I have such a love hate relationship with sleep. I’m constantly feeling tired or fatigued all day long. During the day, on most days, I’d love for nothing more than a nap. With an almost 3 year old at home who doesn’t care to nap; getting a nap in doesn’t happen too much.
Then the night comes, and my mind decides it’s a great time to be awake. The closer it gets to me needing to go to bed, the more energy I have, and the more I feel like doing things. I find myself wanting to avoid going to sleep. I double check the doors to make sure they are locked.
Night time was a very dangerous time for me when I was being abused. Although, most of the abuse took place during the day; it was the night that I feared the most. I usually avoid going into this due to the embarrassment and shame I feel over things my step-dad brainwashed me into believing. He made it so that reality wasn’t what I could remember, but what he said it was. Without going into too much detail, it was the things he said were happening to me at night while I slept that scared me the most. He would assure me that I would be watched for the rest of my life, and there was nothing that could be done to stop “them” from getting to me anytime “they” wanted to. I slept with the light on in my room for about a year. It was the only thing that helped me get any sleep.
Going to sleep at night just doesn’t feel safe to me, and I don’t know if that will ever change. It takes me about 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep at night, and that is even when I’m wrapped in my husband’s arms; the place I feel the safest. Even when I’m tired and want to go to bed, as soon as I lay down, my mind decides to wake-up just enough for me to feel awake enough for me to have a hard time going to sleep. I have one of those minds that just doesn’t know how to turn off at night.
As every coin has two sides; so does this. There are times when I don’t realize how tired I am until I lay down. My mind feels awake, and I don’t feel like going to sleep; however, I know I must go to sleep so I’m not too tired and cranky the next day. Once I lay down and try to relax it seems as though my mind finally is able to acknowledge how tired I am. Perhaps, it’s the first time during the day I’ve allowed my mind to relax enough for me to realize I’m tired. I’m not sure why my mind works this way, but it does.
Stress does play a big roll in all of this. Sometimes I feel so mentally exhausted all I want to do, and can do is sleep. The image that comes to mind is that of a child picking pedals off of a flower saying, “he loves me; he loves me not”. Sleep do you love me or do you love me not?
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