I Rarely Have Trouble Sleeping

Written By: Lauren Howard

I rarely have trouble sleeping. 

I am the person who is out seconds after my head hits the pillow. 

My husband will jokingly ask if I want to watch the first five minutes of a movie with him because he knows I won’t make it much longer than that. 

But last year was different. 

I went through stretches where it took so much longer to finally doze off. When I did, I would wake up a bunch of times. My dreams were wild and erratic, which isn’t that abnormal, but this was all just more intense than anything else. 

A few months ago, I had a two-week period where I just couldn’t get any restorative sleep at all. It was so unlike me that I was genuinely panicked by it. I finally cleared my schedule, turned everything off, and slept for 36 hours straight. 

I was grateful for the sleep, but it didn’t fix things for long. There were still nights where I tossed and turned and woke up more tired than when I crawled into bed.

I had been working with a company for about a year and a half, but the last 6 months with them were really uncertain. It became harder to navigate by the day. 

I work in stressful environments all the time, so this one shouldn’t have been any different. Or so I thought. 

In hindsight, it was different. It was destabilizing. It became clear that I wasn’t sure what was going to happen and I couldn't tell if I was even getting valid information on a daily basis. I wasn’t sure how long it would last and if the work I was doing was going to be for nothing. 

Every day, I wondered more if promises made would be promises kept. It became clearer as things never panned out that the people I had put trust in were probably just flying by the seats of their pants and making up lies to go along with it as it suited them.

At the end of last year, the promises made were confirmed not kept. I was shattered and beat up. 

But you know what? 

I went to bed that night and slept like a rock. I was out in minutes and didn’t wake up until the next morning. 

I’ve done that every night since. 

The stress is not over. Now, we have the stress of rebuilding because we gave them far too much bandwidth to misuse. That feeling sucks. But the uncertainty, the questioning myself and my judgment, the second guessing, the wondering what was going to happen? That part was over. 

And I got my sleep back. 

I had no idea how much that was fraying me at the ends until I got out of it. Being out of it isn’t all sunshine and roses, but I’m in control again, and my subconscious isn’t running wild with "what ifs?" all the time. 

And man, I really love sleep. I have missed her dearly. 

If you need me . . . I’mma be takin’ a nap because I can do that now. 

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Lauren "L2" Howard

Founder & CEO at elletwo