If you follow my blogs, you know that I'm newly single after 24 years of marriage and four kids. I write about it now because it is Sleep Challenge 2010 and my sleep has definitely been affected. For one thing, I have become a bit phobic about going to sleep. I love going to bed, but I'm afraid to go to sleep.
As a wife and mother, I expressed much of my love for my family by making beds for them that were irresistibly soft and silken, not too warm/not too cold, with the top sheet untucked at the bottom so that their feet wouldn't be forced to point down when they lay on their backs, double pillows of down with the loosest stuffing so that they stayed punched down in the middle after you got them just right and, my secret ingredient -- sheepskin pelts on top of the mattress and under the contour sheet.
But I was never a particularly extravagant sleeper myself. Ever since my first child was born nearly 22 years ago and joined the "marital bed," I've slept like a fireman; fully dressed and with shoes beside the bed. Call me a buzz kill if you'd like, but I lived in Malibu, a.k.a. "Shake and Bake By the Sea" because we were either enduring earthquakes or wildfires most of the time. My girlfriend, Lili, may have ended up naked on the sand with the rest of Malibu Colony after the Northridge Quakes, but not me. I was dressed and shod and holding a kid under each arm as my husband grabbed his mother and another kid.
Since none of my kids was ever successfully "Ferberized" (do they still call it that?), our bed resembled a life raft at night, with four tiny kids sprawling in the middle and their father and I clinging to either side of the mattress like two climbers on the granite face of Yosemite. I recently watched a few hours of home video of our family during the early years and noticed that I had laryngitis for about 10 years straight. A scratchy voice for me is a clear indicator that I'm sleep-deprived, so you can imagine what that decade was like for me.
Even after the kids cleared out, I continued to sleep on my edge of the bed, (no matter what may have happened in the middle earlier in the night), flat on my back and with my hands crossed on my chest -- just like a properly laid out corpse. Exhaustion overcame me and I didn't move until some little person's fingers, smelling of Honey Nut Cheerios, opened my eyes for me.
Now I sleep alone. My bed only smells like me. It is only spotted with the pistachio nutshells, or a Peanut M&M from my own nocturnal eating. Beside me rest my warm laptop, my glasses, my Kindle and, occasionally, my blackberry. Yes, I realize that I'm too close to too many poisonous rays with all the electronics I turn to for intimacy, but that's the least of my concerns these days. Oh, did I mention that the television is also on?
What worries me more than irradiation is how desperate I clearly am to distract myself from the frightening journey from wakefulness to slumber. I may not suffer from nightmares, but I can scare the hell out of myself in the five or 10 minutes before unconsciousness. Most nights, I don't want to be alone with my mind in complete silence and darkness. It always starts the same; I go through the mental slideshow of my failings. I should have written more pages for my next book. I should have exercised instead of wasting an hour on Shopbop.com. I should stop backing out of social plans I make enthusiastically during the week and then cancel by the weekend. I should be prepared to be happy without a partner. I should recommit to my own career and revel in my freedom to spend my time as I please. Most of all, I should stop fantasizing that all of these thoughts would be silenced if someone were beside me to hold me until I fell asleep.
Anyone have an Ambien on them?
Not looking back......
I have devised a routine to help me sleep better - I wash my face, brush my teeth, choose a light read and this seems to prepare my mind and body for rest. I have tried Ambien but had hallucinations of a startling kind - on no account have any alcohol when taking Ambien!
I think the real key is that when we are lying there awake on our own- our fears surface and it can be terrifying- and of course makes sleep elusive. I have turned to meditation and prayer and I believe this calms my mind and keeps it focussed on more positive aspects. A few spritzes of Resue Sleep Remedy also do wonders. If it gets really bad- then Benadryl does the trick!
Soo, I have a little routine I go through at such times. I break into my nervous thoughts and remind myself that I need my sleep and that it will only be a few hours before I can finish some task or call a friend for comfort. Then, I pick a loved one and a point in time - Christmases with my kids; talks I had with my grandma when she was dying, vacations with my family, my mom at the house in Minneapolis, me at my elementary school, my first dog - you get the idea - and try to come up with every pleasant memory that I can for that person (animal ;), place and time. It works every time! I soon drift right of in the midst of pleasant
I have immense difficulty falling asleep when I'm with my husband. I learned to sleep with (count 'em) 8 pillows to bolster myself EXACTLY how I liked. When my husband's here, it gets cut in half because (surprise) he needs pillows too. Maybe one day I'll get so used to having him there that he becomes a part of my sleep habits too.
I spent many a lonely night thinking of not what I lost, but what I never had. In the end the common denominator is ourselves. I guess what I'm trying to say is that although I'm unfamiliar with being divorced, I'm not a stranger to being alone in a bed. Get more pillows!! Stop distracting yourself and invest in a great book that focuses your thoughts. I hope that every woman who struggles with being alone can learn to love and take comfort in the company of herself.
These moments have only happened after sleeping soundly for a while, and then the anxiety came up on me rather suddenly. Damn, I used to be surrounded by people that really care about me and know me, but now I'm quite alone.
It's a sobering feeling and it's definitely a very powerful and clarifying sense of solitude, but there is also an impulse to reconnect with people. Anyway, it's only happened twice in my life that I can remember, but it reminds me of a dream I had of every evacuating and me wading through waist-deep water, trying to catch up with a bus that was pulling away from me. I was the last one left behind in a flooded landscape.
As a guy I see *terrified to sleep alone* and since this whole week has been on a focus about everyone trying to get more and better sleep I just want to offer suggestions, especially when she joked about ambien. :p
Let go of those "shoulds" and sleep! You may be surprised by your dreams.
I can no longer sleep with my husband because he suffers from a debilitating and progressive neurological disorder. I wish I could sleep with him again. You are not alone.
try kava kava and one of the million sleep music cds out there, that should put you out like a light.
good luck,
A body pillow and ambien work wonders for me. The ambien shuts down the "stream of thoughts" in your head and allows you to relax and fall asleep.