Sleep…

In this episode I discuss being awake. I can’t sleep. My body is ready but my brain  has taken over. Videos from social media are playing in my head. Videos of people acting like animals. Humans behaving like savages. I can’t handle the violence. It’s keeping me awake. 
So, I am on, yet another sabbatical from social media. I can’t get sucked in to the black hole that is negativity. 
I need to center myself. Breath. Rid my mind things I cannot control. Focus on solutions and how I can help. 

What’s keeping me up? Crazy people! 

Transcript

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Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Ramblings of an Insomniac. I'm Courtney. How in the hey are ya? I am, I think it's like almost midnight. I don't know. And I thought I was tired, and my body was like, Alright, let's do this. And you I went to lay down, and then um, for some reason, as per the usual, my brain was like, uh, hmm, what about this? But did you think about that? Did you think about this? Or did the thought ever occur to you, you know, that same old song and dance that your frickin mind always does when you're trying to relax and have like, you know, a moment where your brain isn't going a hundred billion miles an hour, and the rest of your body is like tired, and also is like, all right, guys, let's do this, let's let's get some sleep so that we don't have to struggle so hard, so that walking doesn't feel like we weigh 7,000 pounds, so that our brain doesn't seem like it's just full of mush and mud. But my mind is just like out to get me. My mind is sabotaging the rest of my body, and it sucks because insomnia is just so bad for your brain. It's bad. Oh my god, did you guys just hear my stomach? Dang. I'm not even hungry. Like, I'm being a fat ass, actually. That's why I've gained weight. I'll get into that later, but um it's frustrating because I'm comfortable. Um, you know, I'm there's noises that are actually quite lovely and kind of helping me sleep. And at first I was gonna try to like fall asleep to the TV, but the cable isn't or the cable? Why'd I say cable? Oh my god, I'm old. Cable? Oh yeesh. Is there even cable anymore? I guess that's kind of what like satellite dishes are, like direct TV or whatever people have. I guess that's cable now. But back in my day, you know, you had to like turn the knob and you had to have bunny ears and you didn't have cable. You had like what whatever came with the TV. Anyway, point being, um the internet's not working, and I'm having a problem with my Roku and the internet, and it's just all a thing. So I was like, you know what? That's just a sign. Pardon me. Me, me, me. Um, that's just a sign. I'm like, it just means that I need to not have the TV on. And again, I don't even watch TV. I really, it's weird because I will watch the same like six shows, and when I say watch, they'll be on in the background. Oh my gosh, sorry guys. There'll be like a show on in the background, and it's just on just for noise, and it'll be the same like six recycled shows, and I'll just keep them on because I like the noise, but I'll be like in the middle of like playing block blast or something, like that dumb um game on my phone that I just like to do just to kind of keep my mind like, you know, it just kind of soothes your mind, it just is like calming. Um or I'll have it while I'm working on something, but um, so I don't really watch anything new. Although I did, I have been watching Dancing with the Stars Pro, like where they're trying to find a pro dancer. Um, I have been watching that and gosh, my voice, sorry, my throat. Um, and then I watched the new, I have been watching the new project runway. But I'm all over the map with shows. Um, point being, I'll get to all of that also. Um, point is I was trying desperately to go to sleep, and my whole body, I was comfortable, my the rest of me was like, all right, let's do this, we've got this, all right. And then again, it's always my frickin' mind, it's always my brain that gets in the way. And that's the case with everything. I swear to God, the minute I think about something, or the minute that my brain gets involved, all hell breaks loose. I should work purely on instincts because I'm always better under pressure and better when I don't have time to think and I just have to respond. Um I've always kind of been that way. I never used to think that I liked competition. And then I'm like, what the hell am I talking about? I love competition. It's just that I'm not a um a team. That sounds terrible. I'm not a team player as in I don't like team sports. I've talked about this a lot in many of my episodes. I am more of a one-on-one, like tennis, cross country, track. Um, I realize there are track events where you have teams and stuff, but I'm just more of an individualized. That's kind of why I like things like the X games and stuff. It's just you because all of your success is on you, and you get all the glory, and it's your success, and you don't have to share it. But all of the failure is on you. So you have no one else to blame, you have no excuses, it's all on you, and you have to be hard on yourself, and I like that. And so the pressure, you know, if I worked in like an ER or something, I'm far better under pressure than I am when I have time to think. But now my brain, because I don't sleep, is a big mushy friggin' fog. And I honest to God don't know how I'm walking and chewing gum at the same time, for real. I I don't know how I am forming sentences, I don't know why I'm not drooling all over myself and just like, ooh, because I don't sleep. And it's getting pretty friggin' ridiculous right now. Um on top of the fact that I had meningitis um when I was I was like 27, um, and I had a 106 fever, and it lasted for a couple of days. It was like three days, and it literally, quite literally, fried uh my brain cells. And you know, I'm blonde. So there you go. I mean, I didn't really have a chance in hell. I swear though, I still have a lot more brain cells than some people wandering around the planet right now. I've again decided I needed to take another break. I need to take yet another break from social media because the things that I'm seeing on social media are just disturbing is a is an understatement. Disturbing is a very big understatement. I'm seeing violence that is over the top. I'm seeing people do disgusting and gross, vile things. Um I'm seeing people do very unhygienic things, mean things, cruel things, incredibly ignorant, stupid, dumb things, and hateful things, and I just it's too much. I the empath in me, I feel it all way too deeply, and I carry it with me, and that's why I think I'm not sleeping and why my brain is going bananas. I carry too much of that, and I'm seeing a lot of people being hurt. I just unfortunately watched a video of a, I'm not gonna call him a man, a coward that decided to beat the holy crap out of a father that was with his two very young sons. They had to be like two and three years old, maybe, who didn't know what to do, and bless their little hearts. They were like trying to scream at this man who was absolutely beating the crap out of this guy. And it was political. Um, it was a liberal that was beating on a conservative in front of their two baby boys out in traffic. And I'm I don't care if you're a Republican, a liberal, an independent, a Democrat, I don't care who the F you are. I don't care what your race is, I don't care what you identify as, I don't care what your sexual orientation is, your religion is. Go fuck yourself if you think that you can saunter on up to some stranger or someone you know and beat the holy crap out of them because you disagree with them politically or for any reason, actually, especially in front of their teeny children. Whether their children are teeny or not, whether it's political or religious or whatever reason you disagree, since when did we decide that it's okay and perfectly normal and acceptable to just walk up to people and start beating them up because we don't like their shirt, we don't like their hat, we don't like something they say to us. And then you've got people that are going down the middle of streets, quite literally punching women in their faces because they're white, or because they're any other color than black. You have that black guy, and I'm mentioning his race because it's relevant. I'm not trying to sound, I'm not even gonna say this because it's I'm mentioning his race because it's very relevant, and I'm going to call me what you want, it may it means nothing to me. Um, but you have this black guy who has been in and out of jail and arrested a million times for assault and battery and all kinds of violence, and for some reason he's still out on the streets, and then because of that, because he got let out, um they it meant that he was free to just start punching women and chasing women out into traffic and chasing women to to kill them or to harm them. You've got people waterboard waterboarding and harming their children on video on social media in support of a mother who unalived three of her children and claimed postpartum depression. So these things are just I I can't. It's too much. It's too much, even if I weren't an empath, and that just sounds I know people are probably rolling their eyes and doing the whole empath. Oh my god, if I hear one more person, but I truly do feel people's I just feel things so deeply, and that doesn't mean that other people don't, but I I can't, and so I have to take breaks all the time, and no amount of watching fun, cute videos gets those things out of my head, and that just means that I need to find a solution. It means I should volunteer or I need to like start going to um well developing a plan on ways that I can help, on way to, on ways to solve the problem and be get involved where I can figure out, you know, why don't more people stay in jail? Why are they getting let out? Um, is it overcrowding? Is it, you know, do we not, yeah, is it overcrowding? Is it um politics? Is it a combination of many things? But obviously, our judicial system and our prison system is it isn't working, it needs fixing, it needs to be revamped, it needs completely a whole redo. It needs to be gutted and redone. And I know people who have been in prison and um it the system sucks, and um prison reform it needs to be high priority, and I can't just talk about it and not do anything, otherwise I'm a hypocrite. Um but our reoffense rate is high, and it's because it's just not being handled correctly. I'm glad that people like Todd Chris Lee are out there um making a difference, and Savannah, and you know, there's a lot of people out there that are making a difference in prison reform and trying to bring attention to it, bring awareness to our judicial system. And um, that's a tongue twister for me, usually, and I said it, I feel so good. Yes. Um, anyway, so I have to take a break because it's just getting too depressing, and that's why I'm sitting here talking into my phone, do another another podcast, because my brain is like, whoa. And I don't want to go down that road. I just don't want, I mean, I again I don't want to be an ostrich and bury my head in the sand because no matter how much we run away and and bury our heads and pretend it doesn't exist, it does exist. It's still there. And it's because too many people, including myself, run away and we talk about it, but we don't try to fix anything. We just cry about it and scream about it and yell about it and bitch about it and get depressed and then and do a podcast about it and then don't do anything. And so I need to stop that cycle, and maybe I will sleep better. Maybe these things will get off my brain because I'm actually making a difference. I'm being part of the solution, you know, or I can continue to just sit here and toss and turn, and you know, definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Well, I've been doing the same thing. You know, I do that thing where I lay here and I'm like, if I just lay here, if I just lay here, I know I'll go back to sleep. All right, well, it's been like, you know, 30 years of just laying here and I don't go back to sleep. And they tell you not to do that. You're not supposed to continue to lay in bed. They tell you to actually get up and go sit in a chair or go to a living room or go to a kitchen or go outside because you don't want your brain to associate with your bed with being awake. You don't want your brain to associate your bed with your eyes being open, your brain going and tossing and turning. So are you supposed to get up and go to a chair or whatever so that you'll get tired, you know, go read a book outside or in a chair or whatever, so that you'll start getting tired. And then when you get tired, you go lay down. And that way your brain is like, oh, tired, bed, lay down, sleep, got it. But do I do that? No. You know, I shouldn't sleep with the TV on. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It's about 50-50. And again, it's not because I'm watching TV. I just like the noise. But I don't know why, because I can open my window and listen to crickets, which is far better. But I almost like the sounds of like, again, the jungle is my favorite. I never slept so well as I did when we were in Belize, and we slept out in the middle of the jungle in tree houses. It was friggin' the most amazing experience, and I slept like a log. During huge storms, I sleep like a log. I need the chaos. I actually do sleep sometimes better when I hear city noises because I know people are awake. Again, I've talked about this in so many of my episodes, and I know, and I'm sorry I sound like a broken record. But I it's like I need to know people are awake and and doing things around me. When the world is quiet, it freaks me out because I associate quiet with bad things. And I I don't know. So here I am. Trying to not do the same things. I'm trying to break my habit and I'm trying to not lay here and just be like, all right, I know I can go to sleep. I know I can go to sleep, and I can't, and I don't. So, all right. Break that cycle and do something different. Do the different things that you hear about. So I hope everybody else out there is sleeping. If uh not if you're in your car, not if you're at work, not if, you know, you're operating heavy machinery or supposed to be doing something responsible, then I hope you are wide awake and uh ready to take on the world. But if it's nighttime and you're trying to go to bed, I hope that you are uh well you wouldn't be listening to my podcast, that's for sure. I guess if you're sleeping, you're not listening to my podcast. So maybe you are at work and you're listening to my podcast because you can, you're allowed to. Maybe you're on your way to or from work. Maybe you are trying to go to sleep and my melodious voice put you to sleep. No, just kidding. We all know I don't have a good voice, but maybe I bore you so much that you listen to my podcast so that you can nod off. You know, I'm glad I can help, whatever the reason. Um again, I hope it's not some torturous thing and you're being held under duress, being forced to listen to this silly podcast. I hope you're doing so because you want to and you're choosing to. Um I was talking about shows. I am all over the map. I sometimes like to, I always love documentaries, love documentaries. I don't mean things like reality TV shows, I mean actual documentaries. Um, but I like the show House a lot. I like West Wing a lot, I like Psyched a lot, I like Scrubs, I like New Girl, I like Um According to Jim and Big Bang Theory, and you know, um I like Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay. I like all the house hunters and all of the, you know, beachfront bargain homes, and I like the thrift store finds and all that stuff. Um, and of course, I like a little project runway and a little say yes to the dress. Can't help it. Um, and documentaries. So just thought I'd share because again, um, and I love all the crime stuff, of course, love all the crime shows. Um, but oh, and all the how it's made. Anything like unwrapped or how it's made or how the states got their shapes, love that stuff. Um, love the how the states got their shaped and how it's made and unwrapped and all that. So fascinating to me. And like mega yachts, and I don't know, I'm such a weirdo. Um, so I hope I was my point to that is it depends on what mood I'm in. And what I find interesting is you know how sometimes like if you break up with someone, you don't want the sappy songs, you want the like I hate your guts, Alanis Morissette songs. At least girls. Girls seem like they get in the like, you know, I'm gonna shove your, I'm gonna cut the, you know, your breaks, you know, bleed your break lines kind of, you know, revenge songs because we're psycho and you know, that's why there's the show snapped. Um, and then it doesn't seem like we ever want the lovey dovey. But it's funny because it seems like it's girls can fall asleep to um like the show snapped or to like crime stuff and like to um you know true crime and everything. And like what does that say about us? That's weird, it's chaotic, it's loud, it's talking about murder, and and yet a lot of women can fall asleep to that. And you would think if you were trying to go to sleep, you'd want to fall asleep to something, you know, calm and soothing and, you know, less death. But sometimes I don't know. It's weird, right? I say that because I was trying to fall asleep and I didn't know what to watch, and I tried all of my backup stuff like New Girl and things that I've seen 7,000 times that I could recite by heart, but I was like, okay, but again, definition of insanity, but then you know, I shouldn't watch a show at all. But I was like, well, let's try something different. Let's do like a true crime. So I was like doing forensic files. And then I'm like, that's so weird. Why would I choose to watch forensic files? Like that's not normal. But then I think a ton of women do this. I'm I'm sure of it. I don't know. What kind of stuff do guys fall asleep to? Sports, ESPN? That's being so that is being so stereotypical. Maybe you guys fall asleep to Project Runway. Maybe you guys watch CS to the Jess. Who knows? I don't know. But women are weird that we can fall asleep to that kind of stuff. Yet we'll hear, you know, a cat puking at the starting to puke, or a dog or a cat starting to throw up, or a child crying, but we can fall asleep to like loud, you know, sirens and shit. Alright, so hopefully I'll fall asleep. I hope you guys get sleep. This was a weird podcast. I'm sorry. This is what happens when I'm tired and delusional. It's not my fault. Again, it's a wonder I can walk and chew gum at the same time. With the chaos that I usually, you know, have going on and this the lack of sleep and my brain cells being fried. Come on. Give me some credit. I'm doing pretty good. All right. I'm trying, at least. At least I'm making an effort, right? A for effort. I'm trying. I don't always get there because I'm not perfect, you know. I am far from knowing what in the heck I'm supposed to be doing. I'm just stumbling along, hoping and praying that I do the right thing sometimes. I'm just like, if I can get a good, you know, seven out of ten times that I'm doing things okay, I'm like, all right. You know, what's that a C? I'm okay. I'm not, I mean, I want to strive for more than that. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I want to be average. I'm not saying that I want to be subpar or average. I'm just saying right now, uh, I want to walk tall and be proud. I want to be confident and sure of myself, and I want to have high standards, and I want to be educated, and I don't want to be a babbling dummy. I don't. I'm just saying once in a while I'm not gonna be perfect. Once in a while, I'm gonna screw up and say and do the wrong things, and my podcast is gonna be weird and boring and not make a lot of sense. That's just me, that's just life. Sometimes it doesn't make a lot of sense, and it's gonna be weird and it's gonna be boring and it's gonna be crazy and messy, and it's just a bunch of imperfect perfection, right? That was cheesy, that was corny, but I had to get my imperfect thing in for those that are counting. I don't even know if anyone's even paying attention or seeing if I talk about imperfection, and I'm not guaranteeing that I'm going to. I just think I'm on a record. I need to look back and see when I started talking about the imperfect thing and saying I was gonna bring it up in every episode. I need to go back and find it and see how many episodes now I'm at because yeah, I'm doing it, I'm doing it. I don't think I've missed yet. Ever since I said I was gonna talk about imperfection in all of my episodes, I don't think I've missed. I almost did. One time I almost did, and I had to throw it in in a weird way, but I try to like smooth, smooth appareta, smooth appareta. Anyway, I try to like put it in there smooth and like nonchalant, like um suave, we go suave. Um, but I just kind of ached it in there last time, and but I think I'm oh for I don't know, like 20 episodes, do you think? I don't know. I'll look. I gotta do my homework. I'm being lazy. Anyway, hey, you know what I've noticed? A lot of people from a lot of countries checking me out. South Korea, what woo? Um, I've noticed South Korea is coming in strong. Um, that's pretty amazing. But again, it's amazing no matter where you're from, no matter what uh, no matter what your background is. I always appreciate people listening to my podcast. I hope it continues. I super hope that you guys tell a friend, tell a neighbor, tell a coworker, tell your partner, tell everyone, shout it from the rooftops. I hope you guys can check out my YouTube, clapper, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. Like and subscribe. I'm not telling you what to do. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm just asking, if you don't mind. If you have a moment, I would appreciate it. I appreciate it greatly. Remember to control the things you can let go of all the other stuff, just let it go. Just shove it out of the way, kick it to the curb. You don't need any of it, you don't need all the stuff that you can't do a dang thing about. Why bother thinking about it? Just put it away, save it for another time, or just bury it for never. Um, think about the things that you can control, that you have solutions for. And if you can, well, what are you waiting for? Do it. Problem solve, right? Um, thank you so, so much. I appreciate it. Until next time.