On the Road Again 2015 # 6

I am always surprised as to how willing my drivers are to disclose personal information, sometimes within minutes of me getting into their vehicle. My first driver of the 2015 hitchhiking season was no different.  He was a young man, perhaps in his late 20s. As soon as we had got past the hi and the thank you, he started to tell me about his chronic insomnia that was at least in part caused by his anxiety disorder. He also squeezed in a few comments suggesting that he had had a pretty unhappy childhood. I suppose it was all interesting information but there were so many more things that we could have talked about including the weather, his profession (IT specialist) or he even could have asked about why I hitchhike. As I have mentioned before, I sometimes wonder if this willing-ness to share personal details with strangers is at least partially because we are all so isolated from each other.

It was not that it wasn't an interesting conversation, it was just that there was little for me to contribute. My driver was off to Brandon for some sort of sleep assessment to determine exactly what the problem was, although quite frankly it seemed to be clear that when he became anxious, or under pressure, it was impossible for him to sleep. He told me that sometimes he went 24 hours without sleep and then when he did sleep, his sleep patterns became distorted. While neither of us could remember the right word, I think what happened was that his circadian rhythm became disrupted by stress and without medication, he never got that rhythm back. I also suspected that the more he worried about not sleeping, his stress levels increased and therefore making it even harder for him to sleep. From what he said, there were times where it must have felt as if he was on a never ending cycle of being sleep deprived.

He said that he had scored rather highly on an IQ test. He was proud of that but admitted (as all current research suggests) that he just could not function intellectually when he was sleep deprived. Fortunately he had been employed when this problem had started to manifest itself and therefore had been eligible for both short and then long term disability. He was now on a disability pension until the problem could be sorted out and hopefully fixed. While he had had a significant other in his life, he was at present, living alone. From what he told me, I think he may have been a bit of a loner. He told a few stories that suggested that he might not be the most socially skilled individual.

There was another passenger..... his dog who looked to be of a mixed border collie type. It was an exceptionally well trained dog. It was quiet when I got in (although I did have some initial concern that it might try to get out as I was placing my pack in the back seat). It had the look of a dog that would at the very least, demand to have its head hanging out the window, but in fact it seldom moved from its blanket on the seat behind the driver. My driver was certainly very fond of the dog and said that he could never leave the dog alone for five or six hours.

Considering how late I started, I had anticipated the possibility that I might not get past Brandon. However, because I got picked up fairly quickly and because he drove at slightly above the speed limit, we got to Brandon in good time. It was a real bonus that he drove me to the west end of town, thereby saving me a half hours walk.

As I may have mentioned before, the traffic flow at the west end of Brandon can be a bit chaotic as there are two service roads and a cross road that leads to downtown that all merge into the Trans-Canada.The chaos is made worse because there are truck stops on both sides of the road. However I was there for anymore than five minutes when a truck coming out of the Tim Hortons blew his horn and waved me over.