I had trouble sleeping last night. I was lying in bed and commanding myself to go to sleep. Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Instead my mind swirled with worry. Swirled with uneasiness about the future. Swirled with imagined “what if” scenarios. None of the “what ifs” were ever good…all bad. All stressful. I felt a lot of anxiety. Then I did fall asleep and would wake up and something would trigger another anxious thought again. I still don’t know why last night caused this or what the root of the issue was…Was it just an isolated sleepless night of worrying or did it mean more than that?

But in the midst of it all I was trying to just lay there and calm myself into a relaxed state instead of the wide awake and stressful state my body felt like. I laid on my back, I put my hands on my stomach and pretended one of my hands was someone else as they held each other, and I envisioned Mom. I envisioned her saying “everything will be okay; everything will be okay.” As I did this, I seemed to move into a more relaxed state. Eventually my mind stopped racing and I drifted off to sleep.
It was a frustrating night to say the least…especially being a Sunday night. I am a little tired today but not as tired as I should be based on the low amounts of sleep I got last night. But the thing I found most interesting in all of it was that at 28, the thought of Mom, my Mom, being there with me calmed me down…in the same way it would have if I was a little kid. And in those moments when I was thinking of Mom, I wasn’t thinking of Mom who has MS, I was just thinking of Mom. This was something MS couldn’t impact because it can’t. It can’t impact the feeling I get from the comfort of feeling or envisioning the presence of my Mom.

Do you ever have trouble sleeping because your mind won’t stop racing? Does it ever happen to you more on a Sunday night with a looming new week ahead? What calms you down or relaxes you? How was your weekend?