry follow-up. Somehow, the insomnia that an average person experiences is nothing compared to the particular patient's. I was shocked to know that he sleeps an average of 2-3 hours a day and with sleeping pills, it could probably be up to 5 hours. I find it hard to understand how a person could be so alert. It made me wonder if he is more accomplished by sleeping less and being able to stay awake to actually live life. I do see sleeping as a temporary death where you lose all awareness and suddenly fail to exist within the period of zero consciousness. Sometimes it makes me wonder if I will be missed while I am asleep or forgotten.
The past few weeks have been a roller coaster and I somehow made it through the ride without having a heart attack. I learned about trust, perseverance, friendship, and resilience. Of all the things I learned, I love the part about trust. Out of feeling stressed, I somehow handled it by being mischievous and created my own version of an exam mock and showed my batch, however, despite it being a joke, it was circulated beyond the batch to other universities, which resulted in me blacklisting every single person who was in that group. I find shutting people out is easier than trying to reason with them because you can't drill common sense into an imbecile's mind. It is much energy efficient and saves lots of time and heartache. Somehow it felt satisfying to express my displeasure and close that door behind me because none of them gave me any value.
That was not the reason I am awake at this odd hour but it is because I experienced the worst "insomnia" for the past 3 days after my exams. It is so funny that I was so level-headed before the exams and could possibly be the person with the most positive attitude despite being under-prepared. After the exam, I doubted my sanity as I found the questions to be fair and I was hoping I could make it. In fact, if I do not make it, I would definitely doubt myself as all the questions relate to what I do at work daily and it had a lot of questions about crisis management. I have never felt so confident in an exam yet at the same time felt really insecure post exams. With regards to the confidence, it was an exponential decay as I started to recall that I left out a few key points here and there. The more I think about it (gosh ruminating sucks!), the more I feel doom. So for the last 72 hours, I only had an average of 3 hours of sleep per day and I had palpitations each time I wake up. Despite my good night's sleep concoction of milk, honey and cinnamon, I still couldn't sleep through the night.
It made me think about the patient who had insomnia, is this a preview of what he is experiencing daily? does he have unresolved problems that keeps him awake? So does being awake makes a person productive? For me, I was able to use my alertness to earn some extra income by volunteering in the day to do private cases and then enjoy the period of wakefulness by gaming. Speaking of gaming, it felt really sweet to resume playing again and I bought a new mobile in the game after seeking advice from pro players. The game help center was rubbish as they could not resolve my problem of not being able to watch advertisement which resulted in a lost of 14gems. Good thing that Bubbles solve it for us and it was one of the event that marked a joyous start for me yesterday. Eventually, it was followed by the news of clearing the first hurdle of the exams. I lost all catecholamine after knowing the outcome and slept at 9pm as I felt the worries dissipated and I am so exhausted.
I was planning to wake up at 7 but here I am at 4am, eating instant noodles and poached egg, writing on my blog. There are so many more things to write about but for now I shall attempt to do something more productive such as preparing for the upcoming viva and once I clear that, I could go back to my hometown for good (I pray it is really for good).
Thank You God/ greater Force for not leaving me despite me being a weak believer throughout the year. I know I am not religious but this year I could almost feel like I am turning into an atheist which made all the magic in my life to evaporate. You showed me miracles, You help me achieve things beyond my capacity and You showed me again and again that You were always there for me although I became so rational that I ignored all the subtle messages You dropped me (I even thought that I could manage it without You). I do not believe it was a coincidence that the weather was better during exam week. I do not know how I was able to have 7 hours of sleep daily till the exam day and was so calm and composed. I really would not have done it without Your help. The only way I could give back is to utilize all these wonderful gifts that You have given me to serve others.
"Love All, Serve All; Service to Society is Service to God" <3
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