As a child, I hated sleep. I fought my parents every night at bedtime, thinking that if I cried long enough or hard enough or came up with enough time-wasting tasks, they might not make me sleep at all. Much to my dismay, this never worked. But it didn’t stop me from trying. My parents frequently found me asleep in my toy box in the morning because I did everything in my power to not fall prey to the tiredness. I always failed.

Once I grew up some, I learned to love sleep. I have found that there are few problems that aren’t made easier to handle with some sleep. I’m not a big napper, but I’ll go to bed at 9 any night of the week. Happily.

Or I used to.

The now 14 week old headache has been the first time in my life where I’ve consistently struggled with sleep. I can fall asleep fine, I’m exhausted at the end of every day. Hell, I’m exhausted all day every day. It takes a lot of effort to be in pain and by the evening, my body is waving the white flag of surrender and asking me to go on without it.

But that sleep only lasts for a few hours at most. Usually by 2, I’m awake. And it’s not like I’m just waking up and rolling over and going back to sleep. I’m waking up, completely wide awake, in pain.

Prior to the past few weeks, my only escape from the pain was sleeping. The headache was always there when I woke up, but I got between 5 and 8 hours of time to recover and recharge. It was the only thing that was holding my life together. I had hours of rest, hours to dream about life without feeling this way.

Not anymore. Now I’m up at 2 and 4, or 3 and 5 and I’m up for anywhere from 30 minutes to hours. 30 minutes to hours with substantial pain.

At first, the lack of sleep only seemed to present problems because I was exhausted all the time. But now that sleeplessness has really made it so that I can’t remember anything.

I forgot about a breakfast date with my husband, I forgot about an assignment that I need to start researching for. And those 63 muscle origins and insertions I’m supposed to know by tomorrow at 1? Well, that’s going about as well as you might think it is.

It’s not helping with the emotional struggles or the stress. It’s not helping me find myself again. It’s making everything more difficult and makes everything feel so much more catastrophic than it really is.

I feel like my one refuge from pain has been stolen away and now I’m left with even more time to try to cope with this pain and these worries and this stress. I have tried everything I know, and I simply can’t convince my body to sleep through the pain anymore. Without the ability to recharge, without any escape from the hell that is my waking hours, I don’t even know how I can hope to deal with anything.

I just wonder how much more of my normal life can be chipped away before I am chipped away with it.