Insomnia

Pictured above: Tallulah Jane at 12 weeks sleeping soundly with her giraffe.


If I'm not dreaming strange dreams, I'm not sleeping at all. Actually this isn't alwaysthe case... I don't sleep when the wife is out of town.

I can't really blame it all on the wife's absence though. I can remember being as young as 4, wide awake in my grandmother's living room, listening to every sound, and assigning it a source that I was comfortable with. That's exactly what I'm doing now. It's frustrating to think about it really. The fear I carry within me, that I've carried since early childhood, is hard for me to understand, and it's not something I want to pass on to my own children. I'm trying to identify the cause, so that maybe I can rid myself of it once and for all.

I've discussed how I felt while living with my grandmother. She was feeble and didn't get around well. I knew, even at four, that my grandmother and I would not be able to protect ourselves if we needed to, but why was I so worried about this at such a young age? I've even racking my brain, and I think I have it.

I bounced between a few homes in my childhood, and lived with my mother in-between. When I was around three years of age, I was staying with my mother in a garage apartment. It was a small, two story, brown, shingled all over structure, that boasted a simple layout. The garage was downstairs, the apartment above it. It had a living room, a kitchen, and a bedroom that could be closed off with French doors. I slept with my mother when she was alone and on a cot in the living room when she wasn't.

One particular night, when sleeping with her, she shook me awake crying and yelling. She called someone to get over there, and then she called the police. I had no idea what was going on, but her fear was immediately transferred to me. She told the police that a man had broken in and stood over the bed with a knife... Or she said she had a knife under the pillow. Not sure... I just remember my dad's dad coming over and nailing the windows shut that very same night. Who knows if this really happened though... My mother did drugs and was/is paranoid schizophrenic.

A second time, I remember being in the cot bed, right under a window. She woke me up telling me that the spider on the wall wasn't the devil. Now, I don't remember thinking this, but after that, the idea was in my head, along with thoughts of the devil and what that was.

I remember the fear and staring at the strange little music box above my cot. I remember crawling under the huge round coffee table, right to the middle, so that no one could find me. At my grandmothers, I remember staying awake as long as I could, or until I heard the next door neighbors come home. I remember thinking, if we need help... One of those boys ( late teens,early twenties) would be able to protect us.

Fear... I am so tired of feeling this particular emotion. I'm so tired and want so much to feel safe, but how? I am seriously considering hypnotherapy. I need to clear my mind... I need to breathe, I need to sleep, I need to trust that good is okay, and that it won't be taken from me. I know this doesn't make sense in this context, but it just came out, so I'll consider it a step in the right direction.

I really hope bad weather doesn't keep the wife away longer than planned. It's supposed to sleet and snow... The rain just started.






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