Since the start of 2003, my insomnia has kicked up a gear again, and it's pretty much on the verge of intolerable. Personally, I kind of suspect it's revenge for having been in abeyance over the Christmas break, a kind of "now we'll see who's in charge" thing. Of course, that's just me anthropomorphosising (and yes, that really is a pig of a word to type) which isn't a good thing at all.   One of the side effects of insomnia is depression, and thinking about things in far too much detail and depth. It lowers the defences, and my resistance to illness, and after a week or so I'm at the lowest ebb.   When I'm in the throes of one of these attacks (I'm sure there's a better word for it, but for now attacks will suffice) is one of the few times where I wish I wasn't single. When I'm feeling low from lack of sleep, when the depression that's always more pronounced when I haven't slept much, and it hits me hard. Knowing I'll be returning to an empty house when I'm in that mental state is just additional garbage that I could happily do without.    Most of the time being single really doesn't affect me all that much - it's only during these weakened states that it hits me hard. It's part of why insomnia is such a complete bastard, it doesn't just affect sleep, but the lack of sleep then affects everything else healthwise, mentally, emotionally and physically. A real blast of insomnia leaves you utterly debilitated, wiped out and open to any infection that's around - not just in the terms of viruses and illnesses, but in terms of psychic damage, of doubting oneself, of being more depressed, and many other sides too. It leads to introspection, to analysing one's situation - but this is the dark side of introspection, the demons sitting on your shoulder laughing.   As it is this time it's been harder than usual, what with one thing and another, but it's mainly been something where I've been getting reminded of the joys of solitude. I've spent the last year being single, and in general it's been good - it's enabled me to rediscover bits of myself that had gone into hiding over the last few years, and let me see things from a variety of new perspectives. In many ways it hasn't been a fun year - some of the new perspectives have involved seeing people in different ways too, some of which hasn't been all that good.   So I suppose it's a year where a lot of the filters have fallen away, where I've been able to see some things in a new light, and work from there. It's opened my eyes, and started pushing me into a slightly new direction with things as well. Insomnia's helped on that score too - although sometimes I find myself worrying that the view from within the insomniac mind isn't entirely sane either, instead it's a bitter, vicious, cynical viewpoint, one that doesn't really have any rose tint to it at all. Harsh, unforgiving, brutal - but is it truthful? That's always the problem - how truthful and impartial is any viewpoint?   I don't know how things will shape up between insomnia and depression - I suspect it will take a long time to find out, as it's a battle waged on so many frontiers. In the meantime, the process will almost certainly have it's ups and downs, and they'll be written about and thought about here. And while this piece may have been disjointed as hell, and the thoughts involved are going to be written about in a seperate piece here, I think that long term it's going to be a positive process.   Time will tell.