The elusive goal…

No, I am not chasing stars, trying to catch a rainbow or score for a famous football team. The goal that eludes me, is I’m afraid to say something far more mundane and basic. Something that most people take for granted, that they wouldn’t give a second thought to, that comes so naturally to every living thing in the animal kingdom. Yes, I am talking once again about sleep.

How I yearn to go to bed and close my eyes, to wake up and find it is a new day. To greet each morning feeling renewed and refreshed, with joy and enthusiasm. Instead I spend night alternately tossing or turning in a fruitless quest to sleep, or wandering around the house hoping that I may just reach a new level of exhaustion that will send me off into the unknown for at least a few hours.

Other people I know look forward to their days, they make plans for the weekend and nights out, I concentrate on merely getting through each day. I have to set reminders on my phone so I remember to go places, collect children or take them to their activities. I even have one to remind me to do the shopping. I am so tired that I will pick up the phone and forget who I was about to ring, I lose my train of thought half way through a sentence and often will have no idea what I even began to talk about. I ask questions then immediately forget the answers.

At the moment, just putting one foot in front of the other takes a tremendous effort, the kids keep asking why I have walked or come on the bus to collect them, why can’t we use the car. We can’t use the car because I don’t feel safe driving it, even locally around routes I know well. I am afraid that I may drop off at the wheel, or lose concentration, and subsequently control of the car. My reflexes are not what they should be, and behind the wheel of a lethal machine is the last place I want to put them to the test. Besides which, how could I ever live with myself if something happened to one of the children while I was driving, so we walk or use the bus.

I get through each day, doing the minimum of housework, cooking etc., only the very essential things get done. My whole being craves sleep, my mind is befuddled and confused but will not settle. I have tried everything, yoga, aromatherapy massages, no caffeine, no chocolate, vitamins, herbal remedies, hypnosis CDs, binaural beats. Every remedy I can lay my hands on, but so far nothing has worked. I have had one night’s sleep in the last month and that actually left me feeling worse. My GP refuses to prescribe anything that may give me a night’s sleep, too addictive apparently. It is “probably just a phase, a time in my life”, something I need to learn to accept as I get older and my body changes. I wonder how many doctors would accept night after night of lying awake wondering when sleep will come?

I need a reason, a cure not excuses. So that is my goal for now, I am giving up on trying to sleep and going to focus on finding out why it so eludes me, if it is just that time of life then surely there must be something that be done about it. I see no reason why in this age of knowledge and technology I should have to suffer so.

 

The black dog…

It waits, teeth bared, ears flattened, crouched before me,

a great black dog strongly muscled ready to pounce,

I stand my ground, terrified of being once again in its grip

but with insomnia and the never-ending critical voice

in cohort I had no choice. I was not strong enough

to withstand the force, the anger, the betrayal,

that grabbed me by the throat forced me down,

snarling, clawing, biting, ripping out my very core.

It is stronger than I and holds me down. Down

in a deep dark well of despair, a bottomless pit,

of pity and sorrow, rage and blame, feelings

with no name. No colour, no light, no joy.

Ferocious and brutal it tries to claim my soul,

to overwhelm me with darkness and make me

wish I was no more. I find a weak spot, a chink,

in its armour, the light of love, it does not see

this black dog, that love holds the key

as long as I love and someone loves me then

I have always the power to break free.

© Searching for the Light            23/02/2012

 

Husband training

So, I am given to understand this is the nub of all my problems… husband training. I have apparently not trained him efficiently or effectively which is why he is prone to living his life the way he wants with little regard for the wishes of others. It explains why he feels free to dump his post in the middle of the dining table, his shoes where ever he happens to take them off, his dirty laundry in a pile on the bedroom floor, cups and plates in various places.

I falsely assumed when I married him that I was entering into a mutually respectful relationship, that we would look after one another, and also that he was a decent human being who had been house trained before being let loose on the world. For the first few years, I will admit he kept up his end of the bargain, tidying up, sharing the washing up and hoovering and even on the odd occasion cooking; well taking something out of the freezer and putting in the microwave, but hey, who’s complaining, it was at least edible. So it would appear that his mother had done her job and trained him in the rudiments of house sharing.

Alas it was not to last, the advent of children meant an increase in the workload, especially in the tidying stakes  and just when I needed his assistance more than ever he returns himself to a helpless childlike state, assuming that I will tidy up after him. The children now being old enough to take on even the most onerous of household tasks are being assiduously trained, they cook, clean, hoover and know where to put dirty clothes if they want to have them washed. They moan of course, claim that if I make them do the washing up again they will ring Childline and claim that I am abusing them, I merely tell them that the person on the other end of the phone would probably agree with me that it is important that they know how to look after themselves for when they join the big bad world out there and that they won’t get much sympathy.

They argue of course, and point out that Daddy doesn’t do it so why should they? Now I must admit I am at a loss here, of course their father should do his share, but somewhere along the line I seem to have let the side down. Exhausted from looking after three children and tidying up etc. after them when it came to him I just didn’t have the energy to ask, or in his view nag, so I let it be. Over time of course the problem has escalated, because men it would appear are just like children and dogs, they need to be reminded constantly and rewarded for the correct behaviour. Nagging about the things you don’t want is still seen as attention, so the habit continues.  I am not sure how well star charts,which proved their weight in gold with the children, will work with the husband, I may I feel have more luck with chocolate drops…

 

Night train

Night train,

crashing through my brain,

never stops,

round the clock,

always on the move.

Inconsequential passengers

fight for space,

worries and fears

compete for seats,

Each breath seems

to shout out

all aboard, all aboard,

come keep me awake,

the night and dark,

welcoming new thoughts.

Images flit and flee,

never staying within grasp,

encouraging a chase,

to understand, to see

what they might mean.

Only the dawning sun,

and beeping alarm,

see them on their way,

these night-time passengers

here, it seems, in the dark to stay.

 

 

© Searching for the Light

 

The antidote

Yesterday’s post was about sleep and the joys of it, well today I well and truly discovered the antidote to that powerful uplifting drug – a sleepless night. What makes it worse than ever is that once you have the sleep drug in your system and you are used to feeling good and being able to do more, waking up crabby and bleary eyed to face the world after snatching merely an hour’s pre-dawn shut-eye is devastating.

To sleep poorly night after night is one thing, you get used to foggy days, a clouded brain, not being able to put one foot in front of the other, forgetting things or simply being too tired to care. Having experienced a day of joyous freedom from the exhaustion that plagues me, today, I was plunged back into that world of half being. A day when I needed to be alert and appear intelligent. Addressing a room full of strangers, explaining a new idea and arguing my case was extremely hard when I all wanted to do was curl up on the floor and sleep. I am not sure how coherent I was or whether I did myself justice, but everyone seemed happy, nodding and making acquiescent noises and no one asked any awkward questions. If only that little session had been yesterday I would have blinded them with my brilliance!

Now my poor befuddled and addled brain is refusing to release the words I need and my weary body is crying out for slumber, so once again I will climb between the sheets and hope that I will get a fix, a small one will do I am not greedy. So I bid all of you read this adieu and wish you, as we say in Irish, codhladh samh.

 

The best drug in the world…

I woke this morning to the insistent beeping of my alarm clock. In the midst of a wonderful dream I tried to ignore the intrusive noise, snuggling further down under the duvet not quite realising what the noise was, somehow it was incorporated into my dream world and I tried desperately to pay no heed to it. After a few moments though I could bide it no longer and waking slightly it dawned on me that it was actually the alarm clock, I leant over to hit the snooze button to find that it had stopped all by itself, this is a neat little trick it has when it is not switched off after ten minutes. Bleary eyed, I looked at the clock to see that it was indeed ten minutes past my normal getting up time, and much as I wished to stay in bed I needed to get up then and there or everyone else in the house would be late.

This was a highly unusual event for me as in the last few weeks I have found it easy to fall asleep but wake after a couple of hours and find it difficult to drift off again. I have no idea why this should be, there is nothing in particular worrying me and life for the most part is good at the moment. However last night I retired at my normal time, read a few pages of my book and fell asleep and heard nothing until my alarm this morning. Pure bliss!

For those who have no problems sleeping a good night’s sleep probably means little but to an insomniac used to seeing the world through a fug of sleep deprivation it is a high like no other. Today I felt as if I was walking on air, was chirpy and happy and unfazed by large queues while out shopping. I was able to get through a whole more today than on a day when I have had little sleep. Sleep is in my view the best drug in the world… and I want more of it.

 

 

That elusive goal…

Yet another sleepless night, I sit here exhausted, barely able to think let alone type. Sometimes, I return to bed once the rest of the household have left for school or work and slumber contentedly for a couple of hours, but  this morning even that simple pleasure was denied me by a brain too fried to think straight yet I can not quieten it. I do not understand, there is nothing going on in my life at the moment that is causing me to worry, in fact for the most part things are good.

I fall asleep easily but wake an hour or two later with my thoughts going around in perpetual circles, inconsequential thoughts, but no matter what I do to try to stem the flow they just keep getting through. When I do eventually fall back asleep at some point in the early hours I am assailed with dreams or images or frantic journeys, either the failure to get organised or a mishap somewhere on the journey. These dreams for some odd reason always involve buses and frequently groups of people who would never in real life be in the same room let alone embarking on the same journey.

Neither yoga nor meditation are doing the trick at moment, there was a time when just mentioning the word meditation would have me fast asleep in seconds, but now I can not still my brain, I cannot block out the thoughts. This frightens me, as this was where it all started before, depression following a long bout of insomnia, granted there were other contributing factors, the collapse of my live’s dream being the main one.

I have seen my doctor and following a battery or quizzes and testing of approximately a litre of blood (o.k. not quite, but it felt like it at the time!), there is nothing particularly wrong with me and she reckons it is just that time of life. There is little the medical profession are willing to do for insomnia, they no longer hand out sleeping tablets like smarties as apparently it costs the powers that be far too much to wean the recipients off them again. So I am stuck with herbal remedies that do not work.

I do the tricks of no technology before bedtime, well most nights, no caffeine after lunch, I don’t generally drink alcohol, I have a regular routine, bed at the same time each night, up at the same time every morning. Apart from my early morning snoozes without which I would not get through the day, my sleep hygiene, as the experts call it, is good. So why does sleep, something that most of the universe takes for granted, elude me?

 

Fighting for independence

Why it is that I never sleep at the weekend I cannot fathom but following a hectic week and two sleepless nights    I am shattered. I seem once again to have spent the weekend cooking and sorting out squabbles amongst the children but spending little quality time with them as I am so frazzled I can barely think. I look forward to Mondays when they return to school and I can get to my first yoga session of the week. I know it should not be like this, that my children are young for so short a time and that I should be enjoying the precious time I have with them now, that I may regret in the future the things we didn’t do, games not played, outings we missed but being on my own with them for most of the weekend while my supposed other half pursues his own hobbies is incredibly difficult.

The older two are at an age when they want their independence, to hang out with their friends or chill and watch TV or DVDs, the younger one who annoys them intensely, in part because she has not yet joined their teenage world and because of her illness which has demanded so much extra attention this week. She too is fighting for her independence, to be allowed to travel to school and clubs by herself, which I have allowed to some extent, but then asthma strikes again and I find myself hauling on the reins, holding on tightly, afraid to let her out my sight for fear something should happen while she is away from me and other adults who know how to deal with an attack. And so with each of them fighting to prove their entitlements the squabbles start.

And I am torn in two, between wanting to hold them close, keeping them as children and wanting to just let them go and get on with their own lives because I am too tired to deal with them. On good days when I have had a reasonable amount of sleep we have fun, a laugh, a giggle, engaging in silly dances or making up rude words to well-known songs, helping with homework or talking through problems they may have.

But then the demon insomnia strikes and I am holding the black dog at bay and merely getting through the day is an uphill battle. I want to lock myself away and do nothing but know that I cannot, for no matter how independent they may seem they still need their mother. So with the tiredness and accompanying guilt I strive to do my best, to smile for them, to show them that I am here no matter what.

One day in the not too distant future they will have made it out into the world to stand on their own two feet and all I can do is hope and pray that I am doing a good enough job; that when they eventually find their independence I can look back and see that it has all been fine, that I have not damaged or hurt them but helped them on their way.

 

Gratitude…

I sit here exhausted having spent the best part of the day in A&E with my youngest daughter. Yet another acute asthma attack out of the blue, and more steroids pumped into her system followed by four hourly inhalers for the next few days. I thought we had kicked this into touch as she was free from attacks for almost a year and then bam! two huge ones a few months apart. They say it may be the onset of puberty that has exacerbated it, all we can do now is wait and hope that we once more get back on an even keel.

It is frightening to sit and watch your child struggle for breath and know that there is little you can do to help. It puts all the negative thoughts and insomnia bred exhaustion in to perspective. I realise how grateful I am to have these little people to share my life. They can be intensely irritating and emotionally demanding at times, but they wear their hearts on their sleeves. They have not yet learned to tell the little white lies that makes the adult world so confusing, their honesty is refreshing. Their love and joy radiates from them touching all around them.

I am too tired to think, to write so today I will end this in gratitude, for my children, for the love they bring, for the joy they exude, even smiling through the tough times. For their courage, and mostly just for being themselves.

 

Crashing down to earth.

Sleepless night follows sleepless night. My days are filled with tortuous thoughts and darkness.

I once lived on the moon, high above the clouds looking down on the brightly shining stars, watching, waiting, believing, hoping. One day I too would shine, my being briefly lighting up the world. I would be noticed, talked about, I would have something worth sharing. My purpose would become apparent, and fulfilled I would continue on my journey, leaving in my wake a memory bright and bold. How I lived and what I did would be held up as an example for others. They would say how hard I worked, how I used my talents and gifts to fulfil my potential, how I was loved and how I loved life and all its precious moments.

Instead I come, not as a comet a streaking light across the sky but in ship as black an the unlit night, careering out of control, crashing down to earth.

Stumbling, weak limbed and exhausted I fall to my knees. Scrabbling in the dirt, I look around to see only the darkness, I am alone in the wilderness. There is no light to guide me. No stars visible in the cloud covered sky, no moon to cast shadows or reflect the suns rays. No reminders of brighter, happier days.

I feel I am destined, now to stay in this pit of crumbling clay, to pass my days as a shadow of who I am meant to be. To forever be afraid of the light, hiding behind a cloak of fear, seeking solace in the pain the darkness, the despair.

And yet, every part of my being screams at me to get up, to move, to conquer the darkness, the fear. Still I hold on for the fear is too great,  fear of what is and what is not, fear of what I am and what I may become.

For there is comfort too in the fear, I can stay here with what I know, safe in the knowledge that nothing will change.

Deep down in my soul I know that I want change, that I cannot continue to live a life that is only half lived, and I pray that some day soon I will find the courage I need to face the fear, to put it behind me and embrace life fully, to grab with both hands all the opportunities, the knowledge, the love that is mine to have.