At the end of winter, I realized I was depressed. I’d let myself get into quite a state, and I went to our county mental health clinic to get some help. I got an antidepressant and something to help me sleep. The antidepressant did its magic, but I was still struggling to stay asleep, so at my follow-up appointment I asked about other medications. The nurse practitioner prescribed me something else, and now I can sleep and sleep and sleep. I can sleep forever. It’s wonderful, as I’ve been getting increasingly drained by waking up again and again throughout the night, sometimes for hours on end; however, it’s maybe a little too wonderful. Last night, I went to bed around midnight, and I slept today until 2 PM. I haven’t slept that long since my college drinking and partying days.

Maybe I’m just kind of exhausted, and my body needed to have 14 hours of sleep to get itself readjusted. Maybe I need a bit of hibernation to catch back up….maybe, though, I’m actually just drugged out of my gourd, and I’m practically comatose in a way that will not serve me. I didn’t notice my husband getting up to go to the methadone clinic. I didn’t notice when he came back home, and I didn’t notice when he came upstairs to get our dogs and take them out for a morning peepee. I didn’t notice his usual stomping and slamming around the house while I was sleeping.

It was great. It was a little scary.

I run up into these kinds of dilemmas a lot in recovery. I wonder what, exactly, it means to take care of myself. I haven’t had much practice, as I was  30 years old when I was introduced to the concept, so I’m still kind of figuring it all out. Is it self-care to take the medication that helps me to sleep, or is it self-care to work through my insomnia in other ways? Is it healthy to get 14 hours of sleep when I’ve been exhausted, or is it lazy and self-indulgent? Is it right to take the medication that was prescribed to me, or is it wrong to take mood-altering medications when I’m working a program with a spiritual foundation?

I’m not sure. I think I’m going to experiment with my dosage a bit, as the prescription gave me some wiggle room. When I take the lowest dose, I still wake up in the middle of the night and am unable to go back to sleep. When I take the highest dose, I am out for half a day. Maybe I’ll find the answer somewhere in between, and once I get some better sleep hygiene, I’ll be able to wean myself off.