Overcast so-laced with ground fog there’s drizzle in the air — no real rain forecast until Sunday night and into Monday, but this continuing low cloud situation makes life a bit wet.

And making life more than a bit shitty — lack of sleep. Six years ago, without any preamble at all, I developed a form of insomnia, and for awhile the problem was manipulated by work — I really didn’t have to face the problem’s full-shitty attributes except on the weekends, which apparently allowed me to think I’d gotten a handle on the disease, though not in any joyous form or fashion.
Retirement, though, which came nine months ago today, let the ugly, asshole-cat out of the sleep bag, and there’s no ‘handling‘ the horror except going through it.

Last night, less than three hours total sleep — makes me feel shameful, and ghastly-over petulant.

(Illustration: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Self Portrait Facing Death‘ (June 30, 1972), was originally found here).

Sleep deprivation has become my most-favorite form of torture — the boys at the CIA would have a way-easy time of it with me. A little bit of keeping me awake, and I’d quickly dissolve into a crying, slobbering and self-pitying piece of baby shit. I give up any freakin’ thing, sell my own mother down a polluted river for a few minutes of shut-eye.
Sadly horrifying, but true.
And last night, one of the worse episodes, but they’ve all seemed to be getting worse the last couple of months. I’ll spare the details, might make a reader blow horrible, blood-curdling chunks.

Yesterday, a new study of insomnia in connection with intelligence tests in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and also in neurotypical children (without ASD), also allowed a note to child-like adults with low sleep quality.
Via ScienceDaily: ‘It also appears that the quality of sleep over the whole night, and not only before midnight or at the end of the night, promotes good intellectual functioning.’
Makes sense…

Most of my sleep, however, what little there is, comes early and then later, outside the infamous hole — a horror-time F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed was, “in a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning.”
Last July, I detailed my insomnia problem here, and then again earlier this month an update, which was about like the original, but more sleepy.

And the real, frustrating shitty-horror is there’s really nothing to be done — except maybe medicate.
In April, Gabrielle Moss at Bustle outlined how friends help friends get through insomnia, starting with this:

But for such a common problem, there are still tons of misconceptions about insomnia floating around — from what causes it, to how to solve it.
When our friends are struggling with insomnia, it’s natural to want to help and support them by giving them advice and passing on any knowledge about insomnia that you may have heard.
But sometimes, passing on bad or judgmental advice can actually make your sleepless buddy feel worse.
Insomnia is a strange and isolating health problem — it’s tough to describe to anyone who hasn’t lived through it, and many people still think that chronic, crippling insomnia is a result of making small bad choices, like staying up too late, or drinking too much caffeine.
This reinforces the idea that insomnia is the insomniac’s fault — which is not only untrue, but can make an insomniac more anxious, and thus make their insomnia worse.

But without friends, one has to do with crying, silently screaming and feeling shamefully petulant. And hope tonight there’s some relief…