This past December, I decided to tackle my insomnia with a fresh approach.
Sleepless nights have plagued me, off and on, at least since I was pregnant with my youngest. In the months following her birth (in 2014)—thanks in no small part to a sexual harassment situation at work that nearly shattered my mind—my battle with insomnia escalated to the point that, at its worst, led to me emerging from the bed on several mornings to meet my responsibilities (i.e., pumping/nursing, getting little ones ready, going to work etc.) and otherwise ‘starting’ my day after I had already been awake for 24 hours.
Mercifully, with time and changes in circumstances, my sleeplessness had waned (and waxed) since then.
But, as this most recent holiday season got underway, I found myself again unable to sleep.
Sleep Baby, Sleep
The thing about insomnia is this:
Sleep may elude you,
but still you are condemned to chase it.
Sleep is the dashing suitor that once whispered sweet nothings to you each night, making you believe he would never leave; the debonair prince that charmed you into bed night after night, filled your head with nonsense and dreams, and—the two of you intertwined—danced with you beneath the stars until dawn broke.
But now he has moved on.
And, you are lovesick. Desperate . . . Returning each night to the scene of the crime—the bed you once shared; haunted by the memories of what you lost; surrounded in your loneliest hours by only the peaceful sounds of those whose company he still keeps.
Yes, sleep may be done with you, but you still need sleep.
So night after night, you keep your solitary vigil. And, morning after morning, there you remain: tragically and perpetually sleepy.
This was the space in which I lived.
Too often, I found myself the ethereal occupant of the dusky limbo between too groggy to think, but too alert to sleep. A few comatose hours every third night was not working. I needed a real solution. So I put my thinking eyes on, and peered for hours into my phone’s browser.
In obsessively researching the issue, I came across several studies that found Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (“CBT”) to be effective for treating insomnia in sufferers of Post-Traumatic Syndrome (“PTSD”)—in fact, possibly even better long-term than drugs.
Now, to be clear, at the time I was not thinking of myself as a PTSD sufferer. In fact, up until that point, the only time I had ever placed myself into that category was in retrospect. In other words, when looking back, I tended to agree that I had exhibited all the symptoms at an earlier point in my history—for instance, in the months right after I was assaulted. But, interestingly, there was never a point at which I viewed myself as such in real time.
As I scoured every source for insight into my sleep issues what I did know, however, is that something was going on with me; something . . . what’s the word . . . abnormal. It was evident to me at this point was that my issues did not represent a benign, occasional sleeplessness. On the occasions when my insomnia flared, what I encountered was a striking and (seemingly) physiological incapacity to enter the state of unconsciousness necessary for sleep. I could not turn off my awareness, and therefore could not enter the land of bliss; the state of sleep.
Now, I’m not crazy (legally) so of course I had tried everything.
Ambien worked. For a while. Then, they magically were transformed into sugar pills.
Over the counter sleep-aids “worked” for me in the sense that I could feel when they took effect. They made me feel drugged. So I knew they were working, so to speak. But they didn’t help me cross the bridge; I could not slip away. Though unable to focus clearly, I still found myself with both feet firmly entrenched in this world: reality.
Melatonin was as effective for me as a handshake.
I could not gain access to the world of slumber. Something was up.
This knowledge—that, clearly something was going on beside just normal fluctuations was up—combined with my internal knowledge that the violent assault I had experienced as a teen was not what would be considered a normal event in one’s life, led me to consider the issue from a post-trauma angle—can a violent assault cause insomnia?
The answer was a resounding yes. It appears not only possible, but in fact likely, that trauma-related stress led to, or at least played a role, in my disordered sleep.
And so it was that I began to read about CBT-I and its effectiveness for the treatment of PTSD-related insomnia. From there, I looked into CBT-I apps. I found several. Many of which were developed as part of programs to treat combat veterans.
And this made sense to me. Indeed, it struck me as necessary and right.
Since wars were first waged soldiers return home after surviving nightmares foreign to the average person. Veterans have been made to know, to see haunting realities—while those they defend walk around blithely unaware of the suffering undertaken on their behalf . . . while average folks are permitted to bask each day in the luxury of their continued innocence.
Certainly, we owe it to our returning troops to commit all of the resources necessary to their rehabilitation. We owe it to restore them, as best possible. To return their peace of mind, sacrificed in honor of our national defense. We owe it to help them sleep again. That, and everything more.
As my mind chewed this thought, another one hit.
What of the survivors doing their best to keep walking among us after suffering the brutality of sexual assault . . . ? What exists helping them find their way back to normal? Does anyone help them regain some of what they lost? Who helps them rehabilitate?
— Who teaches these survivors how to sleep again? —
This made me cry.
Shaken. And Stirred.
I thought back to my younger self.
One moment I was nineteen, making my way home from the train station under sunny Atlanta blue skies.
I made it home. I turned on the tv. I heard kids playing outside.
Then everything changed. A knock at the door. A man. A voice: “Is your mother home?” Then . . . I regained consciousness to the sounds of a struggle. Prayers. “Please let me have fallen asleep in front of a movie.” The feeling of hands gripping my throat, strangling me. My bloody handprint on the wall as I tried to stop someone from dragging me deeper in to the apartment, toward a bedroom . . . A butcher’s knife on my back.
Terror.
My God, 19 years old. Barely emerging from childhood.
Who showed me the way back from there?
I thought about what it took after that for me to keep putting one foot before the other. What it took to keep going.
After finding myself hanging out of a window, bleeding . . . screaming.
After the blows to my face punctuated with a voice:
“Take off your pants, bitch.”
I thought about what it took to keep going after fighting off, facing, fleeing my own death.
What it took to keep going after surviving terror.
A Tightness
A few days after my assault, I was released from the hospital straight into the world. There was no counselor. There was no program. There was no assistance. There was no 800 number.
After a brutal assault had left me hospitalized for days, I was sent out into the world on my own—without even so much as a crappy t-shirt to show for it.
What I remember most about the time right after my assault was the tightness.
I remember a tightness in my belly. A tightness in my belly that stayed there all day. A physical foreboding. A queasiness.
I couldn’t eat. I was nauseous; all day, every day. I remember resorting to throwing back the pink stuff; I chugged pesto-bismol in an effort to calm my stomach. I carried it with me and gulped it from the bottle, straight. No chaser.
The tightness has never left.
Every day, I went to work. Everyday, I rode the train. Everyday, I pretended to be normal; I pretended to breathe. I had no choice.
When a stranger in the street would come near me, would approach too closely—undoubtedly just going about his own business without so much as a glancing thought of me—a current surged through me. My vision would become tunneled: he was heading toward me. In these moments, my field of vision would narrow, my senses perceived nothing, received nothing but the approaching stranger. My heart raced, my muscles readied.
In this moment it seemed this person might be heading toward me, preparing to do something. To do what exactly? It didn’t matter; I did not think that far. Because, as I now know, in that moment there was no thought. I was not thinking. The animal in me had been awakened. Parts of me the sum total of which have as their sole function one aim: to ensure the continued existence of my bodied self.
Survival.
Once these instincts have been summoned up and placed into action in the course of one’s lifetime, it becomes damned difficult to shove them back into their original packaging. The ‘Off’ switch is not clearly labeled.
Did i know what was happening? Did I know it was PTSD?
Not a clue.
This was during a time when I pulled out an antenna to make a call and measured—and, painfully, paid for my cell phone usage by the minute (albeit less on nights and weekends). This was during dial-up internet. This was when getting online was an event. And not a daily or even weekly one. This was back before Google even sprouted its first tooth.
In other words, this was before PTSD was a household term. I knew of no one that had experienced what I had.
All I knew then was the incessant bombardment of warning sensations. So, I ran away from them. I retreated from the misfiring warning flares continuously being sent up within me. I focused my attention outwardly. On doing. On pursuing. On accomplishing. On escaping. On numbing. On anything other than my body.
I never realized was that I was afraid.
Naturally, normally, appropriately I had become afraid. I just didn’t recognize it as such.
And, in reality, thereafter I never stopped feeling afraid.
I had been exposed to a situation that unveiled within me the most primal fear possible.
In truth, my body worked exactly the way it’s supposed to. Face death and the stakes peak. Like all of us, I am a product of my own lineage’s superior evolution. We made it to this point precisely because our mechanism worked. Face death and the flare is sent up—you are not in a chill environment—do not relax. Around these parts, there is danger.
Close your eyes and that moment may very well be your last.
We are the best The best at remaining ready. We won the ultimate prize—continued existence.
Once unleashed, terror expanded and took up permanent residence within my every cell. I learned to ignore it. In fact, I embarked on a journey of disconnection that, over the second half of my life, moved me further and further away from myself right to the precipice of dissociation.
It was a maladaptation.
It was not until December—as I found myself finally tackling head-on the physical manifestations of my survival—that I finally realized what I had done.
I had coped, I had avoided, I had continued, I had fled, I had survived . . . I had made it.
What I had never done?
Recover.
People | Places | Things
One of the few shows I regularly enjoy watching is Intervention. In it, individuals battling drug or alcohol addiction (or, occasionally, even eating disorders) are called upon to make the switch: from merely surviving to living.
In it, the specialists charged with orchestrating the moment of choice repeatedly draw a distinction between kicking a habit or resisting an addiction for any length of time, on the one hand—and being “in recovery.”
When you are in recovery, they emphasize, your every waking moment involves an awareness, a dedication to the continuation of your recovery.
When you are in recovery, you have spent—and intentionally continue to spend—the time to purposefully examine your own history, your own story, your own trauma to uncover how your life’s path brought you here.
When you are in recovery, you do not take for granted that tomorrow you will act in your own best interest or treat yourself kindly; instead, you accept that your baseline is such that you likely will not. And, therefore, you must choose to act deliberately in
Recovery is not automatic. It is a daily choice.
It requires commitment. And it requires change.
Radical change.
In fact, for at least a year after going into recovery, it is ideal to change people, places, and things. Because, habits thrive on the familiar. Changing them requires abandoning the familiar . . .
Surviving: I’m Good at This
Once I got my sleeping difficulties under control, it became clear to me why I couldn’t sleep: I was afraid.
Of everything.
The future. The past. The present. The leak in the ceiling of my garage. The ladybugs gathered in my bathroom. What was happening to my middle child on the 117th day of First Grade. What was going to happen to my eldest next year when he graduated Twelfth.
And because, once, long ago I had faced my own demise, I had become de-calibrated. I had an aIltered relationship with stress. For some people, life difficulties, adult problems are just that. For me, every threat represents a threat to my survival.
My body did not perceive threat as a matter of degrees. Everything could potentially end it all. Everything could end me. Catastrophic thinking, they call this.
The mind is smart. There is one perfect solution to unforeseen danger; unknown potential threats:
Hypervigilence.
My body remained on guard.
And so . . .
I could not sleep.
Learn How to Live
Trauma is born in the mind. But it lives in the body
We are both bodies and minds. Each part has a role.
The mind directs; the body protects.
The very mechanisms by which a thought, a realization, a perception can compel a heart to beat faster, muscles to prepare for action, blood to flow from the nonessential to the essential organs—these are the same mechanisms that cause one who has faced the threat of death or bodily harm to remain at perpetually at attention.
The effects of trauma do not continue solely in the mind. Nor the body. But in both.
Trauma has altered my relationship to my body. I am wholly unaware of some sensations, while acutely aware of others. For some time, I remained unable to relax muscles. Adrenaline surges within me—driving me, pushing me, compelling me to act—at times when others perceive no danger. Rest and digest? What is that?
I want to learn how to sleep when I am tired. How to eat when I am hungry.
I want to experience life again without the tightness. The nausea. I want to learn to extinguish the fear that was ignited on the sunny June day when my future was a beckoning song.
The anniversary of my assault this year marks a crossover.
This year, I will transition for the first time to having lived longer post-assault than I had pre; I will have known life with the tightness in my belly longer than I had before that fateful day when I learned how quickly blue skies can turn grey.
This year it will become the case that I have greater experience as a sexual assault survivor than anything else.
I guess you could say then that I am a pro at this.
Survival? Been doing it for ages. I’m good at this. In fact, speaking modestly, I’m damned good at it.
What I’m not so good at, though, is feeling good.
What I’m not so good at is is remembering to breath. Unclenching my fists. Recognizing when I need to rest. Finding relief. Feeling soothed. Eating when my body needs nourishment. Falling asleep. Laughing without expecting the other shoe to drop. Ever knowing what’s wrong…
But I’m not the only one living here.
Every day, countless girls (aged 16-19) cross over into my world; a world populated by zombies that managed to survive rape, attempt rape, or sexual assault and now can no longer recall how to breathe without thinking, eat normally, or fall asleep at night.
And, for too many of us still hanging around. Too many of us are ‘functioning survivors.’
We cower silently, invisibly, while concealing our fear. We swallow tears we never dared cry. We stopped dreaming—we abandoned our technicolor imaginings. Because that is what violence and the threat of brutality does: It encases one’s feet in cement. It causes dreaming to cease. It renders one permanently awakened, trapped in a world of reality, danger, and newsprint. It causes one to forget how to fly. It makes her look downward so long she forgets flying was a thing. It makes a person stop sleeping. It makes her unable to eat naturally. It makes of her a survivor.
But one day, the mind and the body remember. The mind recalls a different way of being. The body begins to release its fibers. And you can choose something beyond surviving.
For me, now, surviving is no longer enough. I am in recovery. My every day, my every moment is dedicated to breathing deliberately. To experiencing mindfully. To honoring this body and mind that worked as beautifully as they were designed to, and got me through moments others cannot even imagine.
When you have healed there comes a day when you can choose again to take to the skies. Choose to soar.
Flight 