Sleep Stuff

I'm tired today. Very very tired.

Levi is napping and the dishwasher is going. I'm sitting on the couch wondering why I am so tired. Then I remember that I stink at sleeping. (yes, I said stink, I'm a mom and I am now realizing I need to clean up my language).

When Ben and I were dating three years ago I couldn't figure out why I was so tired all the time. I had my thyroid tested (surely it was that, I was overweight, it must be that) nope. I wondered what was wrong with me when my doctor suggested I have a sleep study done. Praise the Lord I had wonderful Starbucks insurance at the time. So I went to the clinic, got all hooked up on all the little wires and things, and they put me to bed. The doctor came in the next morning and asked me how I slept. Pretty good I thought, I didn't remember waking up at all, so that was good, usually I have to wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. His reply was, no you didn't. Your brain waves spiked 120 times before you finally got into your REM cycle, every two minutes. So for about four hours I would not get into my REM cycle.... no wonder! He said that's actually pretty common among young women because of the worry and stress in their lives. Yeah, that's true, I was planning a wedding at the time, moving into an apartment, working odd hours at my job, playing shows late into the night, dating the man of my dreams... So he prescribed Ambien. I've been taking a generic for that for the past 3 years or so. I didn't take it as much when I was pregnant with Levi, they said it doesn't hurt pregnant women. ... Anyways, I am wanting to go off of it. I love it because I have no trouble falling asleep at night when I take it. Also, I've noticed it has this effect that as it starts to kick in I am just happy. I laugh as I write this, because I have said some really goofy things to Ben just before we fall asleep and I completely cannot remember them the next day.

All that to say, I want to be healed of this. I want for this to be something I don't have to struggle with. Ben doesn't struggle with this. His head hits the pillow and he's out in 5 minutes. Me? I can be lying there for an hour and still be trying to go to sleep. I recite scripture, songs run through my head, conversations run through my head, I pray, I think. I just want to shut my brain off. Where is the off switch on the brain? Could somebody tell me please? I have often considered staying up all night, but then I'm exhausted the next day, then I can't have a decent quiet time with the Lord and I'm literally falling asleep while trying to pray or read the Word. When I don't get enough sleep not even coffee helps. If I could I would go to bed every night at 9 and wake up at 5 and have a two hour time with the Lord (that's not to say anything about my character, I am not a good person, but that is to say how GOOD it is to be with God, how much I enjoy it, just to sit in my corner of the couch with my coffee, journal and Bible and listen and talk to God.)

I was talking about my mind wandering. Drat, I didn't want to say something about this, but I'm going to because if there is someone else who deals with this, then they can relate. This is going back to my healing in the area of sexual addiction. This is when temptation will be the heaviest. At night time when no one else is watching. My mind is going crazy and sometimes I just want one thing to consume it. Sexual thoughts will consume my mind. That's when I can lock my mind on one thing (I'm not saying this is good AT ALL) and not have to think about anything else. No other conversations, not if I cleaned the bathroom or not, I don't have to think about if I got this or that done at work, I can just think about that one thing... and often times I would go to sleep after that. Weird right? I don't know if it was the Lord who would just put me to sleep because my mind was going somewhere it shouldn't or if the enemy was keeping me up so that I would think about these things.

I want to be a normal person and go to sleep when I should. In this life there will be trouble and hardship, we are not guaranteed an easy life. I ask for healing but I'm not sure if God wants to heal me of this. That is up to Him. I will just continue to ask and pray.