Rescuing Myself From Bedtime Bedlam

Had easygoing Phil told me last Wednesday that he wanted a trial separation, I might have responded with a yawn. I would have understood it, instinctively, as simply a summoning of separated physical distance from me. Specifically, in the hours between midnight and dawn.  
 
Poor Phil. The guy hadn’t had any unbroken sleep for over a week. I knew my nocturnal troubles wouldn’t give up their grip on our respective periods of rest. Worse, I couldn’t reassure him that, during the nights to come, these terrible and frightening episodes wouldn’t startle him into consciousness with moans that quickly morphed into wails. Or, that he wouldn’t have to continue to deliver his rat-a-tat chorus of “Terry! Terry, wake up!”  Nor could I promise that in my frequently foggy state, I wouldn’t respond with an “Okay, I hear you!” trailed by a snippy “Now can you just give it a rest?” 

Based on this pattern of agitation which neither of us could trust––that night prompted Phil to observe over breakfast two mornings later just how creepy it had been to listen to “a gravel-voiced monologue delivered by someone who seemed definitely possessed.” I’d laughed, uneasily: with each nightmare, I did feel possessed––by anxiety and fear, both of which reverberated inside me. 
 
What a way to begin the new year! I’d lamented from one day into the next until my inner clinical psychologist eventually grew tired of my woe-is-me attitude. Shouldn’t you be trying to get to the bottom of all this? “Professional Terry” pressed. You know the drill. Dig into what’s happening in these dreams of yours to figure out why you are so haunted. Without some insight, you won’t get relief. 
 
It happened, following a fourth consecutive night in slumberland’s rough country––and after the better part of the breakfast hour, culling for what I could remember about being in an abundant state of nightmarish sleep. I finally got serious about rescuing myself from bedtime Hell.
 
As nightmares often are, mine were replete with plot twists that ended as cliffhangers. Nevertheless, accustomed as I was to the dream interpretation process, I focused on connecting the “storylines” with some possible meaning––which prompted an internal dialogue that went something like this:
 
Those heart-racing attempts-to-outrun-an-angry-mob? Hmm. So, who and-or what in the “real world” are you trying to avoid? 
 
Being threatened with jail by the border police because you couldn’t produce identification to prove that you were who you professed to be? Okay, there has to be something going on for you about feeling like an imposter. Or maybe it’s the need to impress? 
 
But the dream that had stumped me the most was the one that centered on being alone in my bed and suddenly awakened by the sound of breaking glass. Whoa, Terry! Vulnerability times ten. So, what do you suppose is up with that?
 
Didn’t know. Hadn’t a clue.
 
But then, several days later, while schmoozing with a friend, I’d commented about how 2022 had seemed to pass in a blink, and how these early January days seemed to be doing much the same. I’d considered this a toss-away remark, but Lizzie chimed right in. “No kidding!” she said with a smile. “But there’s an upside of everything speeding along, and it’s that the publishing date for your memoir will be here very soon!” She must have detected the quizzical look on my face. “Aren’t I right that it will be out in the world on October 24th?” In an instant, my chest grew tight and my stomach flipped. I nodded.
 
“So,” she continued, “what could be more exciting than that?” 
 
Exciting??
 
Lizzie’s words of support had thrown open a door. A door behind which I’d obviously stuffed the conflicting emotions I still harbored about having written a book that was so deeply personal. Excitement, I was sure, was in that storage room somewhere, but had obviously gotten buried in the mix. I wished I’d come clean then, with my pal about my angst, but I was too rattled and confused. As such, it wasn’t until later that evening––while alone with my thoughts––that I made room for the feelings I had been working to keep out of awareness. Feelings that had, nevertheless, pushed their way into my dreams.

As I did, I reminded myself of how courageous I’d felt in taking the risk to step out of the professional clinical shadow to write about how, as an emotionally abandoned daughter of an emotionally abandoned mother, I had wrestled with frequent and debilitating anxiety, loneliness, and shame. And then, I reflected on how proud I was to have finally found a way to push forward and become my “authentic self.”  
 
I reminded myself, too, about how much I had hoped, and still hope, that in writing my memoir, In Pursuit of Radio Mom, that women who have been abandoned by their mothers in an emotional sense, and those who have abandoned their daughters (perhaps because they too were abandoned in just the same way) would learn that it is indeed possible to disentangle oneself from the grasp of an inadequate mother. Likewise, mothers who grapple with an overwhelming desire to be a constant in their daughter’s life could come to realize that relinquishing such an intense hold on a daughter does not constitute the abandonment so many of us fear: that instead, it helps us to build strong and healthy relationships with the people we love.
 
I thought about how, after finishing my manuscript, I had shared in an interview that the most difficult aspect of the writing process had been engaging repeatedly in what my mentor and editor, acclaimed author Linda Gray Sexton, had aptly described as “the required striptease of memoir”––being naked and revisiting all the pain and shame and trauma, and risking judgment and the possible disdain of readers. 
 
Today, that assessment of my writing process remains true. So, I tell myself now, is it any wonder then that––as the date approaches closer to my memoir’s publication––I feel anxious? Even spooked? 
 
Awareness is power, which increases the likelihood––as I move forward through the next seasons, and then closer to fall––that my excitement about bringing my book into the light will abound. 
 
And on a note closer (literally) to home? Well, the power of awareness gives me confidence, too, that by having gained some insight into my latest anxieties and fears, I will be better able to tame my overactive brain. Which would guarantee that my sleep buddy wouldn’t have to pick up his pillow and head toward our couch. About this I am certain. I’m not dreaming, at all.