Struggling to Sleep

Night often means rest. It used to mean the end of the day, the quiet moment when everything slowed down, but that hasn’t been my story for the last twenty years.  

I have always struggled with pain and sleeping. Back in my twenties, despite having medication from the doctors, I would self‑medicate with alcohol, but my drinking got out of control.  

Being sober now for fourteen years has meant that I’ve had to up my medication and find other coping mechanisms.

I listen to audiobooks. They are my escape. The voice becomes a steady companion as I drift off, lost in someone else’s story. Breathing techniques also help. I breathe God’s name until I find comfort and my mind surrenders. Finally, if that doesn’t help, I play the alphabet game, working through names, places, and animals through all twenty‑six letters as I hope that my body will cooperate this time.  

That’s not recently been the case.

Every night begins the same way. Hannah helps me settle. Cushions, bolsters, and plush are placed around me so my legs are supported. It looks simple, but it’s a system we’ve worked out. Each item has a purpose. Each position is calculated. The goal is comfort, although comfort rarely comes. Without these, my body fights. Muscles twitch. Joints lock. Legs move just enough that any adjustment attempted increases pain rather than relieving it. Pain reminds me that rest is not guaranteed.

When that happens my coping mechanisms fail. I lie awake enough to notice every sentence of my book. My breathing, instead of pushing me into sleep, becomes a coping mechanism for the anxiety that runs through me, knowing I won’t be sleeping tonight. The techniques don’t work. I’m not drifting. I’m surviving the night.

Then there are those moments of a physical and emotional whiplash. The times when I do fall asleep, dream able-bodied dreams, and wake up to a body trapped in inaction, unable to move without help. That's so unsettling that falling back to sleep after is impossible. 

Sleep is not refusal. It is resistance. My body resists the idea of stillness. The muscles that hold me together are too weak to relax. They tighten instead. The irony is that exhaustion doesn’t lead to rest. It leads to more tension. The body that cannot move cannot release. I lie there, half‑awake, half‑waiting, knowing that movement will bring pain and stillness will bring more of it.

The mental toll is harder to describe. It’s not just tiredness. It’s depletion. It seeps into thought and emotion. It makes concentration harder, patience shorter, and everything heavier. Even faith feels quieter. I still pray, although the words are slower as they become pleas for endurance and peace. Sometimes I simply say, “I’m still here.” That is enough.

Sleep deprivation changes the body. It slows recovery, amplifies pain, makes joints feel heavier, and turns small tasks into obstacles. The morning after is not a fresh start, but a continuation. The body doesn’t reset. It carries the night into the day. Tired, aching, and planning when I can rest before the day ends.

There is a loneliness in the night that is difficult to explain. The world outside is silent. Everyone else sleeps. The house feels suspended in time. I hear the audiobook, the faint noise of Hannah sleeping next to me. I count the hours, wait for Hannah to stir, and the day begins again. It’s not like I can wake her for a night‑time chat. That would be cruel. The night isolates. It turns the body into a private world that nobody else can enter.

Rest is not a position. It’s a state the body allows. Mine rarely does. Even when I take bed rest in the morning or afternoon, it’s not rest in the true sense. It’s recovery, maintenance, and the pause that lets me continue later. I’m still moving, even when I am still. Muscles twitch. Pain pulses. The body never stops working.

Acceptance helps. I have learned that fighting sleeplessness only makes it worse. I cannot force rest. I can only create the conditions for it and hope my body agrees. Some nights it does. I have a bedtime routine, use my mechanisms, and I drift off. Other nights I don’t. I have learned to take what I can. A few hours here, a short nap there, and enjoy the small victories.

There is a theological truth hidden in this. Rest is not earned. It’s given. Scripture speaks of rest as grace, not achievement. “Come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest.” It’s not about sleep, but being held, knowing that even when the body refuses peace, the soul can still find it. Sleep anxiety sometimes challenges that peace, although I believe it exists. It’s the quiet assurance that I am not forgotten in the hours nobody sees.

Morning comes eventually. The light through the curtains feels both relief and reminder. I made it through another night. The body is heavy, the mind slower, but I am still here. I start again. I recover. I prepare for the next night.

Sleep may never come easily again, but endurance does. That’s the rhythm of my life now. The balance between movement and stillness, exhaustion and persistence, pain and peace. The night is not my enemy. It’s simply the space where I learn, again and again, what it means to keep living when the body will not rest.