Journal of an antisocial insomniac

June 15^th

Dear Diary

Why I address this like I’m writing a letter to some unknown person I have no idea. It’s probably from all those shows I watched as a kid. Guess when you hear something often enough it does really affect you. I’m sitting here at the ungodly hour of 2am writing because I have nothing else to do. That’s a lie, there are plenty of things I could do, but this is what my psychologist suggested. I may not like everything she suggests, but I at least give it a shot.

How writing nonsense is supposed to help I have no idea. Wow this really does sound like nonsense, guess it’d make more sense if I explained. Why I’d explain myself to literally no one I don’t know, but I better do this thoroughly. I’ll write my name in the cover so I’m not going over that. I suffer from insomnia (among other things), and somehow writing late at night when I can’t sleep is supposed to help.

There really isn’t much in my life worth writing about. I get up every morning (even when I don’t sleep) and get ready for work. I live alone, no roommate, pet, or significant other. I spend my day at work and then take the long train commute home. I generally pick something up from one of the take-out places just down the street. Once home I eat while watching tv. Lately I’ve been binge watching shows. Once it’s late enough I clean things up and go to bed. When I get a day off, I go shopping for groceries and other necessities, and watch more shows.

Maybe my psychologist wanted me to clue in to how boring my life is. She’s been telling me to go to events I might find interesting and meet people, thing is I don’t really like people. My hobbies include tv shows (mostly dramas) and that’s basically it. I only pick up a book occasionally, so I’d just feel weird at a book club (something else she suggested). Some people thrive on human interaction, I do not. I chose an office job for a reason. I input my data till the end of my shift and then go home. Don’t mistake my lack of interest in interacting with people as social anxiety. I’m not scared of people, just disinterested.

And here I am explaining myself to a piece of paper. This is ridiculous.

June 16^th

Diary

Somehow I managed to sleep last night, so I’m giving this another shot. It’s stupid and pointless, but if anything helps me sleep I’ll give it a try for awhile. I gave multiple sleeping aids a try, but I just couldn’t handle the side effects. After the last one made me hallucinate, my doctor decided that it would be safer to try other methods. A long road of various suggested courses of action have landed me here, talking to a piece of paper. Sleep apnea testing, white noise machines, herbal remedies, councillors, and now this silly book and a psychologist.

Once again nothing happened in my day. I re-watched a few episodes of various shows, channel surfed, and ate Chinese take-out. I don’t see the point in recording any of this, but my psychologist isn’t going to move on to something else if I don’t at least try this. It’s easier to write out pointless thoughts than to find a new psychologist.

June 17^th

Dear Stupid Diary

Day three of this silly experiment. I’m running on three hours of sleep and it’s after midnight. I laid in bed for two hours before I gave up. I can’t believe I have to do this for a week before my psychologist will move on to something else. My computer crashed at work, had to talk to the IT guy for over an hour while he fixed it. Why I had to sit there and keep him company for him to do his job I have no idea. I did venture and ask some of my coworkers after he left and its normal behaviour for him. The girl in the cubical next to mine offered to save me if it happens again. Not sure what she meant by that, but if she’s willing to chat with him for me I’ll take her up on it.

June 18^th

I actually went out of my way to talk to someone today. The girl in the next cubical over. Her computer crashed today and the same IT guy came down. I pretended I needed her help with something the whole time he was working on her computer. I purposely made errors and kept calling her back to help. Eventually she told the guy that she was going to have to stay in my cubical to figure out what was going on. He left her alone after that. She thanked me after he’d left, and other coworkers smiled or gave me a thumbs up. Apparently, I’m not the only one to find the IT guy annoying.

Had pizza tonight, I decided to look up a show that the girl from the next cubical has featured on her desk. So far I’m enjoying it. I’m thinking of bringing it up tomorrow, maybe she’ll have other shows to recommend. I should probably learn her name if I’m going to take show recommendations from her.

June 19^th

Her name is Donna, the name makes her sound older than she is. Pretty sure she’s about my age (which means she’s past her mid twenties but is most likely not much over thirty). She gave me a recommendation for when I finish this show. She said she was waiting for the last episode of another show to air before she started it, so if I finish these two before then we can watch it together.

I can’t believe that I’m considering interacting with people outside of work. Honestly I don’t dislike Donna. It’s strange to know that there’s actually someone I don’t dislike. Hope my psychologist doesn’t read too much into this though.

June 20^th

I’ve gotten more than a few hours of sleep for three nights now. Don’t want to jinx it, but maybe there really is something to this journaling thing after all.