For the first time in my life, I got a prescription for sleeping pills.
After entering the pharmaceutical industry, I learned that in many cases doctors don’t really know whether their patients really have certain diseases, but they are still willing to write prescriptions. People can obtain some serious medicines way easier than I thought. I just claimed that I had some sleeping problems from time to time, then the doctor gave me the prescription without further questioning.
I don’t think I have insomnia. However, I do have some sleeping problems probably created by my stressful lifestyle. There is constant work and missions which are apparently over my capacity waiting for me to accomplish. The schedule management never worked and all sub objectives have been delayed. If sleep was not necessary for surviving but no more than watching TV, I guess I would forget it without hesitation.
I sleep short and shallow. If I don’t go to bed before 11 pm, it’s more likely than not that I will face some sleeping problems. Normally I will eventually fall asleep, but once in a while I may meet a big challenge – not able to fall asleep at all. This challenge came to me on Monday morning without warning.
It was Sunday evening and I had just finished my preparation for Monday’s meeting. Despite it being already 11 pm, I decided to study accounting for the upcoming examination. At 1 am, I went to bed and realized I was not sleepy at all. Although I had tried hard, I was still clearly conscious. At 3 am, I knew the situation was inevitable, so I got up and continued to study accounting until the morning.
The morning sunshine made me extremely uncomfortable. I tried to avoid sunlight as far as I could on my way to the company as if I had become a vampire. I gave myself 200mg caffeine pills the moment I arrived and had more as the time passed. I don’t know how I did it but I successfully overcame a 5 hour long meeting and even gave a presentation. I believe most of my colleagues didn’t even notice I stayed up all night. When I told my supervisor about this in the evening, he was surprised and blamed me for not being able to manage myself.
I don’t know how to precisely describe in words the kind of feeling that I have when working without enough sleep. It was more than just simple “pain”. Negative thoughts continued to flood my mind. Unlike everyday stress, the depression was so profound that it had been years since the last time I felt death was so close. It is clear that if I keep doing this, I will run out of luck within several months. In order to avoid torture like this, I decided to store some sleeping pills for emergency use.
