Ambien is the work of the devil.
Well, or that's what I would say if I believed in the devil. There's too much evidence of actual, tangible villains and criminal masterminds for me to spend time worrying about some demon-y thing in a red jumpsuit and horns poking at people with a pitchfork. While red jumpsuits are far more popular than one would initially think, the only one I know running around with a pitchfork is the SuperVillain known as American Gothic, and he just lives the next town over, so I've got my eye on him already. Rather, let's say Ambien is the work of a criminal of the highest order, one who slaved away for years to come up with the exact chemical combination to render a SuperHero defenseless under the guise of what they call in the medical community "good sleep hygiene". Then this evil genius retained the services of the sleaziest of fixers to push the stuff onto pharmacy shelves as a miracle cure to finally put suffering insomniacs to rest. When the stuff then makes its way into the hands of Jane Q. Public, fine, she gets a great night's sleep. But the whole point of the conspiracy is to get the stuff into the hands--and into the systems--of SuperHeroes in order to watch them fall.
I am an insomniac. I have chronic insomnia. It is a symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. That I have PTSD should be no surprise to anyone: when your job is avenging the ladies across the nation--nay, across the world--you see some things you'd rather not have seen. When you're Sticking It To The Man in the name of the Pink-Collar Worker, you're going to find yourself in the middle of some horrific events that stay with you forever. It's just a hazard of the job. So PTSD is no surprise, and by now, it's totally manageable most of the time. It's just always there, under the surface, waiting for something shocking to bring it out again. And then there she is, PTSD, jumping out of your skin in all her terrifying glory, like Athena springing fully-formed from the head of Zeus. And then you're edgy and jumpy and "hypervigilant", you can't eat, you can't leave your house, you can't talk on the phone, you have to constantly watch all the entry points to your home, and the worst of it all is...you can't sleep at night. Not for love nor money.
You just. Can't. Sleep. At night. Because that's when the bad things happen. That's when you need to stay alert and focused and wait for something to happen, especially if you're alone. Like I am. And even if you lie in your bed, all of your senses are on overload, shooting their energy out into all the other rooms of your house like the Spidey Sense. Because you have to stay awake. You have to watch. You have to be ready. You never know what kind of trouble is going to go down.
To put it bluntly, this phenomenon sucks. I am well aware that it sucks. I am also well aware that there is nothing I can really do about it when the PTSD flares up. My body has learned that this is the correct way to deal with extreme stress, and so it does it without my mind's consent. The only thing left to do is to practice good sleep hygiene, and when that doesn't work (and it doesn't), take sleeping pills until you don't need them anymore. That's what ya do, and eventually, you'll be able to sleep unassisted again.
Obviously, I'm currently battling with PTSD, in which the insomnia is the jewel in the crown. By the time I finally dragged myself to a doctor, I had been awake for maybe 48, maybe 50 hours in a row. The doctor was new to me, and after looking up several things on her iTelephone, she gave me a fistful of Ambien and told me to take it and go to sleep.
While I had been prescribed sleep aids in the past, they had been benzodiazepines, not hypnotics. Ambien is a hypnotic, and my first night taking it threw me for a loop. It's like I felt a little light switch in my head click off, indicating, "Get into bed now!" And as long as I got into bed as soon as the light switch flipped, everything was fine. But one night the light switch flipped, and I still needed to wash my face and brush my teeth before going to sleep. So I did. And while the details are a little fuzzy, I remember standing at my bathroom sink, having very detailed conversations with select people from my life. But the thing is, it actually felt like I was having two-way conversations with the people. Like it was real. An actual exchange. And I remember there was about 2% of my brain insisting, "Hey, Lulu...hey, Lulu...Lulu...he isn't actually here. He's not here. No one is here but you. You're not actually having a conversation with him. This conversation isn't really happening..." And I actually shouted at my own brain, "Will you be quiet for a second because I have some things to say!!!!" The conversations felt real.
And it was all downhill from there.
The next big incident I remember is when I was packing to visit the Ps for Christmas. I had taken the Ambien while I was still packing, thinking that I'd finish by the time it kicked in. I didn't. I just kept thinking of the other things I needed to bring along with me on the trip. So instead of going to sleep and finishing in the morning, I devised a brilliant plan to take these items and put them in "special places" so that I'd remember to pack them the next morning. I remember doing this, and I remember explaining the plan to myself aloud, but for the life of me, I cannot remember what the necessary items were or where I put them. So these things are still planted in "special places" somewhere around the Gingerbread Cottage.
And it all started off as pretty funny, you know? Because I wasn't driving my car or lighting the fireplace or having sex in my sleep or any of the potentially dangerous stuff that some people experience as side effects. I was just doing these very strange but very purposeful things before I went to bed that maybe I'd remember the next day, maybe not. Until I'd eventually collapse into a lovely, dreamless, full night of sleep. It seemed so funny that The Cowboy and I developed a new extreme sport, the Ambien Endurance Challenge, in which the competitors take Ambien and have to perform specific tasks and answer interview questions, and the last man standing--literally standing--wins. It seemed vastly entertaining.
That is until the texting started. And the phone calls. And the emails. After ignoring that first light switch, I discovered that Ambien makes me love to communicate--love to communicate, that is, without any sense of propriety or filter. You know how it is when you've had a few drinks, and maybe you're feeling a bit mischievous, and you decide to call and say that thing that you really want to say, but your sober, proper self has been stopping you?
Yeah, it's not like that at all.
Ambien creates the same desire to communicate, but instead, I end up saying all these things that I specifically do not want to say at all. Like that I'm afraid my house is going to get condemned by the city like those people on that show Hoarders. Like that I know I've been a huge jerk lately but that I don't know how to stop. Like that sometimes I think Rudy and Baby Girl are conspiring to take over my house. They're the exact things that I do not want to say. At all. Because they're secrets or fears or they come from a place of neurosis that is very human but nevertheless very private. But suddenly, about a half-hour into the Ambien haze, and it's confession time! And there I go, texting up a storm, or calling, or emailing. Or blogging.
Revealing the precise things that I do not want to reveal.
Then the next thing you know, I'm on this road trip with Trudie and The Cowboy, and I realize--holy crap, I'm going to have to take Ambien in front of them. While they had both been on the receiving end of some of those Ambien-induced random confessions, it's something else to be there for it in person. What if I start doing, you know, the weird stuff I usually do when I take it? What if I start talking to people who aren't there? Or start making random craft projects? Or start talking up an uncontrolled, neurotic storm? And not only that, but what if I don't remember any of it? That's the worst part--not remembering. And knowing that there may be stuff out there that you don't remember. The thing is, I remember everything. It's not a SuperPower, just a personal quirk...but it's the one constant in my life. You know, the sun will rise in the morning, the sun will set in the evening, and I will remember what happened.
But not so with the Ambien...not so. The one thing that gives a stable, organizing principle to my life--memory--and it's just...gone. But it's not that I forget everything, just some things, things I don't specifically try very hard to remember, which makes it even more chaotic. And it's kind of horrifying--looking at someone sometime the next day and realizing something you said or did, but you had no idea 12 hours ago. Like on the trip, at rehearsal one day, I was talking to The Cowboy, and I looked at him and suddenly blurted out, "Oh my god, did I tell you that I have my period last night?!?!" And wouldn't you know it...yes, yes I did. And it's not that, you know, menstruation is a taboo thing--it's just that it's something I was very specifically not going to talk about, as rare as those things are. Because that's private. And because my costume was white.
Or sitting with Trudie at breakfast one morning after we had stayed up particularly late: "Dude, last night did I lay down in your lap and say that I wanted us to move to Florida so we could live together like The Golden Girls and borrow each other's accessories?"
Says Trudie: "Well, yeah, something like that."
Says me: "Um, and did I start to cry afterwards because I wished we lived together but we don't?"
Says Trudie: "Well, yeah..."
And yeah, really, I can say anything to Trudie, but dude...you still don't want to cry because you can't live in a house together like Betty White and Rue McClanahan. It's stuff that's in your brain, sure, and it's true and it's honest and it's stuff you actually think and feel sometimes--but it's stuff that you keep to yourself, even for those of us who hardly keep anything to ourselves.
And as our schedules got tighter, we got less and less sleep, so I started waking up still in the Ambien haze, with all of its attendant problems, and then Charlotte and Trudie and The Cowboy had a bit of a game, trying to see which things I remembered doing in the morning. Like falling asleep standing up with my face leaning on the freezer. Or laughing uncontrollably when presented with a breakfast burrito with spinach on it. Or falling off the back seat of the car every time Trudie put on the breaks. Or sassily asserting, upon being asked if I like mayo on sandwiches, "Not all the time!", without any kind of follow up. Or running up the stairs from my guest room announcing, "I still have my Performance Art Underwear on!"
And even right after the trip was over, when I was back in the Gingerbread Cottage all alone, I took Ambien, and about an hour later, I was crawling into bed while berating myself, "Oh my god, what the hell did you do?! Why did you ever think that was a good idea?! You need to apologize--they are going to think you are a total freakshow now..." And the reason for beating myself up? Because I had imagined that Trudie and The Cowboy were still here, and that we were hanging out in the living room, chatting...and I decided it would be a great idea for me to take my shirt off. Now, I did actually take my shirt off--or I must have, because I woke up the next morning without one on--but I also woke up in a huge panic because I was convinced it actually happened. I threw on a tank and raced out of the bedroom to apologize. But of course, no one was there. Because it never happened.
I texted Trudie about it afterwards, and all she had to say about it was: "Dude. That would have been awesome."
But that's the thing about it that makes it Kryptonite, that makes it the thing that completely strips away all my power as surely as magical underwear adds it: I am completely helpless in its grasp. No shield at all. I'm the proverbial open book, only a book that has the ability to assert: "Hey you--READ ME! No? Okay, then let me read a little bit to you..." And the thing is, I make choices when I'm on Ambien. They are conscious choices that seem like a great idea at the time, and they are true choices, honest choices, and I am responsible for those choices. Totally responsible, even if I don't remember them until 16 hours later. But it's like as soon as the idea to say something pops into my head, the choice has been made. The choice is in thinking the thought. Then the words just slide out of my mouth with nothing to stop them.
I mean, it's the perfect weapon in Hero vs. Villain because you can defeat the hero through the least confrontational means possible: through information. I mean, just ask me anything, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know and some things that you probably don't. But what if I reveal the location of Great Big Girl's headquarters? Or her patented techniques of Feminine Avenging or Sticking It To The Man? What if I reveal the names of my family or their location?
But beyond that, what if I reveal the very few secrets that I do actually have? You know, the one thing that I really regret. Or the thing I said to that one kid in junior high that I still feel bad about. Or that thing that really, really, really embarrasses me. Or the list of things that I fear. Or that one huge, shiny, neurotic button that I manage to keep hidden so well that sometimes even I forget it's there...until it gets pushed, that is. Compared to most people, I think I have relatively few secrets, but my investment in keeping my few private things really private is huge. Because there has to be a line somewhere. There has to be something that we keep to ourselves. Right?
It's a strange thing to contemplate, now that I've discovered my Kryptonite in the process of buying new undies. As a SuperHero, you always think that the thing that could end up beating you one day will be huge, you know? Something that has the force of a tsunami and the brute strength of a million lumberjacks, and the resulting battle will be epic and glorious, and if you win, awesome, and if you lose...well hey, that thing had the force of a tsunami and the brute strength of a million lumberjacks, so good for you for even trying.
But defeat by exposure? Oooh, that's a cold thing to contemplate...that's a cold, cold thing...
I'll get you one day, Ambien. Mark my words.
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