{"id":3400,"date":"2023-08-19T08:44:18","date_gmt":"2023-08-19T14:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irenenorth.com\/writings\/?p=3400"},"modified":"2024-04-22T02:46:03","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T02:46:03","slug":"i-dont-sleep-on-fridays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/2023\/08\/19\/i-dont-sleep-on-fridays\/","title":{"rendered":"I don’t sleep on Fridays"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I don’t sleep well most nights, but I never get any rest on Fridays. It’s been this way most of my life and I never knew why.<\/p>\n

When I started seeing my new therapist in 2022, we both agreed on the importance of sleep. I want to sleep. I go to bed around the same time every night and get up around the same time every morning. That’s a key element in good sleep, right? Yeah, not for me.<\/p>\n

I wake up several times a night, every night. Sometimes, it’s an emotional flashback<\/a>. Sometimes, it’s a full-blown flashback and I’m somewhere in the past. Sometimes, it’s a nightmare. Sometimes, it’s 2 a.m., and my body just says, \u201cFuck it. Wake up.\u201d<\/p>\n

When you see a therapist, you make therapy goals. Mine are changed slightly as needed. If I get an issue solved, I get to tick a box and put a new goal in its place. The majority of the time goals are tweaked. My therapist and I check every few months to see how things are going, so we can make changes. One goal, which I haven’t achieved yet, is to sleep every night for at least four hours. This happens once or twice a week.<\/p>\n

Often, as I work through things, we find out why things are an issue, make a tweak here and there, and continue working. It’s a lot of work each week.<\/p>\n

During the really bad weeks, I tend to start by talking about Formula 1 and maybe show some cool pictures F1 photographers took during a particular grand prix. It seems silly and some people might think, \u201cwhat the hell does that have to do with therapy?\u201d<\/p>\n

A lot actually.<\/p>\n

I find when I have had a terrible week, I can’t dive in and just talk about what happened. F1 is my transition from \u201cmy week was shit\u201d to \u201chere’s the nitty gritty details I struggle to even find words for.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Currently, I’m taking a break from reading the news. I’m going to be out of touch with the world for a couple of months because it has been taking a toll on my mental well being. I am, however, allowing myself to read r\/formula1<\/a> on Reddit during race weekends. F1 is currently on its summer break, so no races until the weekend of the 26th.<\/p>\n

Last night was another night I didn’t sleep. I keep a notepad next to my bed to write in whenever I wake up. I’ll glance at the clock, note the time and what was going on. It’s helped immensely over the past 18 months.<\/p>\n

I’ve gone from wondering why certain body parts hurt to understanding my body is trying to process the past. When I wake up, fists clenched, and I’m swinging, I know I’m fighting something from my past. I don’t know what yet, because it wasn’t a one-time incident. My brain only gives me pieces at a time.<\/p>\n

Fridays are something else. I have flashbacks on Friday nights. Last night sucked because I wanted to go back to sleep after I work up for the third time, but I was scared. I didn’t know why, but that feeling happens a lot and not always on Fridays.<\/p>\n

The feeling last night was tied to an emotional flashback from a few hours before where my forearm felt like it was being held tightly, restricting the movement of my arm. When I woke up earlier, I was also sweating. Sometimes, the sweating is so bad, I need to change my shirt. This is also often combined with nausea and the clenching of my jaw. I never know what will happen once I fall asleep.<\/p>\n

When you wake up curled into a ball so tightly you’ve bruised your knees, you know you’re protecting vital body parts. When your fists are flying when you open your eyes, you can make a guess why. When you wake up crying or screaming or covering your crotch with your hands, you can make a guess about what was going on.<\/p>\n

An emotional flashback, however, doesn’t give you all the details. You have all the feelings \u2013 fear, pain, terror, torment, torture, tears \u2013 but you don’t always know why. I honestly don’t know which is worse.<\/p>\n

What I do know is I don’t sleep on Fridays. I’ve gone into my history and what the weekend meant to me. It was unsafe. I could write several blog posts detailing the reasons why.<\/p>\n

I forgot last night was Friday. Even if I had known, I can’t control what happens when I sleep. I have to listen to my body and work through what it is trying to tell me.<\/p>\n

Last Friday was worse than last night. It’s frustrating to wake up exhausted before you’ve even started you’re day. I’ve got a few starting points. A big one was realizing just how unsafe my weekends were as a child. Another was learning to listen what my body is telling me so I can finally start piecing my life back together.<\/p>\n

For the past few weeks, Mumford & Sons’ \u201cAfter the Storm<\/a>\u201d has been running through my head. I haven’t been able to listen to music in years and I haven’t actually heard the song for at least a decade. I first heard it on Stargate: Universe<\/a>.<\/p>\n