Emotions are annoying....

  More than once in my life, my wife has accused me of being Spock.  I admit, sometimes I shield what I'm feeling, for a variety of reasons.  Mostly, I guess it's a defensive mechanism built over the years of not wanting to embarrass, or call attention to, myself.  The problem with shielding emotions is they build up.  I've learned a lot in the last couple of years about sharing how I'm feeling, and why.  It's been hard opening up to people, especially to those I love the most.  I'm getting better at it, but sometimes, especially when under stress, I tend to revert to old form.  What's somewhat comical (always in the rearview mirror, not at the time), is that usually, no one even knows I'm upset, unless I go overboard or something.

  Today was one of those days.  I just had a lot not going right.  I did not sleep well last night, despite my medication.  I have something called REM sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD).  This doesn't mean that I try to kill people or anything, but I act out my dreams, which tend to be very vivid.  Normally, when a person falls asleep, their brain dispenses a paralytic hormone that prevents them from reacting to dreams.  For some reason, my brain doesn't do that.  I've heard some pretty outrageous stories from roommates about my antics while I'm sleeping.  There was one time, I was reading Patriot Games, so of course, I was dreaming about meeting the Queen of England.  My roommate woke me up as I was standing in front of my lamp, saluting it.  Sigh, sadly that was neither the first, nor the last time.

  Anyway, the point of the diversion into the sleep discussion is that if I have a nightmare, I tend to react at high velocity.  I have run into walls, flown across the room, I even broke my wife's nose shortly after we were married.  (Again, ten years later, makes for a very funny story, was not at the time...)  Shortly after my son was born, I had a dream where the ceiling was collapsing, so I jumped over to protect my wife from the debris, as it were.  Luckily, James was in his bassinet, so no one was injured, but that was scary.  At that point, we decided to pursue the problem again with the VA's neurology department.  They agreed with the diagnosis, and prescribed me a medication that has proven to be effective in battling RBD.  However, until the medication takes effect, we agreed it would be best if I slept in the guest room.  It's been nearly a month now.  Most nights, I don't recall reacting.  I wake remembering dreams, as I always do, but not reacting to them.  Of course, no one else is around to tell me otherwise.

  This has been incredibly frustrating to me.  Add to that the fact that BOTH of my hands are shot today, and it was just not a good mix.  I got really grumpy.  My wife told me to go take a nap, so I did.  And magically, I felt better.  We just settled into a good activity on the wii when another rescue call came in, lol.  Sometimes you just can't win.  When I got home, I hugged Karyn and apologized for being grumpy.  She hadn't noticed, she just thought I looked tired!  So yeah, need to communicate better, before I get overwhelmed.  Looking back, if that's as bad as it was going to be today, my life is awesome.