Kim Cattrall has spoken about her private struggle with insomnia, which was once so crippling that it prevented her from working.
The 59-year-old actress is most well known for her role as man-eater Samantha Jones on U.S. TV show Sex and the City. But on Friday morning (29Apr16) Kim revealed that her turbulent love life is one worry that keeps her awake at night.
Kim, who has been single since splitting from husband Mark Levinson in 2004, opened up about her battle with insomnia in a special programme on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour.
She told listeners that her sleeplessness, which she described as "like a three-tonne gorilla sitting on my chest", first began when she travelled to London, England, in October 2015 to star in a play. At first she put it down to "jetlag … too much tea (or) another stage of menopause", but as it continued night after night, she started to worry. Her father had died of dementia three years previously, so Kim started to call her own mental health into question.
Kim added that her worries in the early hours of the morning included: "I didn’t go to university and I didn’t have children, I have no husband... I’m guilt-ridden and I’m alone… I’m agitated about getting friggin’ older... I will be found out that I am a sham, I’m too strident … I’ve gotten to where I am because I’m f**kable… I’m frightened I will not be accepted or liked by others as a strong woman… I’m not talented enough, I just got lucky."
As the sleeplessness stretched into weeks, Kim decided to see a doctor who diagnosed with her exhaustion due to insomnia. She pulled out of the play after being advised to do so by her friends, and was replaced by Noma Dumezweni in the production.
Upon her return to New York, Kim opted to give cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) a try, and was told by her therapist to limit what she did in the bedroom to "sleep and sex".
She added that one way she curbed her insomnia was through coming to terms with the death of her father, explaining: "I realised that if he could die, I could too. And fearing death is a colossal waste of time, because guess what? I won’t even know I’m dead. And strangely, that’s comforting."
