Learning to sleep again

This summer I’ve enjoyed traveling for work, play, and family gatherings. A few weeks ago, Annabelle and I vacationed in the beautiful state of Washington for a family reunion where the days included hiking in the mountains and the nights were spent lingering over long conversations and good meals. It bodes well for me that most of my family appreciates a good meal.

Something has surprised me this summer during my travels. I’ve slept really well, and that might not sound remarkable to most of you, but for me, it is quite the accomplishment.

You see, for nineteen years I slept with a baby monitor beside my bed as I monitored my disabled son Lucas through the nights, but it wasn’t only the monitor that kept me hyper vigilant through the years. For many of those years I was also raising four young children and for three years my husband battled brain cancer. Brain cancer is a unique disease as it slowly steals pieces of the person you love and can make a normally rational father nearly burn down the house at 2 a.m. while making pancakes for his family.

I don’t recall sleep being a challenging endeavor as a child, a teenager, or a young adult. I remember my mom forcing me to get up some mornings as the clock inched toward noon, and I remember falling asleep on a couch while babysitting for a young couple who stayed out past midnight. I also remember staying out well past midnight during my college years as I danced the night away and then made up for the sleep deprivation the next day, but after I married my first husband, my relationship with sleep began to change.

For the past two decades I have lived in some sort of survival mode and somewhere along the way, I learned to manage my exhaustion by micromanaging every possible variable around sleep, which often resulted in restless, sleepless nights. I always traveled with a special pillow, blanket, and eye mask, and over the years I tried every sleep aid imaginable: unisom, tea, magnesium, lavender oil, melatonin, valerian, gaba, passion flower, l-theanine, detox pads, sound machines, you name it, I did it, and sometimes all in the same night, and yet, sleep was never guaranteed.

I often awoke to Lucas screaming, stimming, or headbanging or other mornings began bright and early with changing a dirty brief or throwing urine soaked sheets in the washing machine. Sleep wasn’t a luxury, it was a necessity in my overly chaotic existence, and I guarded it obsessively because I knew I would eventually break without it. I said no to late night (or even 8 pm) fun, I left events early, I always had an exit strategy, and I earned a reputation as “boring.” My nervous system lived in a constant state of hypervigilance, always scanning for threats, even as I slept. My cortisol was through the roof, and my mornings were fueled by multiple cups of jet black coffee. I operated this way somewhat successfully (isn’t that all we can hope for when we’re in survival mode?) until two years ago when my life drastically changed, and Lucas moved into a group home. The next day I hit burnout, and I didn’t move much for the next three months.

Over the last two years, I’ve learned something that hasn’t come naturally to me for quite a few years now. I learned how to rest, and in learning how to rest, I learned how to sleep again. I’ve spent time in therapy and practiced somatic work and yoga nidra. I’ve taken many naps, almost daily, without guilt. I’ve intentionally cared for my nervous system instead of demanding more from it, and something has shifted. Slowly but surely I learned to sleep peacefully again. I can now travel without hauling my special pillow and blanket across the country (I still pack the eye mask), and most nights, all I need is a dim light and a good book, and I’m down for the count. For many years, I believed rest was something I had to earn, but what I’m learning instead is that rest is a gift, and when I finally feel safe enough to exhale, I feel safe enough to sleep.

Just keep livin