We've been on vacation in Colorado staying at a friends house. When I sleep in a strange place, I don't sleep as soundly as I do in the security of my own home. There is a part of my subconscious that must be on guard, while my body rests.
Last night, the kids decided to stay up late and watch movies so the tv was on all night. At one point during the night there must have been a yelling scene on the tv. I awoke with my heart pounding, scared to death. For a brief moment I was transported back in time. I could have sworn that I was a child again. It was the middle of the night and my parents were screaming at each other. I'm laying there straining to hear if the fight was going to escalate beyond a verbal match.
It didn't take but a second for me to realize that I was in the present, no longer a child, and safe. However, memories flooded my mind of the many nights when my sleep was violated. The nights when my father didn't come home before the bars closed and my mom would wake us to verbalize her fears "your dad is going to drive drunk, kill somebody, and we'll lose the house!". The nights that he did come home drunk and mean as a snake, you could hear them fighting and on the occasion it would get physical. Or the nights when I was older, the fight would escalate, mom would take off, leaving us behind. Our saving grace was the stairs... he was always too drunk to climb them. He would stand at the bottom of the stairs calling us whores and any other name he could utter. Too many nights of broken sleep to count...
Before I moved away, I had headaches from grinding my teeth from the stress. Jaw pain and taunt muscles were the norm. It took me years for my subconscious to trust that when I closed my eyes, snuggled next to my husband, that I wouldn't be woken up to chaos. Hard to believe that 18 years later I could be propelled back to that time. One more reason to sleep without the TV on.
Last night, the kids decided to stay up late and watch movies so the tv was on all night. At one point during the night there must have been a yelling scene on the tv. I awoke with my heart pounding, scared to death. For a brief moment I was transported back in time. I could have sworn that I was a child again. It was the middle of the night and my parents were screaming at each other. I'm laying there straining to hear if the fight was going to escalate beyond a verbal match.
It didn't take but a second for me to realize that I was in the present, no longer a child, and safe. However, memories flooded my mind of the many nights when my sleep was violated. The nights when my father didn't come home before the bars closed and my mom would wake us to verbalize her fears "your dad is going to drive drunk, kill somebody, and we'll lose the house!". The nights that he did come home drunk and mean as a snake, you could hear them fighting and on the occasion it would get physical. Or the nights when I was older, the fight would escalate, mom would take off, leaving us behind. Our saving grace was the stairs... he was always too drunk to climb them. He would stand at the bottom of the stairs calling us whores and any other name he could utter. Too many nights of broken sleep to count...
Before I moved away, I had headaches from grinding my teeth from the stress. Jaw pain and taunt muscles were the norm. It took me years for my subconscious to trust that when I closed my eyes, snuggled next to my husband, that I wouldn't be woken up to chaos. Hard to believe that 18 years later I could be propelled back to that time. One more reason to sleep without the TV on.
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