Just a call out for those who DO read my blog to keep me in your prayers. For those of you more familiar with my struggles, sleep has been an issue for the past year. I'm still currently taking sleeping pills which I have been trying to get off of for months and months without success. Problem is, I can get to sleep, but only ever sleep 4-5 hours a night. Not really enough. Now, with the addition of shift work, I am not only terrified of the consequences- I'm already realizing them. On night shifts we have 2-3 hours to sleep. I used to sleep no problem. Now I can't. I just lie there, completely exhausted. I was up for over 24 hours for my shift last night and didn't get a bit of sleep. After work I came home and was able to sleep my typical 4.5 hours but it just never feels like enough. I've seen a naturopath which so far hasn't seemed to help and every trip to my doctor ends up with the same message "sleeping pills are fine," "here's another prescription." Everything I read says that sleeping pills should be used for 2 weeks max. I've been on them for over 8/9 months and still I only sleep for 4-5 hours a night and cannot, for the life of me, get off of them.
I don't want to just complain. But I'm looking for a bit of hope- and well, your prayers.
Pray for me to get off these pills and get a natural rest.
Pray for me to be able to have the courage to go days of having rebound insomnia from withdrawal from the pills if necessary.
Pray my sleep would come back so I won't just go running back to pills.
Pray for perseverance and endurance.
Some days I'm barely coping, barely keeping hope that it will ever be different. Maybe this is my new normal but I refuse to believe it is. How can it be? There's no way I can go on with my sleep like this but I don't know where else to turn.
Wow. Depressing. I'm sure you're all sick of hearing all about this. But I guess this is what real life problems are: often ongoing, often without clear answers, and if you want to walk with me through this, that'd be great.
I wish I could lend you this book on healing... christian healing... and know you'd be open to it, it's not crazy..and it sure helped me thru my issues... of my throat and issues that made me think i was dying... Made hope a reality for me. If you were open to it, i'd lend it to you but i can't give it away as it's a prop for the company I work for.
ReplyDeleteWill continue to pray.
ReplyDeleteI'm praying for you. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.
ReplyDeleteShannon, I am so sorry to hear that this continues to be a struggle for you. We will keep you in our prayers. Long distance hug to you from India!
ReplyDeletePraying! That's gotta be so crazily hard... Definitely keeping you in prayers Shannon!
ReplyDeleteShannon, will be praying! Personally I'm not tired of hearing this. Sleep is so crucial... for everything! Not having enough.. well..it's serious!
ReplyDeleteI don't know what denomination you go to but maybe you could ask the elders to pray over you. Or find some committed believers to pray consistently for you.
Sorry I haven't called you by the way.. I keep having something come up and don't get around to it. Thank you for your willingness to help me though!
Shannon, I just re-found your blog off of a link from the stats page for mine! :p
ReplyDeleteI have not had insomnia to the same degree as you have had. I have experienced it a bit though and one thing I realized in the midst of it was that my heart was putting its hope in sleep more than God's ability to sustain me through each day. I found that when I was able to acknowledge that and surrender each day's energy needs to God, my sleep did slowly start to improve. I'm not saying that this is the same for you, but maybe you could ask God what it is that is keeping you anxious at night?
I will be praying for you, friend!