Sleepwalking.

"Come look at something," he said as we woke up this morning, with an air of trepidation. When he is nervous, it makes me tense. I wondered what had happened.

He guided me into the kitchen, which was a wreck. I'm not surprised by him wrecking the kitchen, as he seems to have designated it as a reflection of his mental space. Foul kitchen=foul mind.

"Look."

He pointed to a battery, an empty bottle of Windex, a bowl full of sugar, the lid to the coffee creamer shoved into the sink drain.

"I don't understand," I said.

"Me neither. I did all this while I was asleep."

Meanwhile, I realized he'd also turned the stove burner on while sleeping. Fortunately, it was on low. I turned it off.

The coffee creamer was in the refrigerator mixed with the Windex from the empty bottle. The squirt nozzle from the Windex was inserted into the coffee creamer. There were two cans sitting in the space in the freezer where you put a cup to get ice. There was a pot in the freezer. He'd ripped a sponge in half.

I'm not sure what he was cooking with Windex, a battery, coffee creamer, sugar, and a sponge, but I'm glad I'd woken him up before it all made it to the burner, and I'm glad he'd not turned the burner up higher.

I'd gotten up around 3 a.m. to ask him to turn off the lights, as he'd been kind of roaming through the house turning lights on and off. Him roaming around and being rude with the lights while I'm trying to sleep is not new, so I'd just asked him if he was coming to bed soon or if I should turn the lights off. He said he remembers me coming to get him because I startled him and he didn't know what he was doing. He'd realized he'd been doing something weird, but it only really impressed him with how weird it was when he got up later and saw the mess in the kitchen.

A friend pointed out that I might be afraid that he'll burn the house down in the night. Mostly, I'm not. I wonder what's wrong with me? Or what's right with me? I'm not willing to lose sleep over his behavior, no matter how bizarre
It's kind of interesting to think of how his brain is rewiring itself right now, and how those wires might get crossed while he's sleeping. He's like a living, breathing science project. Someone who knows how should come study him.

So if you all don't hear from me again, it's probably just because Mr. Junky accidentally built some sort of home-made bomb in the night and I've gone on to that big Nar-Anon meeting in the sky. Hah.

Image from Goblinmarket.net

Let Me Sleep.

I am going to kill my husband if he doesn't let me sleep. He gets up at 5 to go to the methadone clinic. There is no reason for him to get up at 5. The place is open most days until noon, it's right around the corner from our house, and he is unemployed. He has nothing to do with his day except go to the methadone clinic.

But that's not the problem. That's just a prelude. If he got up, got dressed, and left, it wouldn't be a big deal. He'd wake me up, but I'd just go back to sleep. In fact, that's what I do. He gets up, he turns on all the lights in the bedroom, and so I wake up. He leaves after about 15 minutes, and then I go back to sleep. No big deal. I'm flexible and forgiving, right?

But then he comes back about 15 minutes later, usually outraged about something. He will tell me all the things that are wrong. I tell him I don't care because I'm sleeping, and he usually yells at me. Then he gets back in the bed. By this time, the dogs are up, so he gets back up to let them out. I fall asleep. 15 minutes later, he gets up to let the dogs back in. They come in, excited from their morning peeing, and get back in the bed. It takes them about 10 minutes to settle down. I fall back asleep. 15 minutes later, he gets up to go to the bathroom, turning on lights and cursing about how he can't get back to sleep. He opens and closes doors, talks, turns lights on and off, yells at the dogs, talks some more, opens and closes a few more doors...for the entire 2 and a half hours that I'm trying to sleep after his initial rising to go to the clinic. He has been doing this for months.

Months.

I keep asking for him to do something different...maybe get his clothes together the night before so he won't have to turn on so many lights. Maybe sleep upstairs. Maybe I'll sleep upstairs. Maybe he could just not talk to me. Maybe he could go to the clinic a little later.

The most frustrating thing in the world to me is that I can't get heard. I can't make him understand how it feels to have your sleep interrupted every 15 minutes for the last two and a half hours of rest, every day, for months and months. Nothing I can do to adapt will work. I've tried sleeping upstairs, but he just comes up there to talk to me. I've tried asking him nicely and asking him meanly. I've tried going to bed earlier, and he will just open and close the doors on both ends of the night. This weekend, I purchased one of those sleep masks that make you not care if the lights are being turned on and off, and I bought some ear plugs. I showed these things to him last night and told him that I really, really needed to get more sleep, that I can't work 70 hours a week on only 5 hours of sleep each night, and that I had plans to use these tools to get more sleep, and that I hoped he'd respect my need for rest. He said he understood, and he would be quieter in the morning.

What did he do this morning? He did his normal thing, turning on lights, opening and closing doors...and it was ok. I heard him, but not enough fully to wake up. He stomped around for a bit looking for his keys, and I heard him a bit more, but I still didn't wake up. My tools were working. Yay.

But finally, when he couldn't find his keys after a few minutes of looking, he came and yelled at me and shook me so that I'd get up and help him. I guess I have magical-fucking-eyes that can see keys where he can't. I told him "No." I'm not getting up. I told him I need to fucking sleep. He insisted that he couldn't find the keys and that I had to help, and proceeded to make it impossible for me to sleep. So I got the fuck up and found the fucking keys that had fucking fallen behind the fucking table where the keys go.

I have no idea how to resolve this situation. I have an idea that might work...there's an extra room in the house that has a door that locks. I think I might move a bed into that room tonight and sleep in there with the door locked. I just really, really have to get some more sleep, and I don't know what else to do short of kicking him out.

Fuck!



Photo Credit: MsPsychosThoughts