Childhood Insomnia Resulting from Stress

 

Growing up in an environment with a borderline personality mother and a malignantly narcissistic Dad compounded by a period of simultaneous major-life-stessors (moving, death of grandmother, death of grandfather, parental divorce, parents remarrying), I developed several symptoms of stress. Insomnia was one of the resulting symptoms, which when your sense of safety and trust are shattered, having difficulty falling asleep is a normal reaction to abnormal events.

Part of the stressful environment was my very controlling BPD mother. She controlled what we wore: picking up and purchasing our clothing (not giving us a say) as well a laying out our clothes on the bed every day. She controlled what we ate and having us clean our plates or sit at the table until we did. A couple of times, I vomited in my food, only to be given more. She controlled our bathing, even washing our hair at the kitchen sink until we were middle school age which became very embarrassing when friends dropped by-- lying on the counter with my head in the sink and my mother scrubbing my head. She even controlled our bed time and awake time with early bed times and late awake times.And once we were put to bed, we were to remain in our rooms until a set time.

I developed insomnia around 9 years old; however, up to that age, I had years of being put to bed so early that I would stand at my window and watch the children play outside ... and then sit in bed and sing to entertain myself. I remember hearing my mother and Dad watch TV, and I could smell the aroma of freshly popped popcorn wind its way through my room. I also can remember hearing them go to bed and thinking I should be asleep by now. My bed-time didn't have anything to do with my schedule, sleep requirements, or body clock. My bed-time was based on the need for my parents to have alone time from the kids.

My awake-time also didn't have anything to do with my schedule, sleep requirements, or body clock. I woke earlier than my mother allowed my brother and me out of our rooms, so I would sit in my bed and count pennies, listen to the am-radio, or use my hands as puppets. All of our toys and books were in the play-room so we didn't have those things to occupy us . My brother would be awake in his room, and I would be awake in my room, and we were not allowed to play with each other. So we waited for the time we were allowed to leave our bedrooms. I had a small clock to keep an eye on the time so I knew when we were allowed out of our rooms.

At times, my mother refused to get out of bed and she would lock herself in her room. She would stay all day  in that dark room. During these times, my Dad would take care of us in between going to work. He would call from work to make sure that my mother got out of bed after he left us in the play-room while she was still sleeping.

From 1976 to 1977, I said goodbye to my friends when we moved to a new home in a new school district. I started new a new and shortly thereafter I lost my grandmother to a stroke. My mother had become very angry and lashed out at us. Notably that Easter, we were told we were ungrateful and selfish because we were upset that Easter bunny didn't come when she was still mourning the loss of her mother a month earlier. She tossed Easter tee-shirts at us as we stood in the dining room. My childhood ended at this point, and I knew my world had completely changed.

After my grandmother's death, my grandfather lived with us, and my mother was very cruel to him. Ultimately she kicked him out of our house for very petty incidents (crumbs on the counter, urinating on the toilet seat) and wrote him a scathing and scarring letter. She used my brother and me to hurt him more by not allowing us to mail him letters after he moved. I felt tremendous guilt about this. A year later he died, my mother had an affair with my Dad's best friend, and my parents divorced. The divorce was nasty, traumatic for us kids, and lengthy. Safety and trust had been shattered...

Now back to the onset of insomnia: I can remember the EXACT night that the insomnia started in 1977 when I was 9 years old. Most anxious children do not have a specific event that triggered their anxiety, but some do. Certainly some situations can be anxiety producing, especially those that disrupt the child's sense of structure and order in their world (parental divorce, deaths in the family, trauma, moves) WorryWiseKids.org

We had moved to the new house, I had started the new school, and my grandmother had died. One night my parents said goodnight to me as usual, and I didn't fall asleep. I started to feel sweaty and clammy. I heard the AC turn on ... and then off ... and then it come back on ... and then it turned back off... clearly communicating to me the passing of time. Then I could hear my parents walk past my bedroom to go to bed. The lights went off in the hallway and the house was quiet. Time kept passing and I didn't fall asleep. I started to get anxiety ridden and I cried hoping that one of my parents would come check on me-- but neither did. I called out for my parents.

What resulted from here was a long period of time where I didn't sleep. But what was worse than not sleeping was the dread from the moment I woke-up until the the next bed-time: the dread of having to go back to sleep and that frightening, traumatic, horrifying, anxiety-ridden feeling of being lonely, alone, and helpless to insomnia. I can't even describe the nauseating, deep-pitted, empty feeling when I couldn't sleep. I felt like I was the only child / person in the world that experienced this problem-- like I was the only person in the whole world that was wide awake in the middle of the dark and quiet night. I had no idea that other people have the same experience. 

  

Interestingly, I didn't feel sleep deprived. I wasn't sleepy during the day. I only had increasing anxiety about sleep. One night, our parents took us to meet Darth Vader at a local mall, and I was only fixated on the impending doom of bedtime. I also remember getting a doll as a gift and only associating the toy to the dreadful insomnia I was experiencing. I remember playing with friends during the day-time and only thinking of the terribly long night I just endured and the next night quickly approaching that I would have to endure again.

My parents didn't talk about the insomnia. My parents offered little comfort when I was upset and crying during the night. In fact, my mother didn't come to my room after the first night... my Dad did. And he really didn't have much to say other than he has to get up early in the morning for work. He suggested the counting sheep and playing a baseball game in my head ... and later he got permission from my mother to allow me to turn on the bedroom light and read Reader's Digest Condensed books (not any other book was allowed). I read through these books at lightning speed as I was up most nights to 4am and distinctively remember reading the series about Emily Pollifax.

Could the insomnia have been avoided? I believe so. If my parents had been more aware and subsequently more communicative and supportive about the changes in our family life (the move, leaving friends, changing of schools, death), I think some of the stress could have been eliminated. The way my family dealt with stress was to go to a movie (basically, to "deep six" the situation and not talk about it). But how could my parents have been more communicative and supportive about the changes in our family life when they are self-absorbed? And how could they have been more communicative and supportive about stress that they caused or contributed to? For example, if my mother had handled the death of her mother differently, acceptance of her passing would have been easier.  Rather than hiding in a dark room sedated, she could have set a different climate. Instead of attending a funeral for my grandmother, we were subjected to my mother's anger directed to my grandfather. 

And if the insomnia wasn't avoided, I think I could have worked through the sleepless nights with guidance from my parents. Perhaps I would have had a few sleepless nights but with having the comfort of alternatives (ie: watching TV, playing with toys, drawing and writing) and the comfort of knowing others have insomnia too, I would have been able to more effectively deal with the insomnia. Instead of feeling alone with parents ignoring my cries and calls and instead of my parents being angry at me for keeping them awake, I could have felt supported with the love of my parents.

I researched insomnia with children and found some wonderfully supportive parents on message boards. I love this mother's response to a mother who has a 9 year old with insomnia:  

My son has always been a difficult sleeper. We allow him to read in bed with a reading light so he doesn't keep his younger brother awake. I snuggle with him for at least 10 minutes and during this time we talk about his day and settle ourselves. When he was younger we used to do a breathing exercise to calm and focus him, nothing fancy just deep breathing in and out. From my experience having a set ritual each night is helpful. One thing we've done that's worked as well is having him listen to music with headphones. Keeping the room as dark as possible is also good with a light he can control like an LED reading light so he can either read or use it as a night light. Sometimes I also put him in a warm bath before bed or encourage him to take a shower.

Try to create an atmosphere of calm, when bed time becomes anxiety producing there is no way to sleep. And be sure to explain to him that there is nothing wrong with him, some people just have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. I came to the conclusion years ago that I just need less sleep than other people, my son is the same way. Lately things have been better, he's asleep pretty consistently by 10pm, but these things go in cycles. It sounds like this lack of sleep is distressing to him so I would avoid having him lay in bed waiting to fall asleep, that was always the worst for me as a kid and exacerbated my anxiety about sleep. 

Amen! Bravo! Oh how I wish I had parents that were thoughtful, patient, and flexible like this mother. Obviously my parents were not deficient simply with handling my insomnia. Insomnia was just a small part of the whole-- the whole being a childhood filled with dysfunction, toxicity, confusion, conditional love, and impatience that my parents created. 

Although the insomnia subsided, for decades I have carried that horrible sick feeling of being alone in a forever-long night. If my child ever develops an issue with sleeping (or any other for that matter), I will be completely supportive, understanding, and patient. I have been very comforting with my child during times of sleep pattern changes through the years, still feeling the effects of not having my parents' reassurance (security and safety) through childhood. To this day, my parents have no idea (nor do they care) how terrible that insomnia experience was to me... and how to this day, I can feel the after-effects.

Stress and External Pressures Amplify Personality Disorder Symptoms

Personality disorders exist on a continuum from mild (traits) to more severe (disorders) relative to how prevalent and to what extent the symptoms of the personality disorder are demonstrated. While people can live pretty normal lives with mild personality disorders (or more simply, personality traits), during times of increased stress or external pressures (work, family, a new relationship, etc.), the symptoms of the personality disorder magnify and can seriously interfere with emotional and psychological functioning. Those with a personality disorder possess several distinct psychological features including :

• disturbances in self-image
• inability to have successful interpersonal relationships
• inappropriate range of emotion
• misperceptions of themselves and the world
• difficulty possessing proper impulse control
  

Personality disorders are a group of disorders characterized by pathological trends in personality structure. In other words, on an ordinary day the individual can display a lack of good judgment or poor relationships, accompanied by little anxiety and no personal sense of distress. Imagine how this can intensify during times of stress and pressure? A personality disorder in itself is an inflexible and maladaptive pattern of behavior on an ordinary day; however, in times of increased stress or pressure, that inability to be flexible and adapt is further amplified.

The rigid and on-going patterns of thoughts and actions causes the individual with the personality disorder to become even more rigid and further spiral into dysfunctional, destructive, or delusional patterns of thoughts and actions. Due to the chronic use of inappropriate, stereotyped, and maladaptive coping mechanisms on an average day, increased stress and external pressures can cause even greater inappropriate and maladaptive reactions. These deeply ingrained and inflexible patterns of relating, perceiving and behaving are serious enough to cause distress or impaired functioning on a typical day-- imagine the result when increased stress or external pressure is present? Now imagine if that increased stress or external pressure is long-term?

My parents have personality disorders (mother= Borderline Personality Disorder; Dad = Narcissistic Personality Disorder). I have had periods of time with each that were copacetic and happy. However, their personalities became amplified, challenging to handle, and increasingly dysfunctional during times of increased stress or external pressure. Holidays, birthdays, and major life-changing events like graduations and weddings have also proven to be times when emotional and psychological functioning becomes further impaired; thus, conflict and challenges erupt and escalate.

Increased stress and external pressures directly correlate with flare-ups of my parents' personality disorders. Whether my mother is exhibiting unhealthy emotional and psychological functioning due to my Dad's business trips, parents passing, extramarital affairs and divorce, child leaving for college, or a child getting married -or- my Dad is exhibiting dysfunctional emotional and psychological function during the divorce (use of Parental Alienation Syndrome), retirement, child moving, or child having a baby, each parent became dysfunctional, delusional, and destructive at times. During major holidays and birthdays, their personality disorders flare-up and frequently conflicts, challenges, and maladaptive behaviors are exhibited Let's compare experiences with my parents against personality disorder psychological features listed above with a few examples:

Disturbances in self-image

When my mother gained weight from her illness, she stopped going out of the house (basically hermit-ed herself) saying that she doesn't recognize herself in the mirror, that she can't believe her husband stays with her because she's so ugly and fat, and degrading things about her body, hair, and face. She didn't do anything to assist with feeling better or losing weight, rather she spiraled into a junk food eating frenzy, obsessively online shopping, hording, and sleeping long periods.

My Dad's image is ingrained in his power, or the sense of power he believes he wields. When he retired, that control over others and the environment was decreased, and thus, he started treating his family like his former employees / clients. His self image is greatly rooted in his narcissistic viewpoints of himself, creating a larger than life persona of himself in his mind.

Inability to have successful interpersonal relationships

My mother is estranged from her sister, son, daughter, step-grandmother, and father. Further, she has a group of friends, and then after a period of time, she completely disconnects from that group and reforms a new group, from which she will later disconnect. When she disconnects, typically she has created a reason (imaginary) to be upset with the person, thus the group because she views them as loyal to the person and not her, and she retreats.

My Dad doesn't see his grandchildren from either his son (my brother) or daughter (me). He sends cards and occasionally presents but doesn't invest in formulating meaningful relationships with any of the 5 children. He does, however, have relationships with his two step-grandchildren.

Inappropriate range of emotion

This category is a BIG ONE in regard to my BPD mother. Her inappropriate range of emotion is brought-on predominately by her BPD's fear of abandonment and rejection: (1) when I was a child and my Dad would go on a business trip, prior to the trip my mother would lock herself in her room and cry about how he can't leave (2) when my mother's mother died, my mother locked herself in a dark room and took Valium. She didn't attend the funeral, which included not taking her two children to the funeral (my brother and me) . When my grandfather died, she didn't attend the funeral either-- nor when her grandmother died at 103 years old did she attend her funeral (3) during the divorce from my Dad, my mother was obsessed with hurting my Dad in court and otherwise, later claiming that **he left her ** since he was the one to walk away after she revealed her affair with his friend (4) when I left for college, she blew up when I returned to town and didn't spend time with her one weekend. She instructed me to not come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas then ultimately left all my possessions on the street. We were estranged for almost a half decade thereafter (5) When I announced my engagement, my mother became enraged and said she was out of my wedding (although my fiance and I hadn't even progressed into the planning stage yet!) when I didn't agree with her ideas of how to handle the extended families. We haven't spoken since.

My Dad's inappropriate range of emotion is avoidance (deep-sixing to avoid or controlling to avoid): (1) after my parents announced they were getting a divorce, my Dad took us to see a movie. My Dad continued to use this distraction technique when stressful situations arose. I always found this very strange that when a huge, life changing situation occurs, we go off to see some comedy at the movie theater-- surreal times. (2) My Dad retired around the time I became pregnant and my husband took a new position. My husband's new position paid higher but was approximately 15 minutes further from my Dad's house. My Dad didn't congratulate my husband but became upset and very critical causing a great deal of distension. He continues to gossip to friends / family about my husband's job change to this day. (3) When my newborn baby cried when my Dad held her, my Dad claimed she's not "normal". He carried on about this every time he saw her, exaggerating to friends / family that he hadn't held her since she was 3 months old... then 3 weeks old... then 3 days old.

Misperceptions of themselves and the world

My mother thinks she is the victim at all times. She also champions campaigns of denigration, is a crusader, and a conspiracy theorist trying to uncover the conspiracy. She has gotten high ranked executives fired, thought that my grandfather was murdered, thought that her father-in-law attempted to kill her mother-in-law, went after her sister in regard to the inheritance from their father, and battled my Dad in court for almost a decade. Additionally, she thinks she is socially engaging when she is actually socially inappropriate (vulgar, sexual, intrusive in nature).

My Dad is highly narcissistic and thus thinks he is much more important in situations and relationships than in reality. He loves when people need him (even if those people are actually using him) and loves to be the center of attention.

Difficulty possessing proper impulse control

This category is another big one in regard to my mother. Her actions and words illustrate her lack of impulse control, ranging back to when she was a young girl. She married her 1st husband to get out of living with her parent. She divorced husband #1 when I was a few months old after she had an affair with her high school sweetheart (his man adopted me and became my Dad). My mother had an affair with husband #2 (my Dad) with his best friend and subsequently divorced my Dad to marry husband #3. She jumped from one college to another, never finishing until her 30's. Also, she is a compulsive spender, buying all sorts of unnecessary items and hording. Additionally, she does not screen what she says causing some very awkward and embarrassing times for those around her (which she is clueless).

My Dad clearly exhibited impaired emotional and psychological functioning (controlling, manipulative, brain-washing, utilizing Parental Alienation Syndrome) during the divorce from my mother. The results of PAS have been long term and very damaging to my brother and me. Decades have passed and we are still sorting-out and coming to terms with what happened to us.

These personal examples are only a few and only superficial in detail. Looking back at my life when the distention arose, I can clearly see a pattern where my parents dysfunction was magnified when times were more stressful and with greater external pressure. Holidays and special events always seemed to be riddled with negativity, judgment, and criticism. Happy times often turned sour due to unexpected and sudden shifts in a parent's attitude, perception, or expectations. I remember so many times feeling crushed from wanting to please my parent but only being saddened by their reactions. Now I understand that their ways of handling stress and pressure was not a result of anything I did-- they are accountable and responsible for their actions and reactions. I also realize that if their personality disorders manifest in pathological trends on ordinary day, then the pathological trends are certainly amplified on stressful and pressure filled days / weeks / months-- so I know what to expect to an extent.

If you are involved with a person that has a personality disorder or trait, keep in mind that increased stress or external pressures can intensify the dysfunctional, already impaired behavior. Understanding that the pathological trends can be even further intensified gives you the ability to prepare yourself.