Author: rootsbooks

Strategies for Wading through the Hard Times

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I wouldn’t say I conquered the sleep avoidance last night, but I did get myself to bed 1.5 hours earlier than the night before.  That’s progress!

Tools and strategies available for working through something feared or avoided don’t solve everything. (I wish!)  My motivation for continuing to try these methods is that often they can mitigate some of the difficulty, even if they don’t solve things.  My support team (friends, therapist, doctors, etc.) are great encouragers/reminders, too.  When I am in certain states, I am unable to follow plans and utilize tools consistently, so practicing those skills when I can is really important.  I’ve learned various things over the years, and here’s a list:

  • Engage the senses in a positive way as a distraction — take a shower, drink something pleasantly hot or cold, hug a hot water bottle, snuggle a pet, take a brisk walk.
  • Use opposite action — watch a funny movie, sing and dance to music, read a funny book or article, do something you usually associate with joy.
  • Distract — call a friend and ask them to just talk for a while, go for a walk/bike ride/run, watch something outside and notice every detail (bird, trees in the breeze, etc.), start cleaning something, tackle a yard project.
  • Do something that requires physical focus and exertion — bike, run, walk, swim, clean something, tackle a simple project, chop wood, dig a hole.
  • Get out of the house/current location and do something different.  Even going to the store, buying something small, and talking to the cashier just a bit can help break a mood or mental state.
  • Use medication when and as prescribed.  (I struggle with resistance to this, and sometimes when I follow directions, it makes a big difference.)

When I am battling bedtime, my most successful combination is distraction and medication.  I don’t like taking medication that I know will make me sleep, so I call a friend or put on loud music or something else distracting while I take the correct pills.  I do it quickly, before my resistance wins out.

Practicing these methods whenever I can makes it easier to utilize them in hard times.  Nighttime is always a practice opportunity for me!

Sleep

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I took a quiet day today.  I battle seeing these as lazy days — they’re not.  Managing my overworked nervous system and depression sometimes requires time spent doing very little, to let things reset a bit.  Sleep is an issue exacerbating everything else right now, so I got up, had breakfast, and took a nap.  Other accomplishments for the day:  very little talking, no outside interactions, no driving, making the choice to skip an activity because the rest/ quiet was a larger need, taking a shower.  (Showers don’t seem like a big thing, but sometimes they feel much more like mountains than they are.)

Sleep phobia was a new diagnosis for me a few years ago.  I didn’t even know there could be such a thing.  Various doctors and therapists over the years had counselled me about the value of sleep, about sleep hygiene, about various teas and herbs and meds, and nothing worked/made sense. Everyone understood it was likely due to trauma.  None of them understood that the main problem wasn’t that I couldn’t sleep, it was that I DREADED going to bed/sleep. I didn’t want to do any of those things because I didn’t want to do anything that would make me go to bed.  I tried to explain this to numerous professionals to no avail, but with my newest therapist, SHE GOT IT.  This was huge for me!

I’d spent years staying up until I was falling asleep where I stood/sat, then heading to bed when I was super groggy, making the task a bit easier.  I was working, and am still not sure how I was able to function on so little rest.  Whatever reserve I had, it is gone now.  So, it’s a phobia.  Like other phobias, it is sometimes worse than other times.  A common fear/phobia is encountering spiders.  Facing bed/sleep is as bad for me as willingly sitting in a mass of spiders would be for someone with arachnophobia.  Bed/sleep is a bit easier to deal with now that I have more understanding of what happens for me at bedtime (understanding and education are so powerful).  There are some methods and tools I can employ that can help with getting myself to bed.

Along with fighting bed, I don’t always sleep well.  Meds help this some, and I have an upcoming appointment with a sleep specialist.  I’ve been tested for sleep apnea before, but it was a while ago.  I’m hoping there’s something else that might help improve the sleep I do get.

So, I have the evening.  There are dishes and tidying that shouldn’t take long, and will help me feel better about life/work in the morning.  That’s the priority.  That and planning out bedtime so I can aim to be more successful tonight.

Winter Rain

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Blogs are often somewhat narcissistic and self-aggrandizing.  However, I’ve decided to attempt one in the hopes of giving myself some daily writing practice as well as sharing with others how it is to live with particular challenges.  The quality of the writing might vary greatly depending on the day; expect this.  I will.

My mix of joy, laughter, trauma after-effects, brain weirdness/mental illness, curiousity, and desire to pursue love in existing and future forms will all color my contributions here.

Tonight, the heater fan is loud, the greenhouse fan is loud, the dog’s toenails are loud, and the air humming with electricity is loud.  The light fixtures are loud.  These are the days/nights I wish to shut off the power.  I want everything to be silent.  I want my house, my block, and the traffic to cease all noise.  Dogs snoring and dreaming?  Yes.  Silent candlelight?  Yes.  Reading in the calm?  Yes.  My senses amp up when my brain is more off-kilter, as it is tonight.  Perhaps everything seems louder partially because my brain is so fussy that it seems to make its own chaotic static.  I’m the girl who wants city-wide power outages accompanied by snow and ice (to deter folks from driving) for my birthday present.

Why don’t I move from town to a quiet place somewhere?  Because alongside my need for quiet and calm are my sometimes-denied needs for human contact,the ability to help out, and prevention of isolation.  Also, regular medical care/visits, my desire to live more lightly on the earth, the hope to reduce costs and pay down debt are all better served living in town.  Harumph.  😉  I will find the quiet within myself, eventually.  The power to live in noise while firmly carrying quiet always, that’s the hope.

Oregon Winter

by Jeanne McGahey

The rains begin. This is no summer rain,
Dropping the blotches of wet on the dusty road:
This rain is slow, without thunder or hurry:
There is plenty of time–there will be months of rain,
Lost in the hills, the old gray farmhouses
Hump their backs against it, and smoke from their chimneys
Struggles through weighted air. The sky is sodden with water,
It sags against the hills, and the wild geese,
Wedge-flying, brush the heaviest cloud with their wings.
The farmers move unhurried. The wood is in,
The hay has long been in, the barn lofts piled
Up to the high windows, dripping yellow straws.
There will be plenty of time now, time that will smell of fires,
And drying leather, and catalogues, and apple cores.
The farmers clean their boots, and whittle, and drowse.