[MedusaRantz]

Greetings, fellow insomnia's! My name is Ianoulla, but I'm sure you'd rather address me as MedusaRantz. When I can't sleep, I rant. My family comes from Greece. My Papo came to America in 1889. His days consisted of working in the coal mines in the day, and afterwards, went to English classes in NYC. He saved up enough drachmas to go back to Greece and marry my YiaYia (grandmother in Greek), and bring her back to Ameriki! He moved to a town near Chicago and opened a Restaurant. if any of you are restauranteurs, you will understand that it is a 24/7 hour job, 365 days a year. My Papo slept, maybe, 3 to 4 hours a night. I imagine he could have slept longer, but he enjoyed his poker games at night, and YiaYia didn't mind. Why, you may ask? Because Greek women are raised to cook and make lots of Greek babies–w/c is exactly what she did. When I was eight years old, my parents, (I grew up in San Diego, Cali), started to put me on a plane, each year, to fly back to Benton Harbor and learn how to cook Greek food from YiaYia. Many Greek dishes are time consuming to make. Case in point: Spanokopita (Spinach Pie). For one person to construct this behemoth of a culinary delight, you would spend about 36 to 42 hours to make. No time for sleep. My dad warned me that you have to get up early to cook Greek food. At eight, I had no idea. I recall that YiaYia was a poor sleeper, too. But she filled that time with cooking, seeing other Greeks, weddings, funerals…and working at the restaurant. My Uncle Babe and my father worked in the restaurant, for free, from the time they were 4 or 5. They put in long hours. Myself & cousins Julie, Bill and Jim worked at the restaurant, too. The one thing that hit home with me at a very young age, was that none of us slept more than 3 to 6 hours a day. Or not sleep at all. This was a curious factoid, because my mother is NOT greek: She sleeps like a baby. So, I wondered: What is up with the Greek side of the family. My YiaYia told me that Greeks don't need a lot of sleep. Itz considered a waste of time. Think of the things you could be doing if you weren't sleeping, she would tell me. So, perhaps, I am an insomniac by indoctrination. However, YiaYia has since passed, and still not sleep for me. When my son was born, I thought: Oh, I'll sleep now. No. I remember long nights just watching him sleep. So, I've made my peace with this condition. I embrace it. For others, I realize it is a terrible burden. You have my deepest sympathies. In 2005, while my X had my son over to his house one night, 2 Home Invasion Robbers broke into the house. Both son and X survived. Son and I are diagnosed with PTSD, FOLIE DUEX, and Situational Anxiety Disorder. So, my Doc thought I should get some sleep and began to feed me a litany of sleep meds: Ambien, Lunesta, Remeron, Rozerum, Soma, and on and on. I am bullet proof. Nothing worked. My son also suffers from insomnia, but it's not genetic, its a symptom of PTSD. My sleep med of choice is reading. Since I have a library of 10k+ books, I'm good to go. You can get me at almost anytime of the day or night. Thats the bare bones about me. Time for me to clam up. I welcome any questions.

[LindsayK]

Hi, Medusa! (I'll never remember how to spell your name. I misspell mine sometimes.) Nice to meet you! What are some of your favorite books?

[seenafterscene]

What a fascinating, culturally rich introduction, it's nice to meet you, and welcome.

You do bring up an interesting point that I don't feel has really gotten much attention in regards to insomnia–a genetic predisposition, nature vs. nurture, culture inherently impacting it as well, but that is probably off-topic. It's just odd, with all the talk of other issues (mental health, for example) and those same theories applied to them, I don't think I've ever really heard them applied to insomnia–though I don't know why.

I'm sorry to hear you haven't had much luck with the meds you've been hit with, but I'm glad you've found a great way of dealing with it and I am completely mind-blown, that you have over 10K books. That's not a book collection, that's a library, wow!!! That must be awesome.

I look forward to hearing more from you.

[Martin Reed]

Welcome to our gang of merry insomniacs, Ianoulla – it's great to have you here and I can't wait to see you get more involved in the community 🙂

Thank you so much for introducing yourself in such an open and honest way.

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[yourfavoritecyn]

Welcome!

[Author]

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