The Great Enemy-Sleep Deprivation

Originally I had planned to write my next entry on a completely different topic, but the last couple of weeks have been so crazy, and I have been so tired, that I decided to write about my ongoing battle with sleep.  It is so much easier to fight off the darkness when I am rested, but when the overwhelming fatigue sets in I am the most vulnerable.

I have always had issues with sleeping.  When I was younger insomnia used to be a major problem.  However, since I have had children that is no longer the case (unless I am pregnant).  I am usually so exhausted by the time I go to bed, that I don't have trouble falling asleep.  It is staying asleep that is my problem.  I am a very vivid dreamer, this has always been an issue for me.  The norm for me is to wake up 2-3 times per night because of these dreams.  I can deal with that.  When I get closer to getting my period, this gets worse and I can be waking up as often as every half hour to every hour.  This can go on for nearly two weeks of the month.  Then  you add in all the other stuff:  the husband snoring, the daughter coughing in the night, the son waking up screaming with nightmares, kids just crying in their sleep....or of course the sick family member.

The last couple of weeks have been a doozy.  One family member after another has been sick for about a month now.  A day or two after someone gets better, someone else gets sick.  Aside from a flare up of my daughter's asthma/allergies we have all been healthy for about five days now....WHEW!  But I still have not been sleeping well.  My PMS is causing the dreaming to be worse and my son is going through a nightmare phase.  He is waking up sometimes multiple times a night screaming in terror.  It is very difficult to get him settled back down, he is so upset he just wants to be held.  My husband and I are at a loss trying to figure out what is frightening our happy, bubbly little guy so much.  Last night was especially bad.  Our son was up crying three times.  Our daughter was up crying once, and she woke me up several times either crying or coughing in her sleep.  I am writing this now completely sleep deprived.

My point with this entry is to say, I really feel that with my medication and therapy, and the support I have received and the growing I have done as a person, I have my depression well under control...Unless I am exhausted.  And lately I am almost always exhausted.  It leaves me very short tempered and unmotivated.  It is harder to complete daily tasks and sometimes it makes me feel like I am back where I started when I could barely force myself to do much of anything.  And it makes it much harder for me to handle my spirited daughter in the way that I would like to handle her.  I don't have the patience to deal with her resistance as I would like to, and we end up butting heads.

I have recently accepted the fact that sleep is always going to be an issue for me.  My doctor told me that there is not much that can be done for my hormonal sleep issues.  There are sleep aids that provide me with a little relief, but I won't take those if the kids are sick because I need to be able to get up if they need me.  So my current challenge is to figure out how to navigate life when I am sleep deprived.  I need to figure out how to still do what needs to be done and still be the Mom I want to be when it the hardest for me.  I know that I can fight the depression back.  Each day I become a little more successful at it.  Like today for example.  Last night was probably the worst night of sleep I have had in these terrible past two weeks of no sleep.  This morning my daughter was completely falling apart and resisting everything.  Getting her out the door was the ultimate challenge.  After I dropped her off at school I realized that I accomplished this without yelling at her once.  That NEVER happens when I am in this state.  I found some patience somewhere, I just need to hold on to it.  Here's to the hope of a nap this afternoon!  :o)