Nobelist in battle with insomnia relates dramatic moments

A long time ago, it was my custom to read or write until I felt that I was sleeping. Soon, I had to stop doing this.

Reading led me to a state of intense enthusiasm: Usually, you read some pages to get easier sleep, but the more I read, the more I fell asleep. And it wasn't a matter of book quality. Mediocre books, fine books, novels, essays: Sleep went away. Reading brought a desire to write, and writing produced a desire to read. The night passed without blinking, and the next day was lost. I was in an abyss, had a headache, couldn't do anything.

It took me a long time to give up the idea that after eight o'clock in the night, I should not open a book and write. This seemed to be a serious restriction, but it was necessary that insomnia stole my desire to live. So I gave up, and for a while things improved. But during my periods of writing about almost all day, my insomnia would turn, in a way that scared me. I was sleeping, but I thought I was still writing words and words.

A doctor once told me that, even for reading and writing, you need a certain kind of body, and mine wasn't the right kind: I couldn't afford this effort. So after I had completely stopped reading and writing, I systematically tired of daily things.

Afterward, I realized that writing and reading had little to do with my insomnia - I still had sleep problems. A brief half thought was enough to open the door for an obsession: fear for my family, jealousy, discontent. In the dark, with my eyes open, I've examined in detail my conduct and that of others. I am convinced of injustice and betrayal. In other words, the late hour, when everything has to fade away and disappear, has led me to an inlerable sensitivity to myself and the people I loved and who I thought loved.

At 30 years of age, I started taking sleeping pills. But as powerful as they were, I couldn't sleep more than three or four hours a night. At one point, I thought full surrender to insomnia would help me more than pills. So I went back to reading and writing whenever I wanted to, and I often didn't even go to bed. Today, I don't have much sleep at night, but I make up for it in the afternoon. If I like what I'm reading or writing, I don't close my eyes. If I don't like it, I fall asleep disappointed and disappointed. I have given in to insomnia and find sleep as well as when I can. After all, I'm doing great. /The Guardian-Bota.al