My sleepless hours in the middle of the night were filled with fear, anxiety, physical pain and panic attacks.
I’d tried every fad solution for my insomnia for over a decade: self hypnosis, counting sheep, relaxation tapes, curbing caffeine, no TV before bed, adjustment in bed times, purified air, melatonin, marijuana, alcohol, over the counter sleeping meds, couch syrup, prescription sleep meds, SSRI meds, anti-psychotic meds and various combinations of all of these.
Two moments helped motivate me to do the real work to find a cure for my insomnia. The first occurred casually in a phone conversation with a friend, when I heard myself say, “I don’t sleep, I never have.” Reflecting on this conversation later, I came to see about my insomnia as something with a history, a past, it coming from somewhere other than coffee after one pm.
The second was when I found myself in a particularly long period of limited sleep (three hours a night at most for up to seven days in a row) On the eighth day, I was on my 5th Atavan in three hours, in a complete panic. I grabbed a bottle of vodka and starting swilling from the bottle, hoping it would help the Atavan kick in and finally get me down into REM-land. However, I found myself more awake and frantic with each passing minute. I was manic and clockwatching until I finally passed out. Never a big drinker, I called a pharmacist friend and asked about the medical ramifications of drinking while on prescription sleeping pills. She informed me that I could give myself a heart attack mixing pills and booze in that fashion.
It was time for some serious soul-searching, time to get to the bottom of the problem and stop trying to find the quick cure. In a serendipitous moment, a friend referred me to Ellen Ledley. I knew nothing about her, other than that the friend’s therapist knew her.
I made the dreaded call for help. Ellen called back, and we began to work together.
In our very first session, Ellen suggested that we try Somatic Experiencing if I was open to it. Because I had recently begun to connect a childhood trauma to my insomnia, I was willing. Besides, I was so sleep deprived I would have been open to anything!
During a severe lightening storm when I was four years old, a bolt of lightening hit a tree branch over my bedroom, sending the branch through the roof of my house and into my closet. I had been fast asleep, and woke to find the entire room lit up with flames. My family managed to evacuate, and we watched our house burn to the ground. That was the first night I had ever spent completely awake to watch dawn appear. It certainly wouldn’t be the last.
During my first session with Ellen I shared the story of the fire, but she noticed right away that I seemed to have no personal connection to it. It was just a story that my family told. I had no emotional relationship to it and no details that were my own, other than the fact that I’d dropped my “blanky” and my mother would not let me go back in the house to get it.
Over the course of a year, Ellen helped me connect with the physical sensations I experienced sitting in her office: butterflies in my stomach, tingling in my legs, clenching my jaw. She guided me toward and away from these physical sensations. She also guided me to similar sensations and thought patterns I had while unable to sleep.
Slowly, as we worked on sensations in my body, memories of the fire began to come up, and I was able to reconnect with my personal experience of living through the fire. I was able to see what I saw that night, smell the smells and eventually feel the feelings. All of those had been stored in my body. Focusing on specific sensations allowed these memories to emerge.
As weeks went by, my sleep slowly and steadily began to improve. I now sleep confidently. Like an addict, I view my situation “one day at a time” and continue to be grateful for each complete night of sleep. Now it’s more like, “Wow, seven nights, one whole week, perfect sleep!”
I stay amazed at the power of Somatic Experiencing. When I read articles or see new reports about insomnia, I always wonder how it can be that no one brings up people’s relationship to their past traumas. It’s astonishing to me, until I remember how many years I suffered without ever seeing that connection myself.
