Sleep. Peace.

So a friend of mine recently told me that for a person who does not know me, for them it will be difficult to trust me. They probably want to share something, but they’re hesitant because they do not know who they are sharing it with. This got me thinking.

So, The Wall is all about pain and memories and sharing. It’s the idea that no matter who you are, what you think, what you feel, whatever you’re going through and whatever you’ve gone through, you are not alone. There is someone else out there who has gone through the same or is going through the same. It’s about letting that person know that they are not alone.

So here I am. Over the next couple of weeks, I will tell you about me. So that you can connect and know the kind of person I am. I am not much of a sharer but I will try, because there is nothing I’ve believed in more than I believe in the idea behind The Wall. No one deserves to be alone.

As always,

Read.

Listen.

Understand. And Love.

We’re here. And we care.

*****

“Sleep has become a bit of a problem lately. It’s difficult to explain, but I will try my best. The condition that has been plaguing me for quite some time now is something known as panic induced night terrors. It’s basically nightmares accompanied by a panic attack.

What happens is that I do not understand the difference between a dream and reality. The dreams are so complex and real it feels like the things that are happening in my dream are all real. For example, if I am drowning in my dream I think I am drowning for real, and then I start gasping for breath. So someone at that moment has to wake me up, because I do not realize it is actually a dream. If I am still sleeping, I feel like I am about to die, because in reality I actually am, since I’ve been out of breath for almost about a minute.

Funny as it sounds, that pretty much sums it up.

It’s been happening for a year now. Initially it started off with one or maybe even two in a week. Then their intensity increased to three or four each week and they became more complex with time.

Then came a time, when it became very very regular. That is when my mind started fearing sleep. I’ve heard a lot of people say that they suffer from insomnia. But, that moment, when I was just too scared to go to sleep, that is when I realized the gravity of it all. At one point, I did not sleep for 5 days straight. I am not even kidding here. Not one hour of sleep.

It was funny how I told my family about it. Because think about it, sleep? Really?

I’ve been to five doctors since. I’ve been prescribed 12 different pills, and bought more than 200 of them. That made it worse. These pills, they just f*** your mind up. I started having auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations and so much more. I started abusing my medication to escape all of it. They mellowed me down and gave a happy high. My brain was stressed. My body was stressed and I was just plain tired. I thought I was losing my mind and I wanted to check myself into a psychiatric facility.

What was my response?

I turned to alcohol as always. I don’t want to talk about alcohol too much today because alcohol has always had a love-hate relationship with me. So SHE deserves a separate post altogether.

I am not better. These things still happen. Maybe not every day or as often but they do. I stopped any form of medication, because I don’t believe in them. It has always been difficult to explain all of this but I hope whoever reads this understands or tries to. My dreams are so complex you will not understand how weird and real they are.

So that’s about it. Why I wrote this today?

Because yesterday was a bad night.

Thank you.”

*****

– Aitijya Sarkar

PS- For any post contributions, email us at- thewallandus@gmail.com