The Elusive Sleep

I don’t want to sleep.

I can sleep. It’s not that I’m not physically able to sleep. I don’t need sleeping pills or any other kind of sleeping aid supplements. It’s not like that. It’s different.

I’ve thought about this for years… the ‘why’ behind my sleep issues. You see, I either sleep all the time, or I barely sleep at all. I’ve had these issues for as long as I can remember. In trying to explain it to my therapist, the closest I’ve been able to come is through my experience as a person with an eating disorder.

I’ve been a binge eater since I was in single digits. I became bulimic and then anorexic at the end of my 20s. I’m currently still struggling with food and I’m now at level 55 on the age spectrum. I’m either not eating at all or eating everything in sight. The sleeping is the same. It’s like a compulsion where I know I need to sleep but there’s something inside my head that refuses to do it, to let go. It feels like ants crawling under my skin. I’ve been in this not sleeping stage for several years now. It’s punctuated by bouts of non-stop sleeping where I could sleep all day, get up to use the facilities, and then go right back to sleep.

When I really stop to think about it, the over-sleeping is usually connected to my bouts of deep depression. And no, I don’t mean being sad. Having depression is not being sad. It’s so much more than that. And it can be completely debilitating.

During the times when I’m not sleeping much at all, which looks like staying awake for 24-48 hours at a time or sleeping for three to four hours in a 24–48-hour period, I’m usually experiencing a deep anxiety. When I’m in this state, it feels like I’m hyper-focused on staying awake. I ‘need’ to stay awake. It’s not exactly a conscious thought, although I do know it’s happening because I’ve experienced it before, so you’d think I’d be able to say something like, ‘Hey Me, GO TO SLEEP,’ and then magically go to sleep, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. I’ve tried.

I can’t explain the need, but I know that’s what I’m feeling. A deep all-consuming need to stay awake.

When I was younger, the sleep disturbances were connected to not feeling safe. I couldn’t be vigilant or protect myself if I was sleeping. I couldn’t control my body or anything else if I was sleeping.

On top of that, there were the nightmares of an evil cloaked figure. Those were scary as Hell, which is what I thought it was… a demon coming from Hell to claim my soul. I have my mom and ‘our’ church to thank for those thoughts. (No, I don’t blame my mom. She believed what she was saying. She wasn’t being malicious. The church is a different story, but not one I want to get into now.)

To make it clearer for you, when I was a kid, the devil was around every corner, so we had to be vigilant because we didn’t want to wind up burning in Hell for all eternity, you know, when the good Lord decided to take us home. And you should also know that, of course, we didn’t know when death was going to happen, it could’ve been at any moment, which is why we prayed before bed every night, asking Jesus to protect us from the devil by claiming us Himself should we die in our sleep. If I’m being completely honest, I still pray for that protection, although my prayers are a bit different now, but that too is a different story.

So, getting back to the nightmares, I continued to have those nocturnal fright fests until I was well into my 30s. My ex-husband got woken up a LOT in the middle of the night during our first five years together, but he was a trooper and didn’t complain too much. Heck, I still have them sometimes, but not very often.

I didn’t find out what was causing the nightmares until I took a university psychology course. Apparently, my nightmares were ‘textbook’ examples of what happens for many people when they’re sexually abused as children. So, childhood trauma really is the gift that keeps on giving, and no, you can’t just forget about it, sweep it under the rug, and then get on with your life like a normal human being. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way, especially not for those of us who remember the abuse.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are many people who were abused as children but don’t remember. You could probably guess who they are by the way they live their lives… addiction anyone? And no, I’m not saying that everyone with an addiction was sexually molested as a child, but I am saying that you can sure as heck bet that they have some deep, and I mean mega-deep, unresolved trauma shoved somewhere in the back of their minds.

With that said, I do know people with addictions who were abused in every way imaginable as children, but don’t appear to remember it now. I’m not sure if that makes them lucky or unlucky. In any case, I remember everything and for the past five years, I’ve even been remembering some of the stuff I didn’t know I’d forgotten. Yay, me.

Moving on…

When I was a teenager, my dad decided that I needed to get help. My emotions were all over the place, and there was a lot of crying. I was also still having nightmares. On a side note, my dad wasn't actually my biological father. He was my stepfather, which he'd told me a few years prior to him suggesting I go to counseling. He told me he wasn't my dad, and then he told me to go on with life as though he hadn't told me. (What?) Again, another story for another day.

Going to counseling as a teenager didn’t help much, but then I’m pretty sure my psychiatrist was a bit too handsy when he gave me drugs to ‘hypnotize’ me. He ‘hypnotized’ me so we could pinpoint the memories that needed to be brought to the surface and examined, or so he said.

On another side note, this psychiatrist also gave me a baggy filled with pills – all different shapes, sizes, and colours – for my anxiety issues. Those pills led to a wonderful little visit to the local hospital emergency room where the doctor on call took my baggy away and suggested I never go back to that psychiatrist. So, I took that advice and I stopped going to see him. My dad was not happy about that. He didn't think I was telling the truth about the psychiatrist, but I wouldn't back down and refused to return. I think it was about a month or two later that I read in the city newspaper that the psychiatrist had lost his license for sexually assaulting his female patients.

The first time I went to a counseling session that appeared to be helpful was when I was in university. To start, I had a male therapist for a bit, but he was more of a spiritual counselor who was helping me get in touch with my native heritage. (I think I have him to thank for my continued connection to Spirit, as I was not a huge fan of God after my experiences with my childhood church. Again, another story for another day.)

While this counselor was wonderful, he was not what I needed to feel safe enough to talk about the childhood trauma. You see, he was a man, he had a penis. That, for me, automatically disqualified him, even though I felt instinctively that he wasn't the kind of man who would mistreat anyone, let alone a woman in his care. So, I moved on to therapist number three.

I had just started with a new family doctor - a female one. In addition to being a medical doctor, she had also recently completed qualifying to be a therapist, so she took on my counseling and I started seeing her for an hour every week, no charge. (I later learned this is not something that she should have been doing despite having accreditation for both specialties.) In the end, did she help me? Not really, but I did get a bit more comfortable talking about my past with a stranger. And in retrospect, I think giving voice to my ‘issues’ probably helped more than anything else. I was able to ‘speak my truth’ in a safe environment, one where I was supported.

Back to the sleep issues…

In addition to going to counseling, I think it was finally realizing that I had control over my safety that primarily allowed me to stop having those nightmares all the time. The key thing to point out here is that I only felt safe in my home. In fact, it took my then-therapist (therapist number four or five) quite a while to convince me that there was less than 0.001 per cent of the population that could be realistically labeled evil.

Today, with everything that’s happening in the world, I’m realizing that I was right, and she was wrong. (Thanks so much, Lorraine.) So, does today’s world events and realizing that Lorraine was wrong have something to do with my out-of-control anxiety and subsequent sleep issues? Probably a little bit, but I don’t think it’s the primary factor.

On another side note, I’ve had many therapists over the years. Some were good, some were bad, and my current therapist, who is not Lorraine, is freaking amazing. I’ve been seeing her on and off for roughly ten years now. Although I was initially referred to her back in 2016 because I’d been sexually assaulted, she’s helped me more than anyone with addressing my childhood trauma.

Okay, once again, back to the sleep issues…

When I sleep, I dream. I’m certain I astral travel, as well. I know it sounds woo-woo, but it’s true. Or I think it is, anyway. It’s different than a regular dream in that it often feels like I’m living in a parallel universe where things are similar but different, sometimes better, sometimes not. I learn things I didn’t know in my waking life, which is a weird sort of bonus.

In my regular dreams, I’ve learned how to somewhat control what’s happening. I can recognize when I’m heading into a situation that’s too frightening to face and I can force myself to wake up. The first time that happened, I was facing off with a gun-toting bad guy, and I was able to remind myself in my dream that I was, in fact, dreaming. So, I said to myself, ‘This is my dream, and I can do what I want to, damn it!’ So, I gave myself a gun, too. Then I knocked the bad guy out, and woke myself up.

In addition to saving myself in my dreams, I can now recognize when I need to wake up to pee, which is also a factor in my lifelong sleep issues. (Way back when, Dad used to threaten me a lot to not wet the bed 'or else.' I'm not sure what 'or else' meant, but I know it wasn't good.) I’d say my success rate in not wetting the bed, nowadays, is about 90 per cent, provided I’m not undergoing extreme stress or ill in any way. For the other 10 per cent of the time, I have a pee pad on my bed.

Back to the dreaming…

When I’m experiencing something extremely distressing or scary in my dreams, my dog Radar is always there with me. There have been times when I wake up because I feel him jumping up onto the bed and snuggling in, but when I look, he’s not physically there. You see, he died back in 2015.

When I’m dreaming, I’ve also communicated with past loved ones. I don’t always know what they’re trying to tell me, but I do know when a message is being delivered. The one time I had a visiting dream that was somewhat clear, it was my maternal grandmother telling me, ‘The truth will set you free.’ At the time, I didn’t know what she meant by that, but now I think it was her way of telling me that I needed to face and own ‘my truth.’ So, this is me facing and owning my truth.

Other than the evil cloaked figure, the dreams that scare me the most are the ones where I can’t physically move or speak because I’m paralyzed by the evil entity bearing down on me. Then I wake up to discover that I still can’t move or speak and the evil is still with me. And then just when I think I might expire from fright, I wake up for real, discovering that it was a nightmare within a nightmare.

So, do my nocturnal adventures have anything to do with my sleep issues? Probably a bit, but I don’t think they’re the primary cause. I could be wrong. I mean, I’ve been wrong about things before… many, many things, so anything is possible.

There are times when I’m able to force myself to follow ‘normal’ sleep patterns, but I can’t sustain it. I have the willpower, but it’s not sustainable in the long-term. Whether it’s sleep or food or something else, it’s like a switch gets flipped and my thinking changes as though I’m a different version of me. (One me is Type A all the way, while the other is the exact opposite.)

Once again, to be clear, I’m not talking about multiple personality disorder, as I’ve been tested and it’s not that. I think it comes down to compartmentalizing all the different versions of me through the years, never really integrating any of them. (I’ve been working on rectifying that in therapy. I think it’s going well, but it’s too soon to tell.)

I’m also an ‘expert’ at dissociating, which I’m sure is connected to or a form of compartmentalizing memories and emotions. I don’t know that for certain, as I said, I’m not a psychologist. I’ve dissociated all my life to the point that it’s become an automatic response to life, especially during stressful times. I disconnect from life, from reality, from my emotions, from connection with the world and with people. When I’m purposefully or consciously trying not to dissociate, I feel everything and that’s when the depression is the worst, but it’s usually interspersed with short periods of feeling full of hope and joy and ‘wow, isn’t the world a wonderful place to be’ moments.

While I’ve taken some classes at university and while I’ve read a lot of books on subjects related to psychology and mental health, as I’ve said before, I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist. (I feel it’s important to point this out repeatedly so there’s no confusion on that front.) So, my point is that I don’t know what all of this means.

I had a lawyer-appointed psychiatrist tell me two, possibly three years ago that it’s connected to the C-PTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder), which up until that point, I didn’t realize I had. I knew I had PTSD, but not C-PTSD. She’s an expert in her field, so I trust her diagnosis. Plus, everything I’ve read since then points to her being correct.

What it all boils down to is that my mind is messed up. It works. Kind of. I mean, some days are clearer, and better than others, and some days, possibly more days than not, I’m trying to determine if I might be certifiably crazy. With that said, over the years, I’ve been reassured by several mental health professionals that I’m, in fact, not crazy, nor have I ever been. I’ve been told that my thoughts, actions, et cetera are a ‘normal reaction’ to ‘abnormal circumstances.’

Yes, so, to reiterate, I’ve been assured many times that I’m not crazy. But… would they tell me if I was?

I mean, normal? Me? It just sounds wrong, like really, wrong.

Either way, crazy or not crazy, I have issues sleeping. I don’t know definitively why I have these issues, and I don’t know how to ‘fix’ them once and for all. The best I can do, at this point, I guess, is to keep trying. So that’s what I’ll do, I’ll keep on trying.