Nowadays we’re building towards a situation where we have terms for just about everything one can think of. That can be both good and bad. It’s good inasmuch as it gives us a handle on stuff, but it can be bad if inaccurately or lazily applied.
I was recently pondering on the phrase ‘addictive personality’, and how, despite it being a term or phrase that medical science largely rejects, nevertheless, practically speaking, it can be used to understand one’s own behaviour.
Perhaps in a similar vein, I am now thinking about hypersomnia? On and off throughout my life I’ve definitely struggled with the more common or garden insomnia. I still do at times. But just recently – since a bout of taking zopiclone sleeping pills, funnily enough – I’ve seemingly transitioned from insomnia to some form of hypersomnia.
Personally I think my own current personal brand of hypersomnia – excessive sleep as well as excessive tiredness – is (unless there’s an underlying medical cause I’m unaware of?) almost completely down to depression.
My most recent bout of depression was kicked off by being summarily fired from a music peri’ teaching position I’d been in for four years, by a new music head not yet in his job even four months.
Maybe I was heading depression-ward already? I must admit I can’t really unpack it all at present. As my mind is not in the fittest state it’s ever been in.
Other stuff – most of which I’m keeping resolutely private for the time being – has deepened the depression. So much so I’ve had a few crises. Some of these have been akin to episodes in my past. One or two are unprecedented. And scarily so.
I think mind and body are reacting to these stresses by a desire to shut down. Mind especially so, with body following, in the form of total and perpetual exhaustion. I’m also experiencing neck and headaches that are both very frequent and pretty intense.
All of this combines to make me want nothing more than oblivion. This has manifested in, most upsettingly, what nowadays is sometimes called suicidal ideation. And in more mundane terms, the desire to stay in the warm cosy cocoon that is bed, and not venture out to face the world and all it’s depressing drudgery.
Anyway, speaking of which… it’s 2.05 pm. And I’m still a-bed. Shocking, eh? But increasingly normal for me. I guess I’d better haul my sorry carcass out of the sack, and attend to some depressing drudgery… here goes nuttin’…