You live and learn, don’t you? And after yet another disastrous night’s sleep, I’m wondering if I have now learned something else. Is my lifelong problem with insomnia something to do with my recently diagnosed ADHD? And is that diagnosis leading me to uncover ever more conditions I might have? I don’t know and will never know, but when you go into cyberspace and find things that appear to relate to you, then what are you supposed to think?
My ADHD didn’t just turn up in relative old age. It’s always been there, even though no one thought to have me assessed. I’d never heard of it until relatively recently but thanks to Mr Google I now understand that it was first discovered in 1902. My mum, bless her, and our local GPs knew nothing about it either. What I did have, in early puberty, was ‘night terrors’ or maybe ‘sleep terror disorder’ – there are names for everything these days – and by the age of 12 I was already seeing a psychiatrist. Whatever the psychiatrist did worked and the form of terrors I had went away never to return. But good sleep remained, and indeed remains, an issue.
I’ve been offered all sorts of advice over the years, some from medical professionals and some from well-meaning family and friends. None have worked and I am pretty sure none ever will. I know that if I consume alcohol – and it has been known – my sleep patterns are erratic, to say the least. Without alcohol, it’s far, far worse and now that I drink far less than at my peak, my sleep is worse than ever. And I say this, ever so politely, to anyone kind enough to care: please don’t make suggestions as to how my insomnia can be cured. Trust me when I tell you I have tried them all, at least all the ones that have been suggested to me and they don’t make a blind bit of difference.
The frustrating thing is that for all these mental issues, there is almost nothing you can do unless you are very rich. The NHS offers literally nothing beyond basic counselling for mental health issues and nothing at all for the myriad of conditions that exist, not even a diagnosis never mind treatment. So, us mental folk are reduced to trawling the internet and self-diagnosing, but without the tools to do anything about it. Patient heal thyself doesn’t work because if it did we’d have no need for doctors. In the wacky world of mental health and other assorted conditions, Brand Rishi Sunak and his loathsome government don’t give a toss. It’s a free country if you can afford it. If you can’t, it’s just too bad.
