Scared To Sleep Alone

Tracey - posted on 03/11/2011 ( no moms have responded yet )

I never really thought about what it would feel like for someone to be afraid of sleeping, until it happened to me...



Ever wrapped yourself up on a comfy bed inside a set of freshly washed sheets with a nice fluffy pillow to lay your head on while you dream? Sounds heavenly, doesn’t it? Then how is it that some people are scared to go to sleep? And scared to sleep alone…



As a kid I went through the typical boogieman syndrome which caused me to be afraid sometimes. But other than that, sleeping was actually one of my favorite activities. I mean really, how many of us can remember and would agree, especially as a teenager, that they completely despised being disturbed from slumber in order to have to get ready for school. Well that used to be me…



But it just so happens, not everyone is allowed to enjoy this simple and necessary luxury called sleeping; at least not without having a few thoughts or worries to haunt them. As harmless as sleeping should be, for me, it all started when I started having seizures. Actually, when I began having nocturnal seizures is when I had to come to terms with now knowing that the only thing standing between me and not having seizures was, in fact, sleep. And from there, I would soon discover an awful lot about living with nocturnal seizures…



My seizures are a combination of complex partial followed by tonic clonic seizures that continued regularly from June of 1995 and were never controlled up until my last seizure 15 months ago. And my nocturnal seizures have been continual from the spring of 1999. Therefore, training myself to get past the psychological thought of knowing “if I close my eyes to sleep, I may seizure or may never wake up” was and is a very powerful thought. And it has taken a lot of courage and strength to be able to convince myself, mentally, to trust that it’s o.k. to sleep. I know I can trust my husband to care for me. As well, both my husband and I have found trying to continually maintain a state of mind where thoughts of worry don’t consume us, has been exhausting and extremely difficult at times...



The routine in our house has been to always jump the second someone hears something in the night; which was usually me going into a seizure. And although the convulsive seizures seem to have suddenly disappeared for now, the psychological and emotional scarring is still here. Our lives as a family has taken such a drastic change that it has forever affected how we sleep, how much we sleep, how we think about sleep, when we sleep, if we sleep,…



And I never sleep alone.



Sincerely,

Tracey Alderson

Administrator, Epilepsy Awareness 2009

~ Epilepsy ~ Awareness For All



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