If I Don't Remember, Did It Still Happen???

I have amnesia. Honest. I suffer from it on a regular basis. I am one of the less than 1% of users of hypnotic sleeping pills who experience the unwanted side effect of amnesia after taking them. 


Totally unrelated (other than it relates to the topic, but not that my son has any clue that I have amnesia sometimes!) Branden asked me in the car one day as I picked him up from school where Ryan was. I told him he was at home 'cuz he was still sick. "Oh, right, 'cuz he has pneumonia." I said, "No, he has the flu." Branden said, "I thought he had pnuemonia?" I said, "No, he just has the flu. A few years ago he had mono. Is that what you're thinking of?" After a few minutes he asks, "What is it called when you lose your abilities?" I said, "Lose your abilities to do what?" He said, "You know. You lose your abilities." I said, "Well, some sicknesses like the flu and mono lower your immune system, which lowers your ability to fight off sickness. Is that what you mean?" He said, "No. What's it called when you can't remember your abilities?" I said, "Oh!!! Are you talking about amnesia?" "Yeah! That's the one! Amnesia. Is that what he has??" 


So I do have insomnia and have had ever since I was a young child. I thought it was totally normal to take 2-4 hours to fall asleep every night, and then to wake up 4 or 5 more times during the night. When I married Jay, I thought something was wrong with HIM when he would fall asleep within moments of his head hitting the pillow. After my children were born, it got much worse and I had to start using sleeping pills. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. It's a fun little rollercoaster ride that my subconscious mind and I play together, seeing who gets control of this overly fatigued body we share. I usually lose until I find a new drug that works, and then I win for a while longer. 


When I began using Ambien a couple of years ago, it was great. I would fall asleep very quickly. No drowsiness the next morning. No waking up in the middle of the night. Not feeling hungover. Just take it, go to sleep, wake up refreshed, just like the commercial says. Except......I started to realize I was DOING things before bed. I wouldn't realize it right off the bat. One evening I was downstairs talking to my sister (who was staying w/us). Apparently we sat and talked and shared a snack for quite some time. The next day we were talking and I had no clue what we were talking about. She said, "Don't you remember? Last night? I told you all this?" I said, "Ummm..nope." She said, "Remember? You came downstairs? We were eating strawberries?" Then suddenly it's like remembering bits and pieces of a dream, but you're finding out the dream was REAL. "Ohhhh!!!! Okay, now I remember." And it all comes back. 


I have done several things in my Ambien-induced amnesic state that have been difficult to explain away the next morning. Apparently I am totally awake and coherent at the time, but I then remember absolutely none of it. Poor Jay has been the recipient of many episodes of our "marital relations" having been lost down that forgotten memory tunnel. I remembered how obnoxious and loud the neighbors had been late into the night, but I did not remember actually calling the police on them (oops!). I kinda remembered talking to my sister on the phone one evening, but didn't remember actually offering her the listing of our home (not that she wasn't a good realtor, but thank God she turned me down since she wasn't even licensed in our state yet!). And, of course, there was the time that I thought I had dreamt of cutting my own hair. I woke up, felt my head, and yes, it was gone. I had cut my hair from past my shoulders to above my chin. I asked Jay what happened and he said, "I have no idea. You went in to take a shower and were in there for a really long time. When you came out, your hair was short." 


So it was actually with relief when Ambien stopped working and I had to switch to Lunesta. More expensive, but no amnesia. Until I added some wine to it. Apparently that's how they make Ambien. Wine + Lunesta = Ambien. I don't remember Halloween evening past wine o'clock. I woke up in clothes I didn't go to bed in, but didn't know why I had changed. I found the other clothes on the floor, with a huge stain of something spilled on them. It was....beer. Aha!!!! I remember! I opened a beer (having run out of wine) and couldn't twist the top off ('cuz I never can) and spilled it all over myself. I asked Jay, "Did you find spilled beer in the kitchen?" He said, "Of course I did. Did you know you were posting on Facebook last night in your drunken stupor?" Hmmm....that I did not know, or at least not remember, but it was obviously easy (and embarrassing) to find out!


So the moral of my story isn't that you shouldn't mix alcohol with sleeping pills, 'cuz they actually work quite well together. The moral is that you should make sure you are absolutely positively 100% without a doubt ready to fall asleep that very minute BEFORE you pop the sleeping pill. I'm just sayin'.