Insomnia & Trauma

My Life As A Vampire

I am in the process of leaving behind my life as a vampire. Staying up all night, snoozing during the day. It’s hard becoming human. I’ve lived as a vampire so long, I hardly noticed it. But now, as I seek healing, I’m seeing just how difficult it is to change. For decades, I stayed up nearly all night until exhaustion forced me to pass out the next day. My brain interpreted the setting of the sun as a cue to churn. Sometimes I could last as long as 4AM. Other times I’d finally pass out around 2. Waking multiple times in the night, nightmares, panic attacks all added to the fun. During the day, if I got quiet at all or sat down to read or watch TV, I fell asleep. I lived in a permanent haze of jet lag. 

When I look back, the more trauma reared its ugly head, the worse these symptoms grew. That makes sense. The two things required for sleep, relaxation and letting go of control, are two things trauma survivors do not do. As trauma pushes to the surface demanding to be processed, sleep becomes an adversary. 

“You have to deal with this trauma!” my brain yells.

“Don’t deal with this!” I yell back. “It’s too dangerous!”

I began to dread going to bed. I knew what waited for me. Lying awake hour after hour, sifting through thoughts about the past, churning over regret, being afraid, grieving.  My body would hurt. I could not get comfortable. My head ached. Sometimes I would pace the floor or go outside and listen to the night. Nothing could calm my spirit. When you are sleep deprived AND exhausted you can’t coherently cope with anything. 

Just as the brain was in overdrive looking for threat when we were children, the same pattern is responsible, at least in large part, for insomnia. It is maddening. My brain won’t listen to me. 

“Brain,” I say. “It’s time to go to sleep. You know you need sleep. You know how bad you’ll feel tomorrow if you don’t sleep. You are not in trouble. You are safe. It’s okay to relax.”

But my brain is not only unreasonable, it is devoted to ferreting out threat. And on top of that, it has been trained to do it—by the past and in the case of insomnia, by me in the present! I am caught in the repetitive catch 22 scenario of trauma. Just like dissociation, just like flashbacks, just like perceived threat, what my brain does to try and help keeps me ensnared. 

The desert is a strange place. We moved here four years ago for a new start. It is as different from the lush greenery of Virginia as the earth is from Mars. Wide, arid plains surrounded by craggy mountains jut straight to the sky. With names like, White Tank, Sierra Estrella and my very favorite, The Superstition Mountains, I know I am in a place like no other. Approaching insomnia feels like I’m standing at the bottom of the Superstition mountains. Trauma symptoms caused by the long-distant past seem to rise from nowhere. It is complicated. Just like complicated grief and complicated PTSD, I would call trauma survivor’s sleep issues complicated insomnia.

I have superstitions surrounding insomnia. I am powerless to change it. I feel hopeless about it. I can’t turn my brain off. I can’t cope with it. I hate it. I am angry at it. A superstition is a widely held but unjustified belief. In researching this article, I found that nearly everyone who struggles with insomnia whether trauma survivors or not, hold in common certain beliefs about sleep. 

Common Beliefs About Insomnia

1.Worry over sleep loss

-My brain is broken. There is something wrong with me.

-What am I going to do if I can’t sleep?

-I’m going to die from this

2.Rumination over consequences

-I’m going to have to cancel everything tomorrow

-I won’t be able to go on that trip. My insomnia makes it impossible.

3.Unrealistic expectations

-I have to have eight hours of uninterrupted sleep

-I’m going to stay in this bed until I go to sleep. I don’t care if I stay awake all night.

-I’m going to force myself to fall asleep.

In addition, trauma survivors hold these beliefs or thoughts when approaching sleep.

1.Worry

-As soon as I lay down, my brain is going to bring up the past, over and over and over.

-Rumination and worry over something I said or did during the previous day

-Worry over a to do list.

2.Fear

-What if everything my abuser said is true? Worse, what if they come after me?

-I’m going to get in trouble

3.Anxiety

-Something terrible is going to happen to me. 

4.Flight

-I’m trapped.

5.Fight

-I’ve got to do something about sleep but it’s hopeless!

How can these feelings and thoughts about insomnia be considered superstitions? Superstitions are unjustified. And I feel justified about every one of the above. Insomnia controls me. It ruins my life. It tortures me making flashbacks, dissociation, grief and everything else associated with trauma that much worse. If only I could only SLEEEEEP!!! I could cope. But I can’t sleeeep!!!!Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

And so, the circular motion of insomnia continues and like a hamster, I keep running around my round wire track going nowhere, accomplishing nothing. If I want to defy trauma, I’m going to have to step off this hateful little track and do something different. And that is just what we are going to do. Stay tuned. Defy trauma, embrace joy.

Call to action: Do you suffer with insomnia? What thoughts run through your head when you lay down to sleep? Send them to me at hello@defytraumaembracejoy.com