Over the last few months, I’ve been feeling really run-down. Exhaustion. Perpetual dark circles. Unable to push through the gym more than 2-3 days per week.
For a while, I worried I was slipping into depression. Add constant irritability/short temper, and all of the classic symptoms of depression are there. And yet, I really haven’t been unhappy. I still like my job (though, with all the bloodletting in media lately, including at my own company in the last week, I’ve had plenty of cause for alarm). Love my apartment. Could have more money but couldn’t I always? What could possibly be wrong?
At 4:49 this morning, exactly what has been wrong hit me like the 10 lb cannonball of fur that had just landed on my back. I haven’t had a single unbroken night of sleep in five months. Not once since I brought my cat home have I been able to sleep through the night. In the early days, he would take flying leaps onto my head and bite my face, sending me directly from dead sleep to adrenaline-charged wreck. Now, he’s calmed considerably, and rarely bites while I’m sleeping, but he still will not leave me alone for more than four hours. Either he wakes me with purrs, kneading my arm fat, or as he walks over me to get to his spot above my head on the pillow. Not a single night of solid, natural sleep in nearly half a year.
This waking-in-the-middle-of-the-night might be normal for most people, but is absolutely not normal for me. Barring external interference, I have never had trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. I don’t wake up in the middle of the night to go to the loo. I have nightmares maybe a half dozen times per year. But I don’t get quality sleep anymore, and I’m afraid it’s really beginning to take a toll on my wellbeing.
I’m not giving my cat up. I love him. But he’s proven to be rather resistant to conditioning to leave me the hell alone once the lights go out. I may have to resign myself to either locking him in the bathroom every night for the rest of our tenure in this studio, or move to an affordable (HA!) one bedroom apartment.
Put that bitch in the bathroom and quit feeling guilty about it. He likes it in there. He told me so.
I had to train my baby cat early on that interfering with my sleep was a sure way to find herself back out on the street. Getting locked out of the room a few times let that message sink in loud and clear! Yeah, the kneading the arm fat thing is cute but can get annoying.
M–I’ll have to. He’s going to be so confused.
Berry–I’ve been trying to train this little behind for months. MONTHS. I seem to have succeeded in training him not to bite while I sleep but failed to realize he would wake me up even when he was good.
This is the only thing about studio-dwelling I dislike. No way to shut out the cat unless I lock him in the 5×7 bathroom!
Oh, he definitely does not like it in there for long. I had forgotten that he figured out how to open the bathroom door a few weeks ago. Last night he tolerated it for a few hours, then busted out. I put him back in, and a little while later he was back out.
This morning, he’s extra crazy. crazy with a side of “why the hell are you biting me you hairy little shit?!”
I’m gonna have to move.
Dang, he is a smart one. Mine used to just go take a nap until her punishment was over. LOL
Put a brick, or chair in front of the bathroom door at night. I hope you are getting some sleep, it’s been a few months.