There is a club you might belong to, although I’m sure you’d rather you didn’t

There is a club that you might belong to, although I’m sure you’d rather you didn’t. Millions of people are in this club, yet it can make you feel deeply alone. It is the No Sleep Club, and I’m a lifetime member.

We are the ones who spend hours in the dead of night, well, obviously not sleeping. But it’s more than just being awake when the rest of the world slumbers. People do that all the time, whether it’s for work or feeding babies or partying with complete disregard for future regrets. I’ve done all of those things, and while they make you tired, you at least have a purpose for being awake.

Existing in the liminal state of nothingness between midnight and 5am, the only conscious being in an unconscious world, alone with your thoughts, is frightening.Credit: ISTOCK

In the No Sleep Club, you have no purpose. There’s absolutely no logical reason you’re not asleep. You’re just – awake. Maybe you wake every night at 2.13am, like clockwork – bing! – and can’t get back to sleep. Or you go to bed, ever hopeful that tonight will be the night, but instead lie in the dark as wide awake as if it were midday. Or maybe you need to wee 20 times a night. Sleeplessness is very individual.

Whatever the reason, in the No Sleep Club there is no purpose, only despair. I know that sounds grim, and I’m sorry to be dramatic, but everything is bleak at nighttime. Even the most harmless things seem ominous. Have you ever walked into an unlit kitchen to find a three-year-old standing in the dark, clutching a balding Barbie? Flat-out terrifying.

Not as scary, though, as the dread your own mind can conjure. Existing in the liminal state of nothingness between midnight and 5am, the only conscious being in an unconscious world, alone with your thoughts, is frightening. Like mushrooms, fear grows best in the dark … and our catastrophising imagination is a living horror movie.

I’ve convinced myself that my friends all hate me (they don’t); that I’m a crashing bore (mostly, no); that my own mother thinks I’m a loser (it’s possible); that I’ve undoubtedly got cancer (blessedly not); that no one will ever hire me again (patently untrue); that I’m going bald. The jury’s still out on that last one, but in beautiful, rational daylight, it doesn’t feel like such a disaster. At 3am? I’m an inconsolable mess.

Like mushrooms, fear grows best in the dark … and our catastrophising imagination is a living horror movie.

JO STANLEY

Which sounds comical now, but that churning is the thing we in the No Sleep Club grow to fear. We become anxious about the anxiety itself, creating a self-perpetuating, exhausting cycle. By the time daylight comes around, I am emotionally depleted. And mortifyingly cranky throughout the day. I’ve cried in Coles, yelled at a tram driver, lost my temper at a carrot.

If you’ve ever borne the brunt of my sleeplessness, forgive me. Last night I lived a thousand descents into hell in five hours, and now I have to pretend it didn’t happen.

Like everyone else in the No Sleep Club, I have tried everything. My sleep hygiene is pristine. In the latter part of the day I abstain from tea, coffee, food, alcohol and work. I’ve removed light, sound, screens and all emotional stimuli from my bedroom. A corpse lives a more interesting life than me after midday.

Finally, after years of this fever dream, I was done. I gave up trying to get to sleep. I’d read or look out the window at the rooftops of my neighbourhood, wondering who else in our streets was awake, sending mental messages: you are not alone.

And I discovered that to stop trying is accidentally the same as acceptance. I’d stumbled through the gateway to release. Which then allowed me the clarity to wonder what might be the opposite of the fear I was feeling. What is the opposite of any fear?

For me, it’s love. So I put my attention on love, instead of the thoughts I’d been shadow-puppeting into ghouls in my mind. It took practice, it always takes practice, but I distracted myself with thoughts of love.

Love for the night. The ever-changing night sky, the stillness like an embrace, this world that belongs to the wind and rustling trees and possums and rain.

Love for my family, as they slept around me. My dog, who was happy for a 2am scratch. My cats, who were not.

Love for myself, who despite the phantasmagoria of disasters I could think up, is doing the best she can.

And that became my mantra: You are loved; I love you. Over and over. And now, some nights, that soothes me to sleep.

Look, that might sound a bit woo-woo for you, but as John Lennon said, “Whatever gets you through the night”, right? And, actually, I’ve found it gets me through the days as well.

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