Grief is Stealing My Sleep

Is your heart overflowing with emptiness and you can’t find peace?

Do you ever wake up in the morning and for a split second life feels normal again?

Do you huddle on top of the bedspread, drawing your legs up towards your chin to watch the night slide away until morning?

Especially in the first year of widowhood sleep is stolen from us by grief and the reality of being on our own. Many widows spend the dark hours of the night roaming throughout the house hoping that daylight will bring them some peace.

My first year I would wander around the house keeping busy so that I would go to bed exhausted but yet sleep would elude me.   I would dwell on the things I didn’t say or the things that I did say and shouldn’t have.

You can get so tired and strung out that you don’t have any energy to care about anything.  Time passes and with it sleep will come back to you but not always as good as it used to be. After five years I still find it odd to stretch out and have the whole bed to myself.  When Donnie first died my daughter Angela brought me a large stuffed cat to curl up in bed with.  She hoped to help me get some sleep.

Now I’m sleeping much better, but rarely do I sleep the whole night without getting up.  I still have trouble quieting my mind down and relaxing before bedtime.

Here are some tricks I’ve learned to help me sleep:

• Don’t just lie there – When I can’t get to sleep in a reasonable time, I get up and read until I feel sleepy.
• Keep a consistent schedule – I try to go to bed and get up at the same time.
• No T.V. in the bedroom  - I keep the bedroom for my special place of rest.
• Make lists – I write a list of tomorrow’s tasks so they don’t go come into my sleep.
• Watch my diet -  I avoid heavy meals, coffee and chocolate close to bedtime.
• Take a hot soak in the bath – This is my favorite way of relaxing
• Control the environment -  I block out the lights with dark curtains, keep the room temperature a little cool and try to keep the room quiet.

Insomniacs spend too much time in bed and not enough time asleep so stay out of the bedroom until you are sleepy.  Having said all of the above, don’t expect to get your sleep back on track while you are grieving.  Grief really does steal sleep and you have to grieve before you can heal.

In time grief will soften into memories and sleep will become easier to find.