Is Fear Keeping You Awake?

Has this ever happened to you?

You’re so exhausted by the end of the day, you can barely keep your eyes open. All you can think about is falling face-first into your soft bed. You’re on your way there and then you get a shock that’s so horrifying you go into full blown fight-or-flight mode. You fear for your own safety and that of your loved ones.

Your heart pounds, your legs go weak, your hands tremble. Sleep is the absolute last thing on your mind now, and with the adrenaline coursing through your body, it’ll be quite awhile before that’s even possible.

That’s what happened to me last night. Now, I may be exaggerating my reaction some. Just a little. Nope. No, that’s exactly what happened to me. What possibly was exaggerated was my reaction to the whole ordeal. I may have gotten a little over worked up by something that lots of people deal with all the time.

Especially in my neck of the woods…Arizona.

Something that in my 40 years living here I have never, ever, not even once had to face.

But in my defense, I was completely exhausted and sleep-deprived from getting only four hours of sleep the night before. My energy was at a low-point, and my emotional reserves were needing to be replenished by a good night of sleep. Needing it bad.

“Enough already!” I can hear you saying. What was this horror I encountered?

Uninvited Guests at Bedtime

Yes, I found a scorpion in my house. In my bathroom. Clinging to the wall above the toilet. YUCK!

Well, since I’ve heard many stories about scorpions here in the desert, and I have always known they were around and getting into peoples’ homes, you would think it wouldn’t have been such a shock.

Again, I must repeat how tired I was when this happened. Well, I was shocked and horrified. I didn’t remember what you were supposed to do when encountering a scorpion. I remember something about squashing it hard with a shoe. But this is a small bathroom, and I wasn’t about to get close enough in those tight quarters to actually aim at and hit it with anything. No way. I also didn’t want to let it out of my sight until I had figured out how to send him on his way. So, I ran and grabbed my phone and yelled at Google, “How to kill a scorpion?!?!?”

Some of the helpful tidbits I learned were:

• Get a cat – I’m allergic, and anyway, that’s not nearly immediate enough.
• Sprinkle diatomaceous earth around – great idea, and I have some, but that’s a slow solution.
• Stab it with something sharp – seriously??? Again, I’m not getting that close!

So, what I came up with was to drown it in bug spray. There was literally a puddle with a dead scorpion in it. Did you know that when a scorpion dies in a puddle of Raid that its tail straightens all the way out? You do now.

Crisis Over. Now, Go to Sleep.
Once the threat was neutralized, did I just relax and go straight to bed and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep? Ummm…no.

It took me a while to burn through the adrenaline and calm down. Then it took me a while longer to convince myself that there weren’t scorpions hiding in every corner of my house and especially in my bed, waiting to pounce on me and kill me. Kidding, sort of.

That’s what happens to us all when something scary or stressful happens to us making us feel unsafe, uneasy, or insecure. Your mind and your body both work against your most fervent wish to be in bed and asleep.

The big question is what can you do when you feel like this? How can you calm that feeling down to a level that allows you to get in bed and drift off?

Here’s what I did last night:

• I called family, who talked me off the ledge and made me feel like I wasn’t a big baby about the whole thing. Oh, and also that there weren’t scorpions hiding in every corner of my house and especially in my bed, waiting to pounce on me and kill me. Thanks guys!
• I sat comfortably in my living room and spent about five minutes taking some very deep, very slow breaths. This was to activate my parasympathetic nervous system, which is what helps us feel calm and relaxed. It really did help.
• I turned on the TV (don’t judge) and watched something stupid until my head was bobbling around and I was dozing off.

That’s when I went on back to bed, and I fell asleep easily.

…after I had checked under the sheets and pillows for unwanted critters, of course!