The Game is Afoot

I've never fancied myself a reader.  Well, at least not a recreational reader.  As you can imagine, one tends to have their beak constantly buried in books when pursuing a career in the medical field.  So, in the past, I have had to read out of necessity rather than pleasure.  The sheer thought of having to read brought forth a bad taste in my mouth that was synonymous with the notion of digging a trench with a spade. That, coupled with the fact that I was taught whole language and not phonetics in school, made reading one of those arduous tasks that was better left for the "have to" rather than the "want to".

Fast forward several years, a couple of knocks to the head, and the diagnosis of a mental disorder later to a shocked me when I discovered reading would become something I could use as a treatment for one of the symptoms of PTSD.  See, I can't sleep.  Since 2004, I've found it increasingly difficult to sleep.  Sleep has become something that only comes when my body has enough of being awake for days on end forcing a shut down.  Then, the sleep that would come was rarely restful and usually resulted in waking up tired, sore and numb. 

Hours of my life have been wasted staring at the ceiling, watching the ambient light dance off the fan, listening for noises and remaining ever vigilant and on watch. Playing games in my head or counting the proverbial sheep rarely resulted in more than twilight sleep, which would lead straight to nightmares filled with the images of war.  But reading, it seems, has began to chip away at this terrible routine.

As a child, I was always a fan of Sherlock Holmes.  Though I admit, I never once picked up or flipped through the pages of any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works, I enjoyed the exploits of Holmes and Watson none-the-less. Television became the medium of choice for the weak willed, lazy literary fan in me.  The old black and white TV shows with the poorly done sets and the very put-on, overly enunciated British accents were my favorite. This image of Holmes became the norm in my mind.

Frustrated with nothing to do but look at the internet during my long, sleepless nights and on a lark one day while at Barnes and Noble with my wife, I picked up a copy of The Continuing Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, opened the book in the store and read the first paragraph.  Something about the writing style of the author was comfortable and casual and sucked me in.  Even though it had been years since I held a book in my hand, I bought it thinking it would give me something to pass the time in the bathroom if nothing else.

That night, as I lay there watching the ceiling fan and planning the execution of would be home invaders I remembered the book I had just bought.  So, I turned on the bedside light, propped myself up, bent back the cover hard so the book would lay open and began to read.  With every passing sentence my loathing of the written word diminished as I was pulled into 19th century London.

My therapist would probably be alarmed at the way I'm about to describe this, but when I was reading I felt myself slip away into the scenes set by the author.  I was there.  I pulled my collar up to my neck to ward off the cold, damp evening as I stared down Baker Street that foggy London night.  The gas street lamps illuminated yellow balls of moist atmosphere around them.  Faceless people walked in the shadows between the streetlights.  The clopping of hooves on cobblestone, the acrid taste of the coal soot, manure and urine in the air, I was there.

I followed Holmes and Watson as they tracked down the evil that lurked therein and clung to their coat tails during every exciting moment. And just as quickly as I had entered this world, I was lulled from it as my eyes began to wane and the sentences became blurred.  I had slipped away from my fantasy and had to re-read sentence after sentence to make sense of what was going on in the story.

Then, it hit me.  A feeling I have not experience since before I left for Iraq.  I was genuinely relaxed and tired. I was TIRED!  This time it wasn't because I had allowed fatigue to deal me knockout blow.  It was because I was relaxed.

I marked the page, closed my book and sat it on the side table. Before I knew it, it was morning and I had slept.  I had REALLY slept because it was morning but only just.  I think the time was about 11:30am.  I had slept for almost 12 hours and when I awoke, there was no numb, tired feeling.  There had been no nightmares.  I awoke and felt as though I could whip the world’s ass with one hand.

The next night's experience was much the same as were the following nights.  

At first, I considered this just a fluke and that maybe I had had some coincidental break in my symptoms.  It happens periodically leaving me ripe for crushing disappointment when sleeplessness and nightmares come flooding back with a vengeance.  That was until after my third book.  After dancing back and forth between mystery and science fiction, I found myself again cracking open the cover of a Sherlock Holmes novel.  

I wish I had read the first page of this book before I bought it. This book was about how Holmes and Watson came to meet.  The book started as an aid to the then Captain Watson was working in a field hospital in Afghanistan.  Again, I became somehow teleported into the environment in my mind.  It was as real to me as my own experiences as a medic in the forward aid station, EMEDS, and on the ground with the troops.  It was overwhelming. I put this book down and didn't pick up another for some three weeks.

During this time, I went right back into my old habits.  Little to no sleep exacerbating my irritability and the bear's ass was once again inflamed. Being a stubborn, military minded and pretty frugal individual, I found it hard to not get my monies worth and refused to lay this book aside and buy a new one. I kept promising myself I would pick it back up and get through it.  My notion of doing things in the order I had acquired them got in the way as well.  I guess all the years of denying I have a touch of OCD have finally caught up with me.

When I discussed my experience and the distaste for this particular book with my wife, she gave me that look.  You know it, the one that expresses amazement and disbelief at the same time.  She then tried to deprogram me by explaining that it's OK to not finish a book you don't like.  In my structured, military mindset, this alien thought was unsettling yet freeing at the same time.  I walked away from that book and never looked back.  

Any thought of this being a coincidental break in my symptoms was quickly dispelled.  The very next time I picked up a book before bed the process repeated.  Night after night, the relaxation comes.  The sleep comes. I'm glad to say that I'm on some sort of schedule again.  Instead of sleeping when I can, I sleep when I should.  My demeanor is much more controlled and I feel as though I've found a way to conquer one of PTSD's many symptoms or at least hold it at bay.  

While it's not a cure, it is surely something I would recommend trying to anyone who is experiencing PTSD associated sleep disorders.