Writer's Block: Another sleepless night

I do, from time to time, deal with insomnia and it's insane-making. 

I go through periods of a few months where I'm sleeping pretty well (for me, lol), which means that I'm only waking up once or twice during the night, and then it creeps up on me, lol. Like, one night I'll have a stupidly hard time getting to sleep and then it'll return to normal, then I'll have a few nights where I wake up repeatedly (about four or five times, but on occasion up to nine times a night). Sometimes everything will be fine again, but if I'm at the point where I'm spending time actively trying to get back to sleep, it usually goes downhill...Can't get to sleep, can't stay asleep, don't feel rested and so forth. No wonder I'm a grouch.

It's always worse when I'm depressed. I when I had a complete break-down, I was awake all night, every night for about four days, at which point I'd pass out for about 24 hours and wake up again feeling disoriented, but not rested.

I don't have any remedies, not really, and nothing that's perfectly helpful. If I have pot (which is pretty rare, lol) I'll toke and then be able to relax enough to just slip into sleep, but more commonly, I sedate myself. Which I'm not proud to admit and have never told anyone before...I use a night time painkiller that I used when I injured my ribs. It contains a hefty amount of codeine and has a decent sedative as well, so that tends to cure what ails me. Not that I feel like I've had a great night's sleep afterward, of course, but I feel like my body's had a chance to get back into a more normal cycle...So I don't use it all the time, but yes, sometimes I do need something to get me to sleep that will help me stay asleep.

Umm...It makes me grouchy and awful to be around. If the insomnia is really bad, then I feel like I'm drunk or I've taken too many painkillers. Speech slurs, motor function goes waaaay downhill etc. 

Fortunately right now I'm sleeping pretty well, so it's not too much of a concern. I do have trouble getting to sleep at the best of times, so that's not a big deal, and I wake up a few times during the night which is fairly normal (whatever that means, lol) too, but it's basically all alright.

Although now I think I've jinxed it. 

P.S. Uni is going well so far. I'm caught up (finally) on my lectures and notes - I think - and I'm working on a few presentations I have to give in my tutorials. Bliss...I really hate speaking in front of other people, but I shall soldier on :) Hope all is well in LJ land and I'll make a proper post a bit later on xox