Ralph Roberts, the protagonist of Stephen King’s Insomnia, says that insomnia and loneliness are twin elements of the worst human experiences. As he first tries to cure his wakefulness and then tries to make sense of it, Ralph repeats to himself his late wife’s oft repeated words: “It’s a long way back to Eden, Sweetheart, so don’t sweat the small stuff.”
Although I’ve always been a good sleeper and in possession of a solitary nature, I understand the basics of Ralph’s claim. Both insomnia and loneliness are beyond our control. They are no-fault crises, and this makes them all the more unbearable. They aren’t physiological or cognitive issues, yet every homegrown “cure” aims to treat them as if they were.
The terror of both is that they are largely psychological, so it feels like we should be able to talk ourselves out of them. Reason becomes the antidote of choice, and if we are unable to cure ourselves, we begin to question our mental acuity. The ultimate betrayal is being divided from all that we know to be true about ourselves.
For me, it was neither lack of sleep nor lack of company that divided me from myself.
Last summer, a dull (and ever-so-persistent) ache in my abdomen halfway convinced me that my 2020 cholecystectomy had left me in the 5% of surgical failures. The more fantastical elements of my imagination told me that I was a medical wonder who had somehow managed to not only regrow my gallbladder but that I’d regrown it and developed gallstones all over again.
After several months and thousands of dollars worth of consultations, tests, and procedures, it turns out I was fine. At least physically. Medically speaking, I was in perfect health. Bloodwork good. Enzymes good. Organ function good. Digestion good. Absorption rate good.
Soul? Not so good.
Almost a year later, it turns out I was suffering from the thing that no good Latina with Boomer parents ever has—that no good Latino of any generation cops to. For the Catholic, pan dulce– loving crowd, it’s the only other “D” word worse than “divorce” or “diabetes.”
Depression.
There it is. I was going through the Big D (and I don’t mean Dallas).
I was depressed and adrift in a sea of embarrassed helplessness. After all, when your entire culture says mental health is nothing but a bunch of mamadas that only white people have time for, it’s hard to beat back the waves of shame that threaten to pull you under. Everything in my upbringing urged me to tap into the arsenal of chingona that my proud, Brown ancestors bestowed upon me.
🗹Willpower. The same kind that all four grandparents had when they quit smoking cold turkey. No hesitation. No pining. No looking back. Just cold-eyed, white-knuckled resolve.
🗹Smarts. The kind everyone said I had. The kind everyone in the Buendía family was
supposed to have. In this family, there’s no room for dummies who can’t think their way to feeling better.
🗹Endurance. The kind every woman in my family tapped into during times of tragedy. After all, there was nothing really wrong with me. What kind of entitled mocosa couldn’t handle her life of privilege?
🗹Vergüenza. The kind that was supposed to keep me from disgracing myself. Surely, the collective struggle of my ancestors wasn’t survived simply for me to fall apart because of something purely in my head.
None of it helped.
No matter how much I reasoned with myself, practiced gratitude, named my emotions, or breathed deeply, sooner or later, I was awash in almost-paralyzing sadness. Tears were always a fraction of a moment away from breaking free, and my spirit was bruised in ways I’d never imagined possible.
Questions I’d never asked about myself were now at the surface of my consciousness, clamoring for answers. How had I ever convinced myself that I mattered? What was the point of being good? Why did I fool myself into thinking that I’d ever be enough?
Only children are supposed to be immune from this kind of thinking because we’ve always been enough (so much so that no other children were ever needed) and we’ve always known we mattered.
Suddenly, though, I wondered who I was—who I’d ever been.
My self-concept of Badass-Who-Can-Figure-Out-Every-Problem? Erased. Forty-four years of navigating the world with confidence born of love and hard work and solid thinking and cheeky humor was crushed. Everything felt like a waste.
I felt like a waste.
Life closed in, and I pulled every remaining bit of myself tight. After living so openly and trustingly for so long, there was no way I’d let anything in again. Better to be alone and not give anyone reason to notice me. All I wanted to do was drift through life unseen and unacknowledged and untouched.
Existing as a mere ghost was contrary to (what I thought was) my nature, but everything I knew to be true had been flipped, so maybe this was the way. I was broken and undone. Weak and toothless.
And no one cared. Or maybe I got so good at being a ghost that no one noticed.
Like an insomniac who drifts in and out of reality, I had alternating moments of clarity and confusion. Of hope and despair. Of strength and exhaustion.
I’ve learned to think of the last year as a work of kintsugi. The Japanese art of “golden repair” feels like an apt metaphor to capture my crossing over from dark to light. I was once whole, then destroyed, and now repaired. While I am not the same (no, not at all), I am at peace and still capable of gentleness. I find joy more easily. I know that life is only life and requires a light touch to make it sing.
Slowly, my brokenness has been seamed together with gold, and time has healed much of the damage. While I may be more flawed and more deeply scarred than before, the imperfections are not without beauty. They are story lines in an otherwise easy life, and each carries a lesson about who I am, what I can stand, and what I will no longer allow.
By the end of Insomnia, Ralph finds peace. Like him, I have also traded a life for a life and found that it is, indeed, “a long way back to Eden.”
Don’t worry, though, Ralph. I won’t sweat the small stuff.
Introvert Therapy 