I’m Tired. Get it? Tire-d.

Can you spot the corny joke? I can! haha.

How does one go from feeling like they have their shit completely together to feeling like the wheels are falling off? I’ll tell you how, a lack of sleep. For the past week or so, I have been feeling amazing. Partly due to writing and a few other variables in my life. However, every night that I can’t fall asleep or when I get woken up multiple times, every last fear about life that resides in my soul takes center stage. It is the most unnerving, unwelcome, self-imposed feeling in the world.

It’s no great secret to those closest to me that I deal with anxiety and have dealt with bouts of depression throughout my life. Hell if you’ve read my blog I’m sure you could have guessed that. My point is, for my own mental stability I need my sleep! Yet there are times, like tonight, when either my body doesn’t allow it or living with other people won’t allow for it. My poor husband tries his best to be quiet if I have fallen asleep before him but every single one of his gentle moves wakes me up. It’s as if he was standing next to me with an air horn. I know I’m bitching but I get so pissed off at everyone and everything when I have to deal with my sleep deprived self.

I’m no doctor and I’m not self dianosing but I would imagine there has to be some element of PTSD in it for me.  I feel this way because while I was growing up when my mother and father would finally pass out from bingeing I would sleep ever so lightly. I had to be on alert because they used to incoherently walk around the house and fall or bump into things. Even worse, while the binge was taking place, they would be up ALL hours of the night quietly moving around. My father always felt that doing handy man jobs at 3 am while on coke was an awesome idea! Not so much! Try saving that for after I go to school or something. Add to it the fact that there were people coming in and out of my house at times. I was always on high alert out of protection for myself, my home and my screwy parents. I never remember sleeping soundly. I would get so pissed off at them! At the time I thought they were pathetic and wished they would shut up so I could sleep for work or school the next day. Actually I still think that…

Enter babies that cry, a child that occasionally wakes up with a sick belly at 2 am, or your average ant crawling on the screen outside and you’ve got a wide awake mad woman on your hands. I feel the same level of anger I used to feel when I’d wake up as a teenager. Its uncontrollable. I get an adrenaline stress response that pulses through my heart and brain that leaves me breathless and angry. Sadly, nobody truly understands it and I don’t know how to fix it. Short of wearing ear plugs every night. That’s not realistic though because I’m a mother. Believe me I’ve tried music, ear plugs, meditation before bed, pretty much everything.

The best I can do is warn my husband again and remember that there are no crackheads floating around my house trying to fix the washer or install flood lights in the back yard at 3 am. It’s just the wonderful husband I have and beautiful family I’ve created. Now if I could just get my fight or flight response to recognize that, I think I’d be in good shape. Maybe I have to look into hypnotism??

Off to attempt sleep again. Night all! 😀