I need sleep

Today has been a rough one. Once again I was startled awake by my upstairs neighbor. So being awake was accompanied with the usual racing heart and the immediate surge of anger. I didn’t want to move out of bed though because it was super comfortable. Yet the more I lay there, the more aggravated I became. So the stomping continued and then there were louder thuds. Did she drop something? Is she jumping? What is going on up there?

But that louder sound was the final straw. I finally got out of bed prepared to confront her once again. This has got to stop!

My poor guinea pigs were begging for food and attention, but I had to ignore them. I had to brave the 35 degree morning air and confront the neighbor while I still had the guts to do it.

I knock. No answer. I know she’s in there! There’s no claiming to be gone. I knock again. Nothing.

I think I knocked for about 5 minutes. Maybe. No screaming or yelling, but louder knocks. I had to be sure she heard me, especially since I wasn’t getting a response.

Tired and convinced I wasn’t going to get anywhere, I finally left and went back to my unit. I grabbed a note card and began drafting a letter. I finished that and was going to tape it to her door, but I heard her locking up and heading down the stairs. So I met her in the stairwell and tried to hand her the note, “Please read.”

Nope. She wasn’t having it. I insisted and she called out “You’re bordering on harassment.”

Wow.

Now, I can somewhat understand where that’s coming from. She assumes she’s doing nothing wrong and then hears some random person banging on her door. Yeah, I can see that. But this was only the second or third time (this has been going on for nearly a year!) that I’ve banged on her door. And since my one-sided door performances lacked yelling and cursing, I don’t see how that could be classified as harassment, but that really pissed me off.

I JUST WANT TO SLEEP!

I just want to get through a single night and have my alarm wake me up. I want to wake up without having a panic attack, without the anger. And I know I’m asking a lot, but I’d really like to wake up feeling refreshed. I know, I must be crazy or something. But these regular 5-6 hours of sleep a night are killing me.

So I waited for the front office to open before heading over there to file a complaint. And I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I expected to be given a clipboard so I could thoroughly describe what happened, give a full account. Nope. It’s a different kind of complex. These are individually owned condos and the front desk doesn’t handle any part of renting. They won’t even tell you if units are available for rent. You have to search on your own and find the owners. It’s ridiculous.

I was told: We have a new policy. You have to contact your unit owner or property manager and have them contact us about the complaint.

SERIOUSLY!?!? I can’t even file a complaint on my own behalf?

That didn’t help with the anger, either.

I contacted my property manager. And explaining my situation just made me feel even more idiotic. Like this is my fault. And it reinforced this struggle of wondering why certain sounds affect me more than others. Frustration at why I can’t just tune it out. Why do they stick with me more? Because I can guarantee that only a handful of people would likely think anything of the sounds that are bothering me so much. And it just feels like this is all in my heads and that I should just be able to deal.

But I can’t. Every effort I’ve made to tune out the noise has fallen short of what I need. The melatonin. The ear plugs. The eye mask with built-in speakers. Having music playing right near my ears. White noise fans. Nothing works!

I finally decided to cut my losses and sent an email to my supervisor (I work remotely) explaining the situation I’m having and asking about a change in my schedule. If I can start earlier and get off work earlier (getting to bed by 10 pm), then maybe I can voluntarily wake up at 6 am and it won’t be such a long day. Maybe I could get 8 hours of sleep that way. Waking up on my own would eliminate the panicked feeling, being jolted out of sleep. And I could hopefully cope better at work.

Lately, everything at work is more annoying than it should be. And being tired all the time is no fun at all.

Something has to change.

I seriously miss my sleep.