Late in 2007, I fled a job interview at the 11th hour because I was so sleep-deprived I thought I was going to be physically sick. The curious thing is, I wasn’t even the candidate.

As a part of our PR agency’s recruitment process, every prospective employee had to participate in a role-playing ‘telephone pitch’ in which they’d sit in a separate room and call up a disgruntled journalist to try and persuade them to write about one of our clients. On this occasion, I was chosen to play the disgruntled journalist – a role that, as the office misanthrope*, I usually relished. So it was to the considerable bemusement and consternation of my colleagues when, as the speakerphone lit up with the incoming call, I got up out of my seat, mumbled an incomprehensible excuse and made a frantic dash to the door.

I spent the following two hours sat on the Great Suffolk Street kerb, feeling extremely out of sorts and utterly perplexed as to what was happening to me. I knew I suffered from insomnia – waking up at 2am every night was something of a giveaway – but I didn’t know that insomnia would, left unchecked, slowly increase my anxiety levels to the point at which I no longer had any faith in my ability to get through the working day. When the speakerphone lit up, the only thought going through my head was, “I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I can’t do this”. My confidence was shot, and now I was out on the kerb, utterly humiliated by my own ineptitude.

In the months that followed, I embarked on a series of treatments designed to cure my insomniac as well as teaching me strategies to better handle the problem, should it persist. As it turned out, the curative procedures were totally ineffective, while the coping strategies almost certainly saved my career.

Today my insomnia ebbs and flows. There are better moments and worse moments and I never really know what lies in store from one month to the next, except for that Sunday is always a total write-off, irrespective of how I’ve constructed my weekend. But I generally feel well-equipped to deal with the situation, which is more than can be said for a lot of people right now. Millions of people are suffering from coronasomnia, an awful name for an awful condition. The worry is that while the pandemic will ultimately recede, insomnia, once embedded, can be extremely difficult to shift.

Whether the affliction rate is closer to 20% or 40% of adults, we’re talking about an insanely high proportion of the population currently working, looking after children, driving on our roads, or otherwise going about their daily business, in sub-optimal condition. And because insomnia affects everyone differently, it’s incredibly difficult to find the right language to convey how we’re feeling to those around us. Saying “I’ve not been sleeping well” really doesn’t capture either the practical or psychological consequences of sustained sleep deprivation.

There is already plenty of advice for insomnia-sufferers out there on the web. I don’t feel the need to add to this body of digital literature. Some of the tips and techniques may work; most of them won’t. It depends on the person. Everyone should try Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, but they won’t, and anyway, our health service couldn’t support the demand if they did.

For the foreseeable future then, there is going to be a lot of insomnia around. So if someone tells you, “I can’t get no sleep,” rather than pointing out the obvious grammatical flaw in their sentence, remember that it’s the product of a tired mind. Tolerance and clemency might just be the most essential human qualities at our disposal in the months that lie ahead if we are to successfully rebuild our battered, bedraggled and, above all, knackered society.

*Apart from Joe, who was even more misanthropic.

Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash.