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Labels
I believe that learning
to be careful in how I related insomnia to myself was helpful
in overcoming insomnia.
For
example, I learned to not label and refer to myself as an “insomniac.”
An insomniac, of course, is usually considered to be someone
who suffers from chronic insomnia.
Labels can have a very powerful effect whether you use them
to describe yourself or someone else. That’s because people
tend to live up to labels they’ve been given. For example,
if you constantly label yourself a stupid person, you’ll
probably find ways (subconsciously) to live up to that label.
Instead of calling myself an insomniac (which sounds like a
wild-eyed crazy person to me, by the way), I started referring
to myself as “someone who is temporarily suffering from
insomnia.” Yes, that’s more of a mouthful, but it
succeeds in that it does not inextricably link and label me
with something I very much wish to cure myself of.
And, no, it is not fantasy talk. The description, “someone
who is temporarily suffering from insomnia,” can and should
be true if I or anyone receives the right treatment. The description
sends my subconscious the message that the insomnia is not here
to stay, but is merely a passing annoyance that I will get rid
of.
As much as I could, I didn’t even consider myself to have
chronic insomnia because I did not want to take possession of
it. Chronic insomnia is defined as long-term, stubborn and persistent
sleeplessness. Admitting that I had such a problem could very
well create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Did not saying that I had chronic insomnia put me in denial
about my sleeping issues? I don’t think so. I more than
freely admitted that I had trouble sleeping. I merely framed
my difficulties in a way that were factual yet would not put
unnecessary weight on my shoulders. This approach, in my opinion,
gave me the best possible chance to overcome insomnia.
I also often avoided taking personal possession of sleeplessness.
For example, I would avoid referring to it as “my insomnia.”
I did this because I did not want to take possession of something
that is bad for me. By calling it “my insomnia,” I
may, in some way, think of sleeplessness as belonging to me
and a part of me, and this may make me reluctant in some sense
to let it go and recover from it. So, instead, I distanced myself
as much as possible and used the phrase “the insomnia”
instead.
Further, I did not use heavy and highly demoralizing words to
categorize the chronic insomnia. For example, I did not call
it a sleep disorder or psychophysiologic insomnia as some people
call it. Both of these names sound severe and depressing to
me and, consequently, would make me want to give up without
a fight. So instead I simply regarded chronic insomnia as a
phobia which, in my opinion, is the category under which chronic
insomnia should properly fall. Phobia is a word that carries
less negative baggage, at least in my mind, because so many
people have phobias and often recover from them.
As soon as I started to label my sleep challenges in a better
and less negative way, I felt more empowered and less demoralized.
Next: Triggers
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