Sleep

I have had sleep anxiety problems since I was 11 or 12. As a kid, I would always lay in bed for hours staring at the ceiling, my mind spinning, unable to quiet it enough for me to fall asleep. Eventually I would go into my parents' room and wake up my mom. I was so anxious I couldn't stand to be alone any longer. Someone needed to know that I was having trouble and comfort me. There wasn't much she could do, but I was just more settled knowing that she heard my complaint. Invariably she would tell me to read a book until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. Sometimes she would make me a cup of warm milk with honey in it, it would make me sleepy she said. I still struggled to fall asleep, watching the red numbers on my clock change, but eventually I always drifted away.

When I started swimming as a freshman in high school I started to fall asleep more easily, but still had nights, sometimes weeks in a row, when my brain wouldn't let me relax. I still woke my mom up, but by this age I knew about sleeping pills and would beg her, frequently in frustrated tears, to let me have one (she took them for a while and I'd seen how they could knock you out). She would never let me have one, but I would take anything she offered instead; Nyquil, allergy medicine, Tylenol PM, etc. Thus began my love for drugs, for multiple purposes.

When I was fifteen and sixteen a whole new slew of problems came. I became incredibly depressed, pushed to my limits by the pressures of performance in school, swimming and socialization. For nearly two years, my only release came in cutting myself. This was the preferred method of stress relief especially at night, when my anxieties built up such tension that I would literally, physically shake. I would remain in a half-crazed state, unable to think or relax until I drew blood and the endorphins that come with pain circulated through my blood, draining the stress from my muscles. I could think clearly again. I had made the dangerous discovery that my body makes its own euphoric pain killer- and that to tap into it requires only a sharp little knife or scissor.

By God's grace, I was saved at 17 and I never cut myself again. But the sleeping anxiety in itself was not resolved.

College came. Sleeping became more of a struggle in the freshman dorms than it had ever been. Despite waking up at 5:00 in the morning and training more intensely than ever, sleep was elusive and coveted. In a building with 500 students who stayed up at all hours of the night, the noise, the lights, and the vibration of floormates dancing, running and jumping around were too much. I found out quickly that I was not alone in my sleep problem; many others on the floor had the same issue. But they had something I didn't have: those magical sleeping pills. Sharing was a virtue we all learned well in kindergarten, so it was very easy to get my hands on these pills almost every night of the week. Half a dozen kids had them, so would rotate through them each night, therefore not depriving anyone of their stash while also not getting addicted to one particular kind. This habit, combined with the 2400 (yes, twenty four hundred, not two hundred forty) mg of Ibuprofen I was prescribed daily for my shoulders, has probably not done wonderful things for my stomach.

So here I am again, sophomore year (now with housemates who love to drunkenly make pancakes and popcorn at 3:00am Wednesday through Saturday, in the kitchen adjacent to my bedroom) faced with the question of sleep. I have more resources than ever at my disposal: after two surgeries I have a few months worth of Vicodin and Percocet in my "drug drawer" along with cough medicine, allergy medicine, over-the-counter sleeping aides, leftover Ibuprofen(the biggest pills I've ever seen) and every other painkiller known to man. I have ear plugs and an eye mask. But I still cannot sleep.

I admit to taking half a Percocet about half an hour ago. I need to break this cycle. It is utterly ridiculous how this saga of sleeplessness has taken over much of my life and created horrible habits. I have contemplated going to the sports med doctor and asking for a prescription for sleeping pills. He would give it to me. But I have a strong conviction not to. I feel like I should be praying. God CAN help me sleep. I know He can! He can calm my mind and release the stress in my body. The problem is, for some reason, I am not believing that when it comes to the test. While I refuse to go get a prescription, as though that would be a cop-out, I still nightly, give in to the last resort of taking a post-surgery painkiller. When it is 3am and I have PT at 8am, I give in. I don't know what to do exactly, but I need to be praying more. I need more faith.

I see this pattern of drug use in my life, and I know that it has control over me. I have a new life in Christ to be set free from such dependencies! I don't believe there is anything fundamentally wrong with sleeping pills, but for me, in my situation, I know that it is something I need to overcome.

If you are a Christian, please pray for me to have faith and childlike trust in God! That I run to him for comfort the way I used to run to my mom and wake her up in the middle of the night! And to resort to warm milk and honey before any more painkillers!


From Valley of Vision:


Valley of Vision

Blessed creator,
Thous hast promised thy beloved sleep;
Give me restoring rest needful for tomorrow's toil.
If dreams be mine, let them not be tinged with evil.
Let thy Spirit make my time of repose a blessed temple of his holy presence.

May my frequent lying down make me fammiliar with death,
the bed I approach remind me of the grave,
the eyes I now close picture to me their final closing.
Keep me always ready, waiting for admittance to thy presence.
Weaken my attachment to earthly things.
May I hold life loosely in my hand,
knowing that I receive it on condition of its surrender
As pain and suffering betoken transitory health,
may I not shrink from a death
that introduces me to the freshness of eternal life
I retire this night in full assurance of one day waking with thee.

All glory for this precious hope,
for the gospel of grace
for thine unspeakable gift of Jesus
for the fellowship of the Trinity.
Withhold not thy mercies in the night season;
thy hand never wearies,
thy power needs no repose,
thine eye never sleeps.

Help me, when I helpless lie,
when my conscience accuses me of sin,
when my mind is harassed by foreboding thoughts,
when my eyes are held awake by personal anxieties.

Show thyself to me as the God of all grace, love and power;
thou hast a balm for every wound
a solace for all anger
a remedy for every pain,
a peace for every disquietude.
Permit me to commit myself to thee awake or to sleep.