Most nights, when I lie down on my comfortable bed, I’m so tired I feel like I could fall to sleep immediately. Most nights, though, it doesn’t happen. As soon as my head hits the pillow, and I get still and comfortable, my demons come out and haunt me until dawn. I toss and turn. I pick up my phone and read news articles until my eyes feel like they will fuse shut. But, I still feel like the memories from my childhood, teens, and young adulthood are zombies, chasing me until they eat me alive. I feel like I am one of the walking dead.
I know these memories can’t really hurt me. The traumas are long over, with only the scars left to remind me, night after night, that sometimes life isn’t so kind. I know I have PTSD. Therapy, counseling, whatever it is called, three times, for various reasons at different phases of my life, has helped. I wonder sometimes how I have made it to my senior years, appearing “sane” to the outside world.
If I could tell you about the things that run through my head on these nights, I don’t think you would believe me. I’m still not ready to talk about specifics, even after 60+ years for some of these demons. I want to. I want to write them all down, and flush them away into the blackness of the internet. I want to sleep. To rest. To finally get some peace in my life.
I don’t know how to make this stop. It seems that the older I get, the worse it becomes. I take all my meds at night, with the thought that they will make me sleep. I take Cymbalta for depression. It helps. Gabapentin and hydrocodone help with the pain of diabetic neuropathy, so that is no longer a factor keeping me awake. Maybe a talk with my doctor on my next visit, to find out if that is a mistake.
Tonight was another restless, sleepless night. The zombies won, again. Maybe soon, it’ll be my turn.
Sadie Slays says
Have you ever tried “writing it all down”? Not saying you need to post it on the internet, but journaling can be very therapeutic. Get a cheap paper notebook and let it all out on the paper when you can’t sleep. If you don’t like what you wrote, rip the paper out and throw it away. At least for me, writing down my thoughts is an effective of way of shutting my head up for a little awhile.
Best wishes on your journey.