What I Did This Summer: Why Total and Utter Exhaustion Doesn’t Always Result in Sleep

It started with a long-running worry about the health and safety of my far-away, elderly aunt which dramatically escalated in April. Suddenly, my time and attention were consumed with trying to help and find resources from several states away.

I found myself waking up early – I mean really early – every morning worrying about her and agonizing over possible solutions. Suddenly she was in the hospital and I was in long-distance crisis mode. My stress level escalated, and my hours of nightly sleep diminished even more.

I felt like my new normal was just going to settle in at moderately-high-level worry and exhaustion. The situation was wearing on me and keeping me in a constant run-down state, physically and emotionally. But life had more in store for me.

In June I came home late one evening to the horrifying realization that my house had been broken into. Not only had these lowlifes breached my home, they had come in through, and ransacked, my inner sanctum…my bedroom. They had pawed all my most personal stuff, throwing it all over the room, and stolen my most valuable and sentimental belongings.

Being in that room felt horrible. The thieves had gained entry into my house by throwing a concrete paver through the window, and glass shards and slivers of all shapes and sizes had sprayed over the entire room, bed and all. It was literally dangerous to be in there.

Everything felt filthy and tainted. Knowing that strangers – ill-meaning strangers – had been there, throwing everything from my dressers and closet into the floor, tossing my mattress out of the way, all while evaluating which of my things they wanted to steal; well, it was unnerving. I can’t begin to describe the feeling I had when I first went into the house and on into my bedroom after the police had given me the all-clear.

I felt all the emotions you hear people talk about when they’ve suffered a crime. I felt violated, anxious, overwhelmed, and at the core really, really pissed. I didn’t feel secure in my own home anymore – the very place I had felt safe and happy for many years. It’s hard to describe, but it just felt like their evil intent and energy lingered in my home. My home!

The immediate concern was to secure my property. A local company came around midnight to board up the smashed window, and they kindly vacuumed up as much of the broken glass as possible. Little did I know that night that the carpet would have to be replaced in that room. I found that out when the insurance adjuster came a few days later. “There’s just no way to get glass out of a carpet,” he told me.

Having to avoid the disaster that was now my master bedroom until the adjuster and contractors had all done their thing, I moved my necessities into my guest bedroom. But the reality was that I didn’t even feel comfortable going to bed, much less to sleep. Mostly, I stayed on high-alert, dozing a little on the living room sofa with the lights and the TV on all night. Let’s just say I was not at my best after each night of this routine, and my exhaustion was building and building. Running on empty is an understatement.

All this on top of still dealing with the worry of my far-away aunt. And then…

What next??

Not even a week after my break-in – six days to be exact – my active and energetic 84-year-old mom tripped and fell on her shoulder, fracturing her upper arm. A long evening in the ER, and two days more in the hospital passed until they decided she would not need surgery, and we could take her home. In a sling. Right arm immobilized for the next several weeks and as helpless as a kitten as my grandmas would have said.

My already high stress level exploded with triple the amount of overwhelm now. Actually, it felt more exponential. More like stress cubed, or worse. There was suddenly that much more to do, to help with, to worry about.

Sleep? Who needs sleep? Not me. There’s not enough time in my 24 hours, and even if I did have time for a luxury like sleep……how would I convince my brain to let go and drift off??

Funny thing about exhaustion – it kinda forces the issue. At some point, adrenaline and cortisol lose their oomph, and your brain simply compels you to crash. Not that it’s good, deep, restorative sleep, mind you. It just grabs you and throws you forcefully into a fitful sleep that gets you by until the next crash. That’s where I was for a while. Short bursts of sleep and lots of exhausted waking hours. Functioning…but so very far from my best.

A couple of months have whizzed by since all that happened. I feel like I’ve missed most of the summer. It flew by in a whirl of all-too-short nights of inadequate and fragmented sleep and jam-packed days full of more things to get done than there was time for. There were many moments when I wasn’t sure I’d make it through without dropping down in an exhausted heap of blithering idiot-ness.

But whiz by those months did, and I survived them. My aunt is doing better. Mom is out of her sling and kicking butt doing physical therapy and gaining her mobility and independence back. My house has been repaired and cleaned, and the insurance claim has been dealt with. But…

I just want to sleep through the night.

I’m still experiencing some unexpected, but probably not surprising after-effects. I’ve done several things around my house to increase security, and I’m not feeling scared anymore, but I admit, I don’t have that peaceful, secure feeling completely back yet. I’m sleeping better, and more, but it takes me longer to relax and fall asleep when I go to bed, so I’m still running short on sleep every night.

I know getting completely back to normal will just take some time. But until then I’ve been implementing the things we recommend to our readers here at Sleep Satisfaction. And you know what? They are helping.

I’m trying my best to start winding down for bed before it gets too late. I can’t just fall exhausted into bed and go straight to sleep like I did before. I find I need to be sure I’m really sleepy before getting into bed, so I won’t lie there listening to every noise and watching the clock, worrying, waiting to fall asleep. Going through a relaxing pre-bed routine is comforting, and it helps me let go of the day and calm my anxieties.

What does my bedtime routine consist of? Well, I’m still perfecting it, but most nights it includes a warm shower, getting into bed, massaging my hands and feet as I rub in some soothing and lovely-smelling lotion, and some calming deep-breathing.

I like to listen to relaxation or meditation audios once I’ve settled into bed and turned out the light. I’ve found several on YouTube that help me unwind, and I’ve collected quite a selection on my phone that are there whenever I need them. One of these is Untold Depths that I recommended in last month’s blogpost. I’ll be sharing some others in future posts too. I’ve really come to realize how powerfully soothing these audios are, and how much they help me get to sleep.

During the day, I’m trying to cut back on my caffeine intake. I’ll admit, I’m a caffeine fan, and I’ve been leaning pretty darn heavily on the stuff during this whole traumatic episode. Like so many other people, a big mug of coffee gets me started every morning. Through the day I depend on huge tumblers of iced tea and cans of diet soda to keep me going. But that’s not helping my sleep challenges. I don’t intend to give up caffeine, but I know I need to start easing off, especially later in the day, to help me relax at night.

Throughout www.sleepsatisfaction.com there are lots of other helpful techniques to help with getting better sleep. Join me in trying them out, see which ones help you the most, and share those experiences here along with any other techniques you’ve discovered to help you!