Sleep. Sweet wonderful sleep. It's one of my favorite things. It's probably one of yours too, right? I have the hardest time getting out of bed each morning. To use my dad's Navy phrase, the rack monster gets me every time. That's normal, right? We all like sleep, except for children who haven't figured out how wonderful it is. As I've gotten older, my need for sleep has seemed to increase. If I don't get sleep, I really, really struggle. If it goes on for days, I get easily irritated. Like everyone else, right? I think I have this problem even more than others.
I first noticed this issue when I picked up my sister, Chelsea, to take her up to Idaho for my brother Cal's high school graduation. I was at BYU, so I drove up to Roy to my Uncle's house. My Aunt had picked Chelsea and her daughter Heather up from the airport after their flight from Germany, where they were living at the time. Since Chelsea was living in Germany, it had been a while since we'd talked, and so we, like children, stayed up way too late giggling and talking at my Aunt's house in Roy before we headed up to Idaho the next day. Once we got to Idaho, I remember my Mom asking me a fairly straight-forward and simple question, one that shouldn't have been a big deal to answer but was so hard for my tired brain to process. I got a little snappy with her--and I hadn't ever been one to be snappy, especially at my mom. This was the first connection between sleep deprivation and grumpiness on my part.
This connection became even more apparent during that period of time where I had a 5 a.m. custodial job in college. Trying to get enough sleep was a huge struggle for me, and my lack of sleep carried negative consequences in all aspects of my life, so much, in fact, that it was a factor in my break-up with the guy I was dating at the time. In a conversation with me that led to our break-up, he brought up how he was concerned by how much sleep I needed. I struggled for months and years after that break-up. This was a problem that I didn't know how to fix--there would simply be times where it would be really hard to get enough sleep like having a babies and raising children. I worried that I wouldn't be able to find someone who could love me in spite of my sleep struggle. Thankfully, I did. (It helps me feel better that Brian acts like this if he goes too long without eating. Low blood sugar issues.)
I've beaten myself up over how much I sleep, especially during the times I was pregnant. I've felt so incredibly guilty about being too tired to get up to help send my kids off to school. Thankfully, Brian's job has been flexible enough that he has been able to do it, but I've been plagued with thoughts like, "What kind of lazy mom are you that you can't get out of bed for your kids?"
Oh yeah, and did I mention that I also struggle with insomnia?
When I got pneumonia in January (2019), this made me even more tired, and it took what seemed like no matter how much sleep I got, it was never enough. On tired days, my mind would start spiraling into a scary place, a place where I didn't look so great and where I started to think that this world really would be better without a grumpy, angry, lazy person like me. Things always looked better when I had enough sleep, but I hated how many days ended up with me spiraling into this dark place with these dark thoughts.
I felt less-than so much of the time, especially those nights where Brian had something at night, or in the morning, and I was with the kids all the time without another adult to help share the load. I had at least one of those nights a month due to Brian's release nights at work. I'd have to get up early enough to get kids to school, and I'd have the responsibility to do everything for them all day, including getting them to bed.
This is where my brain starts to hear all the sarcastic "Boo-hoo" comments from actual single moms, moms with deployed husbands, or moms whose husbands are constantly gone on business trips. I'm sitting here, imagining the eye rolls, the complete lack of sympathy even now, and I heard them when I was in the thick of my tired depression. It was yet another knife to stab myself with, another reason why I just wasn't good enough for this world. So if you are thinking those thoughts right now, I don't think you understand just how big of a problem this sleep thing has been for me. Imagine constantly feeling like you have let yourself and everyone around you down constantly, and no matter what you do, you can't keep yourself from having days where you feel like this. It's not pretty, and I hope you never experience it.
The week following our first Idaho trip in May, the one where we moved my parents back into their house, I was crazy tired and worn out. As I mentioned previously, we had a lot of late nights and early mornings. I regret nothing about how hard I pushed myself that week, but we started our week back home completely worn down. There was school, appointments, dance classes, piano lessons, and lots of things to catch up on. To top it all off, Brian had release night at work that Thursday. I got the kids to their schools, I picked up Rachel from Kindergarten. Then I picked up Michael from his school. Then I muddled through the rest of the afternoon. I fed the kids. I got them ready for bed. And as I was putting Michael in bed, our similar personalities had another clash, one of epic proportions. One that sent me into the worst downward spiral I've ever had. Brian came home from work to find me shut down in my chair, staring out the window, completely shut off from the world and wishing that I could just be dead. Afterall, everyone would be better off, right?
He forced me up and made me go for a walk with him. He didn't like the things he heard me say. The next morning, I knew something had to change, and I set up an appointment to go and see a doctor. Something a friend of mine had said about her thyroid made me think that I might have an issue with my thyroid, and I found out that the first step was to test my thyroid levels. A week later, I met with a doctor. They asked me questions, and they sent in an order to have my blood tested for a variety of things.
As we were heading up to Idaho for our second trip, the doctor's office had my lab results posted. My thyroid was fine, but my B-12 levels were way, way too low, and my Vitamin D levels were also dangerously low. I was driving, so Brian looked up information on what deficiencies of those two vitamins led to, and my world started to make sense and I felt so much hope. B-12 gives you energy, and if you're low on it, you just want to sleep--all the time. If you're low of Vitamin D, you get really depressed. The doctor prescribed some intense vitamins, and we picked them up in Idaho Falls on our way to my parents' house.
These two vitamins, as silly as it sounds, have saved my life. I still get tired, but I feel more like a normal, tired person instead of a psycho tired person. It's been a game-changer for me and for our family. The timing of this discovery was a huge blessing. I needed to have this figured out for what was coming.
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