[If you don’t get the Emilie Autumn reference in the title, I forgive you.]

So, this chronic insomnia thing. It’s sounding an awful lot like I might have it.

After many nights of getting 4 hours of sleep or less, I was finally able to crash Sunday night. It was pretty awesome. I could have slept in much later, but a girl’s gotta work.

So what is chronic insomnia, and how is it different from “normal” insomnia?

Unlike regular insomnia (also known as Acute Insomnia), which happens only once in awhile and for no more than three weeks at a time, chronic insomnia is persistent. Insomnia becomes chronic insomnia when you have trouble sleeping three or more nights a week for a month or more.

According to WebMD, causes of chronic insomnia can include:

• Depression or anxiety
• Chronic stress
• Pain or discomfort at night

Although chronic stress isn’t a big issue for me anymore, I do tend to get really anxious and occasionally have anxiety/panic attacks. I have a bad back, which I inherited from my father, as well as scoliosis. Perhaps I should get back into yoga. I haven’t been doing that lately because my wrist braces are shot, so I can’t do yoga without them. Errgh.

Before chronic insomnia can be treated, the underlying causes need to be taken care of. If it’s a specific health problem or condition that’s causing chronic insomnia, treating that can improve your sleep or erase chronic insomnia altogether.

However, anxiety and depression can’t just be erased, so if that’s what’s causing chronic insomnia, it’s going to be tough. A lot of medications for anxiety/depression can make you sleepy, but they can also cause sleeplessness. This doesn’t make sense to me at all, but then again I’m not a chemist.

Another weird thing that’s been going on for some time now is that I have anxiety attacks when I try to or succeed in taking a nap. 99% of the time I won’t be able to fall asleep, but when I do succeed in falling asleep, I wake up either dehydrated or having an anxiety attack. My heart feels cold, heavy and shaky; the symptoms are the same when I lay in bed trying to nap. I just freak out for some reason.

The only answers I could find online were ones like “it’s because you’re worried about other things” or “you’re stressed.”

Well, who’da thunk? I know I’m worried about other things, whether consciously or subconsciously. It’s what you do when you have generalized anxiety disorder. I know perfectly well that I’m stressed. But why do I wake up from naps having an anxiety attack and not from normal sleep?

I’m going to talk to my doctor about it in November when I see her. This appointment was set 4 months ago, so I don’t want to change it right now. I also need to save up money for the bill.

I have the feeling my doctor will suggest a sleep study or something, which is going to be extremely expensive. Hopefully I won’t have to do that. Just give me a sleeping pill that’ll knock me out. Half of my battle is getting to sleep in the first place.