Sleep: A journey through the dark

When I was young, early to bed was something that did nothing for me.
Bedtime routine brought me no relief or rest. Just because my parents turned out the electric light did nothing to bring me peace. For many years it was an unknown concept.
As in many areas, I learned very slowly and evolved inch by inch, eventually finding ways to cope on my own. This was a process locked within my head that I hardly considered, just accepted as a part of what I did to grow up. Dismissed into the ether as a forgotten figment. I suppose I assumed that it happened to everyone, so I should just get on with it.
Only now, in my fortieth decade do I consider what I did and what it meant to me. Each restless eve, finding my way by groping through the dark. Down the mental passages that the night unlocked.
Every night, as soon as the light went out, my mind went into instant replay of the past. First I would feel anxiety blossom. My heart would begin to hurt with the building fear inside. All of the social mistakes of the day, the week, the month would flood back, night after night. Like a traumatic movie screen that I was unable to control or turn off.
The need to sleep was kept at bay, darkness seeping inside my mind. Experiences of stigma and rejection throughout the day took their toll. They rolled like waves onto the shore of my unconscious mind. Kept closely controlled and locked away during the day, only to be unleashed when I closed my eyes at night, racing through my mind...

Anxiety feeding my fears

Pictures of the past replay endlessly

Holding back my need for sleep

Keeping me from  peace.

My thoughts tumble
One with my footsteps,
Running down corridors

Fleeing the tsunami:
A tidal wave of fear

Building inside, 

Clutching my heart.

As the years passed, I learned and developed coping mechanisms. Seeing all of this now, laid out before me, it is no wonder that I struggled so much during the day. I must have been exhausted. Not lazy, as I was often labelled.
I began a journey that would eventually see me learn a type of self-invented mindfulness, many years before I ever heard the term. 
My maturing mind opened pathways to progress, like putting on a new piece of music.

When this happens, the tempo changes. Portals open leading you down different routes.

I was putting the past behind me. Removing myself from the memories of negative situations. 

Dealing with daily problems one at a time and learning to shut down negative thinking at night.
Able finally, to embrace the safety and peace of a quiet mind.

Troubled nights: revisiting the past

When I should be sleeping, lying awake:
Restlessly reliving the day’s mistakes.
Thoughts scrambling with fear,   
My heart pounds and aches.
Wandering winding paths and trails,
Forever playing catch up, filling in my missing social traits.

Kicking myself over what I should have said and done,
Huddled under my blankets until daybreak.
The past replays within the cinema of my skull,
Wonder why situations are a struggle, so opaque.
I am fighting fires in my mind,
So much at stake.

Things I should have known,
That should come naturally, don’t.
Why is my honesty a burden?
Why are some people fake?
I’ve sadly learned at great cost,
From my innocent soul’s mistakes.

Only after a long league of years,
Have I learned not to fear the night,
But welcome it’s embrace.
To extinguish anxiety with a thought,
Will the wind to blow out the flame.
To wrap myself in the shadows, and hide my face.

Dealing with these problems developed instinctively over the years. What worked for me, I describe in the poem. As I got older, I was able to learn not to be afraid of the sensory depriving darkness. I was able to see it as a positive and peaceful thing and  to use a kind of instinctive mindfulness. 

Not sure if this makes any sense, but I visualised wrapping myself in the void, of emptying my mind of all thought. When anxious emotions or negative thoughts would try to surface, I learned to visualise the darkness as a wave smothering them. It was the way my maturing mind found to reject negativity and to put those thoughts away when I knew I should be resting. 

I also learned to catch myself, when my mind began its automatic default setting of replaying the stressful events that haunted my mind, when I should have been sleeping. It took a long time for me to realise that I was in charge of my night time thoughts and that it served no purpose to replay traumatic memories, as if seeking some answer that would rectify the past. I learned to put the past behind me and that in itself brought me a certain peace. When these memories would surface, I would concentrate on the darkness of the room and nothing else, refusing to allow the images in my mind to form. It was as if I had to train my mind to be still, like taming a wild animal.

I've never really thought much about it before or thought it would be interesting to other people. It's just something I learned and accepted that seemed to work for me. But I'm always happy to share something if its useful, so perhaps someone will find it so.