No Sleep 'Til

Another guest post from my husband...


I haven't been sleeping lately.  I've been up all night, every night for days now.  I'll get a few hours sleep here and there but it's hardly what you'd call "good" sleep.  I think it's getting to me a little bit.  More so than it has in a while, my trigger is set to "hair" and my mood shifts more than semi-truck going uphill.

I've been stewing over stupid things as well as having to deal with an unwarranted sense of guilt over things that are not under my control. I've also been getting paranoid and anxious.

I decided I should try to lay down tonight and sleep. Mind you, I've had all of about 9 hours sleep in the last four nights. So, I lay there, my mind kicks into overdrive and immediately I began to get all worked up over some bullshit going on with my kid.

Oh well...  What's another night without sleep right?  I got up and got dressed and headed out to the kitchen.  I grabbed a Mountain Dew and went out to the garage with my iPad to smoke a cigarette and surf the net.

I turn on the TV only to find about a thousand channels with nothing worth watching.  Pissed, I threw the remote onto the workbench as I glanced down at my iPad and caught a glimpse of my Facebook page.

The red mist descended upon me, my jaw line sharpened quickly and I felt my chest heave outward.  I felt the tension in my internal trigger of the hammer moving back slightly, getting ready to click forward and fire.    

I was just about to melt down "nuclear style" on Facebook about all the political bullshit that is flowing over the page like diarrhea, mucking up my feed, soaking in and stinking up the place. I had written out a nice long rant that fingered everyone involved labeling them as retarded when it hit me.

Earlier, the wife and I had a conversation about school. We had both agreed, "if the whole class is failing, it's usually the teacher -BUT- if you're the only one in class getting F's, it's you".

Amidst all of the irrational, "kill all humans", "scream over nothing", "cry like a pansy", "get pissed and throw something" notions, a rational voice chimed in repeating the conversation the wife and I just had.

I damned near got light headed. The finger came off the trigger without sending that round down range.

"Oh God... It's me"

I got a flash of heat across my face and a deep burning sensation of self loathing and embarrassment over the way I've been acting up to know. I set here for a good ten minutes before it started letting up.

What followed this discovery was this calm rationalization. The likes of which was more refreshing than the ocean breeze blowing across your face.

For that moment of discovery, that rational voice was the normal "before I had PTSD" me. In that instance, I was thinking like the old me. There, for a moment I was centered, squared away and even keeled. As I narrated the "school" conversation in my head my voice was temperate and calm.

I then realized, In between all of the problems, issues, damage and general lunacy, The old me is still in there. Oh sure, most of the time he's trapped inside with a raving fucking lunatic, not even being able to scream but, once in a while he shines through.

You know, it's funny. A long time ago, I told the doctor that I was afraid that I was crazy.  He said, "People who are truly crazy don't care if they're crazy or not".

This explanation always comes to the surface when I have these calm, self correcting epiphanies. But tonight, it was just what exactly what I needed to hear.

Maybe, since this time I identified that I was about to act out in anger, I'm not crazy. It makes me feel like I haven't fully lost my grip. It feels like there's hope yet.

I'm going to bed.