The Art and Science of Sleep

I often say that my sleep cycle was ruined when I worked full time, went to school, and had a colicky infant that screamed for the first year of his life.

Ah, the good old days.

I've been ruminating on it a lot lately as I once again find myself struggling to sleep. I no longer know how to sleep without medication. I fall asleep at ungodly early hours and I wake up at ungodly early hours.

When I get the inquisition about "how could your child be abused in your home and you not know about it?" Well, when you have my sleep cycle, it's not hard to imagine. Sleep is a rare commodity and when it wants to come, you let it happen. I'm sure all those "good mothers" remain totally hypervigilant and never let their husbands be with their children alone.

I've tried to reprogram my sleep cycle.

I've forced myself to stay awake. When I do this, I can physically feel my body cross over a threshold. After I cross that threshold, I will not sleep for the rest of the night. I've learned that when sleep wants to happen, I need to drop everything and let it happen because it's "now or never".

Sleep was broken for me a long time ago.

One of the major side effects of being sexually abused is sleep disorders. Night time is when the monsters came. Very often, a survivor of sexual abuse will keep their mind racing and busy all the time in order to fight off their demons and this is in direct opposition to the concept of sleep.

To this day, I can't sleep with the closet door open. I remember telling STBX that when the closet door was open, the monsters could get out. It was one of my "funny quirks".

The reality of the situation is that my abuser would sneak into my room and always pause in the doorway of my open closet. Was I asleep? Was I awake? Not that it ever really mattered. I would always pretend to be asleep when in reality, every single muscle was tensed like a cat getting ready to pounce. Getting ready to run.

That single moment of hesitation, everytime, framed by the open closet.

Open closets are where the monsters come from.

The mind, which continually tap dances during the day, spinning two lit sparklers and singing at the top of its lungs, loses its ability to distract when night falls. After my perpetrator died, I would have panic attacks at sundown. I would refuse to sleep in my room and I would lie on the sofa, staring out the big picture window, struggling to breathe, waiting for the first pink streaks of daylight to come.

Ever see how a person is treated when they go to the emergency room with a panic attack? You are treated like an idiot. You are wasting their time. You are seeking drugs. You are FRICKIN' CRAZY.

Not once did any doctor or nurse ask my aunt to leave the room and then turn around to me, perhaps sitting down on a chair so they would be at eye level, and ask "Has someone hurt you?"

Maybe it wouldn't have worked. Maybe it would have. Maybe they should have given it a go to see.

Instead, I had an intern demand of me, in front of my aunt "Just what the hell are you trying to pull here?"

Nothing. I'm just trying to breathe. I'm just trying to imagine my body without this horrifying weight on my chest. I'm just trying to imagine what my skin would feel like if it were clean. I'm just trying to imagine what I smell like, not him. I'm just trying to get out of bed and close the closet door.

It's all about the closet door. Some nights, the monsters still get me.

Gimme Some Sleep

The inner nets can be used for good things too.

And no, I'm not about to hit people up for money so don't click onto Dooce just yet, that woman get's plenty of hits per day...sit with me a spell and engage me with your collective wisdom.

My daughter has been having trouble with insomnia lately. She is also not a fan of taking meds although I believe she's agreed to take a multi-vitamin since she doesn't drink milk and even though it would be a wonderful world if we could all eat enough ice cream to get our calcium, let's get real.

As usual, it's one thing to hear her talk about insomnia. It's another to see how she feels.

This is her...on no sleep. (This was also me about four months ago except I would have never looked that good in a dress).

She's working on taking more calcium but I know there are other ideas out there that might help her sleep. Ideas to relax the mind and the body.

Bueller? Bueller?

Sleep Is For The Weak

Thoughts at 2:30 a.m:

My very presence at any hour of the day or night means only one thing to my dogs: Time for a walk!

The harshness of the bathroom light in the middle of the night could render even the most beautiful person in the world truly frightening. I appear to be the love child of Voldemort and Gollum.

In depth family conversations regarding child rearing, nature vs. nurture, and the fact that everyone in this household has drawn the same conclusion: that in all the years of our affiliation with STBX, none of us felt even a glimmer of ever being loved, can cause insomnia.

I have never walked the dog at 2:30 in the morning. Why is he whining to go out?

This summer has sucked for gardening. We ate the first goodies from the garden for dinner, broccoli seasoned with garlic and red pepper. I have never sat around, nine hours after eating broccoli and thought about how delicious it was. Either it was really good or I am still hungry.

Hmmmm. There is that watermelon in the kitchen...

And pie...

Cue the ACTION MOVIE TRAILER VOICE:

In a world where nothing is easy, where Freudian psychology is discussed at the dinner table, and where the dog will NOT SHUT UP, comes the epic battle for my gastronomic soul between Watermelon and Pie.

Three and a half hours until I need to be at work. Perhaps the operative question should be coffee vs. bed.

Way To Early In The Morning

Back to my old blogging ways. It's 2:42 in the morning and I am standing back on square one. Spiraling, spiraling. No doubt, STBX is cuddled up and smiling to himself, ever so proud of the multiple ways he's fucked over the three people he's made so miserable for years.

Yesterday afternoon was me, pacing around the house, taking a hot bath, going for a very wet run, and then taking a second hot bath. I asked my daughter if it made me crazy for taking two baths in one day and she said it only made me crazy if I continually washed my hands and kept muttering "the stains just won't come off..."

Who knows, that may just happen today.

And just seeing his "fuck you bitch" look yesterday has finally made me realize, after all these months, that he isn't just stupid and fucked up, he is truly enjoying the ability to hurt us as much as possible. Anything that makes him look like a victim falls right into his belief of his life story.

I remember stopping at certain times of our marriage and giving him the "Whhaaa?" look when he would go off on his belief that he was the wing nut of the universe and that "the government" was out to get him because he did something so bold as to place a half cooked comment on some news blog somewhere. Maybe that was just a ruse for comments that he left on kiddie porn blogs somewhere. Who knows.

Of course, his virulent political beliefs were always "my way or the highway", his way of coping with ANYTHING he didn't want to do was to simply sit there and refuse as any two year old would do (amazingly enough, after living with his father for a few months in Oklahoma, the similarities were uncanny), and the 'rules' that he would lay down for the kids were always for them but never for him. "Do as I say, not as I do" was always his child rearing philosophy.

So I am doing everything I shouldn't be doing right now. Losing sleep over this piece of shit, giving him a single ounce of my mental energy, and lovingly remembering how I, at times, would stand behind him as he sat on the computer and look at the spot on the back of his head where the hair was thinning.

That, I used to fantasize, was right where my cast iron skillet would go when I smashed it into his skull.

But I didn't go through with it because, once you've spilled the brains and skull all over the carpet, guess who's going to have to clean all that shit up...

Sleepless in Duluth

Last night involved two whole hours of sleep.

Hey, I must be getting better, two nights ago involved no sleep at all.

Next week's court date falls one hour after my daughter has her first therapist appointment. Nothing like winning mother of the year by dropping your kid off at the therapist and running to the courthouse to see "daddy".

Because I fired my lawyer, all of the paperwork I received yesterday was delayed just enough to make today the day that I need to get everything handed into the new lawyer. Last night was filled with the misery of having to see his loser ass and perhaps being expected to be civil. It was also filled with nightmares of having all my paperwork eaten by the fax machine and my new lawyer getting into a horrible python wrestling accident and being delayed in coming to court because she was dragging a python that was wrapped around her left leg and then there was the car accident on the way to the court house which was caused by the earthquake and tornado. (Hysteria is a dish best served weeping, gnashing, and wrapped in twisted bed covers.)

Spiraling....spiraling....spiraling

Dreaming of Mister President

I'm running two marathons at once here.

One marathon is dealing with the effluvia from my past that has been stirred up by the present. The other is the marathon of the present. The biggest problem is that I'm doing it simultaneously and it appears that my brain won't shut up.

I haven't remembered my dreams in years. I actually used to be a lucid dreamer. I could guide my dreams all night long and be an active participant in them. It was the ultimate computer game. It all ended in the months when my stbx was out to sea and I worked full time and went to school and had a baby and a toddler to look after. Stbx came home from the boats and complained how tired he was. I think that was the first and last time that I had an all out piss fit against him. I used to work on the boats too and if I were to compare eight months of working on the boats to eight months of juggling two kids, a full time job, and school, the boats would be a vacation. But thinking about anyone but himself never entered his consciousness. All I was looking for was a single sentence..."Wow, you must be tired." That's all. A simple acknowledgment that what I did was exhausting.

I believe that is when my brain broke.

I only remember about three dreams since then. Nothing spectacular. Just random dreams throughout the years.

Until now that is. Now I battle demons all night long. I'm kidnapped, tortured, chased down by cars and run over, stalked through the woods, and murdered every which way you can think of. And that was just last night. When I roll over and try to go to sleep, my brain flashes forward to the police report and what was done in the recent past and once again, it all devolves into nightmares and sorrow.

I also don't sleep well. That is another side effect of breaking my brain fourteen years ago. I sleep in fits and starts, waking often, laying awake often, and getting up in the morning even more tired than when I went to bed. Consequently, I take nine or ten hours at night in bed to get five or six hours of sleep. I listen to a lot of books on CD.

Take drugs you say? If I want benedryl to work for me, I have to take at least five. Once you get to that level, you start to be concerned about overdosing. If I'm going to overdose, I don't want it to be by stupid accident, I want a Marilyn Monroe send off with tons of pills, nudity, and the love of a sitting president. (Good thing I'm a fan of Michelle Obama too, that's all I'm sayin').

Any other sleep drug wakes me up. For I live in Bizzaro World.

I think I just need to watch a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer before I go to bed. My demons are many but perhaps, with a couple of cute sidekicks, I can kick some nocturnal ass.

Either that or I need a shiny low cut dress and a breathy voice in which to sing.

When is Barack's birthday anyway?

Talking to Myself

It makes no sense to mourn what you never had.

That whole "inner child" thing? Sometimes your conscious mind just needs to grab that kid by the shoulders and giver her a shake.

Expending the energy on wishing that things had happened differently gets you nowhere.

See? I know these things.

I can spout them off and tell you that yes, I realize these things are true.

But it's two in the morning, and I'm wide awake.

I feel so horribly alone.

I listen to my kids sleeping in the rooms across the hall and my heart breaks with how much I love them, how much our lives have been torn apart, and how much pain one person can bring to a family.

The cats and dogs snuggle closer to me. They don't understand the words. They don't understand the tears. They just know that something is wrong.

Wishing for a better past is useless, I explain to the dogs. They should really stop doing it. Look forward to a better future full of love and positive doggie things.

And bring me along for the ride while you're at it. When it's two in the morning, I need a friend.

PTSD - Not The Way To Be

Attending a group therapy session is an interesting thing. It's easy to read the statistics that say one in four girls will be sexually abused at some point in her life but when you sit in a roomful of women and hear your exact thoughts coming out of their mouth, it takes your breath away.

While what we say in group is bound by confidentiality, I am interested in exploring certain topics that are brought up a little further. One thing that we talked about was post traumatic stress disorder. I've had a couple people tell me that they thought I was going through it and my conversation in the group really led me to see how much it's affecting me.

Although three predominant things that I've been going through are sleeplessness (even though I never sleep well, now I'm lucky to manage four or five hours a night), misplaced rage (thankfully only against inanimate objects, the rotten bastards!), and lack of appetite, probably the hardest thing to cope with is my response to certain stimuli.

When I see a black car like my STBX's, I immediately start shaking. My hands can shake so hard that I have difficulty holding onto the steering wheel. My heart starts to pound as well and I feel nauseated.

By the way, do you realize how many old black cars are out there?

I get the same reaction when someone says my last name. It's not MY last name, it's his. It symbolizes everything that he has done and I despise it.

Another absolutely wonderful thing that happens is that I get this same response when I drive by one of the many branches of the pharmacy where he works as a delivery driver. Or even when their company car passes me on the road. Or when I walked by their company booth at the Women's Expo this weekend. I actually stopped dead in my tracks and started shaking so bad I couldn't move. Not a good thing when you're cheek to jowl with twenty thousand rabid women bent on collecting the most cheap plastic give aways/future landfill.

Of course, the most difficult thing is the awful visions I have after having read the charges mailed to me by the St. Louis County Attorney's Office. I told the police woman that I wasn't up to reading the police report but then I got all the facts from reading the charge sheet.

The thing is, I'm very good at hiding it. Occasionally, I'll hold my hands out in front of me and show a friend how it looks like I'm having a bad case of the DT's, but mostly I'll just disappear into my office or the bathroom or my car and fall apart on my own. I have so many wonderful friends but when it comes to absolutely losing my shit, it's a very singular experience.

I haven't had a literary reference in a long time and this strikes painfully close to home:

"Thus I visited each of my friends in turn, trying with fumbling fingers, to prise open their locked caskets. I went from one to the other holding my sorrow - no, not my sorrow but the incomprehensible nature of this our life - for their inspection. Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends. I to my own heart, I to seek among phrases and fragments something unbroken - I to whom there is not beauty enough in moon or tree; to whom the touch of one person with another is all, yet who cannot grasp even that, who am so imperfect, so weak, so unspeakably lonely."- Virginia Woolf

Today's Forecast-Partly Bitchy With An Increase In Malaise

It's 4 am and I'm checking to see if schools have been canceled yet. When there isn't school, I don't have to go into work. There is nothing like the site of two teenagers and one adult transfixed by the tv screen. It's bigger than the Super Bowl around here. It's the trill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Thus far, it's pretty agonizing.

My daughter and I finally got word that our victim's reparation funds were approved and we get to go to our initial intake for a counselor this morning. Unfortunately, it appears that we must return to school and work after that.

Damn Mother Nature!

I don't know why I'm so disappointed. I'm spending the weekend with friends and a snowy trip to the cities really wouldn't be a good thing.

Still.

Damn Mother Nature!

Both dogs are staring at me right now. The fact that I am up and about means that they, of course, need to go outside. Just because I'm two hours earlier than usual means nothing.

And it's snowy.
And cold.
And I am feeling horribly un-Minnesotan today.

Nice ain't got nothin' on this bitch.

Damn Mother Nature.

As any high school floosie will tell you, if you're gonna do it at all, you might as well go all the way.

Or so I've heard.

And 1 And 2 And 3 And 4

After taking a shower and settling down for the evening last night, I realized there was no settling down for the evening last night.

Since I reached my goal weight, I've been concentrating a lot more on strengthening exercises so I did a hundred sit ups. And then settled down for the evening.

Alas. That lasted for about five minutes. So I did some push ups. And some stretches. And some made up Yoga poses that I think I will name "Downward facing dog which cannot reach weapons of choice in this position". Another pose I have perfected is a little number I will call "Sweet Merciful Christ, did you hear that popping sound?"

Of course, that didn't work either. It took some major time on the glider before my muscles felt like jello and I was able to concede that I was too tired for violence. Once I've worked out until I want to vomit, I feel I am no longer a threat to society.

I kind of think that's how Ghandi got so thin and serene. It might explain his mysterious rant "Pilates my ass!"

When my daughter asked what I was listening while working out and I told her Marilyn Manson, Linkin Park, and MCR, she confirmed that "that is some angry shit." I really need to research whether busting ass on the glider while sobbing uncontrollably makes you burn more calories or just rusts the equipment. It certainly doesn't get anymore appealing than ending your work out covered in sweat, tears, and snot.

So, this morning I'm pretty much tapped out. I started drinking coffee at 3:30 am and hopefully when 6:30 rolls around, I'll be all bright tailed and bushy eyed for work.

I'm guessing by 10 am I'll be asleep on my keyboard and my drool will cause a short circuit.

If anyone comes in to me with their problems today, I will be tempted to discuss, in great detail, how I have developed a damn rug burn on my tailbone from doing too many sit ups. Perhaps I'll even show them.

Perhaps today would be a good day for my divorce lawyer to call and tell me what STBX's major issues are. I'm feeling pretty laid back. Pretty serene. Pretty delusional from exhaustion.

I'll also be able to tell her that due to an overabundance of sit ups, STBX is no longer the only pain in the ass that I'm contending with.

No Violence Was Referred To In The Writing Of This Post

Today will be a much more positive post. Just want to throw that out there for anyone eyeing the computer screen while reaching behind them for something, anything, that can be used in self defense. No, drop the cat, really. Hurling a cat as a weapon has been been banned by the Geneva Convention (which means we've been hurling cats for years now, you just didn't know about it.)

As I said, it's a roller coaster ride. I'm a quarter of the way through and I just realized I needed to fasten my seatbelt.

As I write this, it's 4:30 a.m, the coffee is hot and delicious, and my dogs are at my feet. As a back sliding Buddhist, I had to remind myself of three things yesterday. 1. Breathe. 2. Live in the present. 3. Karma is all the revenge one needs.

If all of this crap had happened even a few short years ago, I would not have had the intelligence to reach out to people and admit that I need help. I used to think that doing everything on my own and holding up the world on my back was a sign of strength and independance. Thankfully I now know that it is a sign of raving stupidity. There are things in this world that are too big to fit inside one skull, too heavy to bear on one back. For all the garbage that has gone on since December 19th, I stand back in amazement at the wonderful circle of friends I have. When I speak of karma, this is what I think of.

This week is filled with more appointments, legal paperwork, and hopefully successful policework. Also, I decided I needed a little inspirational desk art at work...I've always held a reverence for Kuan Yin but at a time when I feel the importance of protecting my kids so acutely, I think I need her by my side.