‘I’ve tried everything’: Why Mel Buttle can’t fall asleep

Like many things in life, I find getting to sleep a real struggle, and yes I’ve tried everything from rainforest sounds to warm milk, writes Mel Buttle.

I don’t fall asleep. I pass out after a long fight making lists in my head: “Get chickpeas, call Medicare, change email address with the council”.

All very pressing stuff that must be dealt with at 11pm. The light of my phone and all the world’s knowledge within it, illuminate the bedroom until my hand goes numb from holding it and I find the will to place it facedown on the bedside table.

When I wake up the next morning, my last Google search always surprises me, like it was someone else entirely doom scrolling my phone late last night.

I woke to find I’d been googling, “Do elephants have toenails?”

Reminds me of all my primary school report cards, “Melinda is a highly inquisitive and curious student. With greater focus and concentration on the task at hand she could achieve amazing results.”

Oh if only, there’s still time I suppose, I’m only 43.

Comedian Mel Buttle shares her sleep issues. Source: Supplied

Like many things in life, I find getting to sleep a real struggle, and yes I’ve tried everything from rainforest sounds to warm milk. Remember back in the ’90s when whale songs for insomnia was all the rage?

They didn’t work for me either, I’d lay awake listening intently, taking guesses at what they were talking about.

Warm milk doesn’t work for me – if Barossa shiraz won’t knock me out, what hope does milk have? Also don’t mix the two, that’s a recipe for heartburn and bad dreams.

As a kid I also had trouble sleeping. I’d do all sorts of weird things to tire myself out.

I’d hold one arm up in the air vertically hoping the energy that took would place me into a deep slumber. I’d hang upside down off the side of the bed, or scissor kick my legs until they got fatigued.

It must be said that I was an unusual child, my favourite show was A Gondola On The Murray with chef Stefano de Pieri.

I’m sure other kids were cuddling their teddies to fall asleep, not completing a low-scoring gymnastics routine in bed.

I’ve finally found it though, the one thing that sends me off to the land of Nod. Nothing, and I mean nothing, puts me to sleep quicker than a true crime podcast. I drift off each night to the soothing sounds of a podcaster recounting a grisly murder.

I know I’m not alone here, the podcast charts indicate that true crime is having a moment. I’ve always been interested in true crime, but it didn’t used to be at your fingertips like it is today.

Mel Buttle shares her issues with falling sleep.

You used to have to go to the library, return your Gondola On The Murray DVD and borrow a book about the mafia, or sit there still silent as your parents watched Australia’s Most Wanted and hopefully they’d forget it’s way past your bedtime.

I’d often get to the first ad break, then one of them would spout the classic, “Oh no, look at the time! Quick teeth clean and straight into bed, no arguments, go now or you’ll be grumpy tomorrow.”

I’d slink down the hallway as slowly as humanly possible, trying to drag the bedtime routine out as long as possible to at least be in earshot of the tele.

If I was feeling particularly brazen, I’d go fetch my toothbrush and return to stand in front of the TV cleaning my teeth, all of them, many times over. The hide of this girl.

Perhaps my true crime passion comes from the time I had a brush with crime as a youngster: my trampoline was stolen and it made the local paper.

My large, yellow trampoline was sadly never recovered. I also didn’t recover socially either, once the kids at school saw me in the local rag. Apparently being in the paper doesn’t make you cool. I haven’t let that hold me back though as you can see.

I got to thinking, I wonder if I’m so into this crime stuff, not because I have the desire to crack cases, but rather, because I’ve got the mind of a criminal.

Cleaning my teeth on the white merino wool carpet with tricoloured Macleans did feel very close to illegal.