Sensorimotor Psychotherapy & Sleep

Wednesday night was a rough night, and on Thursday night, when I felt myself begin to get anxious, and struggle to think, I emailed Bea. I told her I was just checking she was there, and she responded quickly, that yes, she was there. We ended up discussing the bad night, and she suggested that one option to try to get some relief from all of this uncomfortably somatic stuff would be to try SP. I responded with a maybe, and Monday morning when I arrived at Bea’s office, I felt okay with this idea of trying SP. 

After a brief discussion with Bea double checking that I felt okay with doing SP, she asked me to talk about what I do to get ready for bed. 

“I don’t know. I just…well you know. Didn’t we talk about this already?” I ask her. 

“Yes, we did, last week. I thought that might be a good starting place, though, so you can get into the headspace of what is is like for you at night.” She explained. 

“Okay,” I nodded, and then I took her through Kat’s bedtime routine and how I put off going to bed. 

And then it all fell apart. She asked me to stop telling the story of getting ready for bed and to check in with what was coming up now. Adult me was okay with that, maybe even a little bit curious about this whole process of SP. The little girl through, she was hurt. She had thought she was going to get to talk about the flashbacks and nightmares, the memories and feelings that keep coming up. She wasn’t even sure she could tell it, but she had thought that was the idea behind discussing bedtime. From that point forward, I struggled to be present, to talk to Bea, to even hear her. I vacillated between wanting to try to follow the rules of SP, and just trying not to cry because my feelings were hurt. Bea remarked that she could tell I was having trouble staying present, and she talked about what kinds of words might describe things we notice when we check in. She also shared that I might not notice or be able to label anything, and that was okay. At some point, she suggested that maybe the work today was trying to stay here and sit with whatever was coming up.

I’m pretty sure a decent chunk of time went by, with me not talking. Maybe a half hour, maybe more. This used to be the norm in my sessions, but now I talk, or try to talk, or give Bea my not book. I don’t usually flat out stop communicating. I remember Bea asking me if I could feel what I feel at night time, at bedtime, or of it was more that I know what I feel at bedtime, so I was thinking about it, but those feelings weren’t present at this moment. I shrugged. I was too far away to feel anything. She persisted, though, and I eventually snapped at her that I had to go far away so that I wouldn’t have to feel like that again. I didn’t want to feel those scary feelings, and as long as I could stop them, I would. 

Bea seemed pleased with this information, and shared that she felt that information was important. I might have discussed this with her, more, I’m not sure. I honestly don’t remember much of that session. Towards the end, she asked me what I had thought, how the session had felt for me. I shrugged, unable to speak. Bea said she felt like we had gotten some important information. She talked about now this is a typical SP session, how the beginning of it works. She explained we would typically discuss what was happening in the present moment, what was coming up, and then there would be an experiment to help process what had come up, or some kind of resourcing, or whatever and those things were typically some sort of movement. 

I remember telling her that I wasn’t sure, I didn’t know, that I needed to sort my thoughts. She said okay, and gave me space, and I rushed to pack my things and leave. I didn’t want to be there anymore. 

It took me until Tuesday late afternoon to fully sort my thoughts, and even then, they weren’t extremely coherent or well organized. 

Bea,

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, a lot of thought sorting. I wanted to email yesterday or earlier today, but I just didn’t have things sorted enough in my own mind to put ideas and thoughts into sentences and onto paper. I’m honestly still not sure I have anything sorted. I did a lot of writing in my notebook, and a took a few walks with no music and no audiobook– just my own thoughts. Which I don’t really do lately. I more or less try to avoid thoughts and feelings as much as possible these days. 

Anyway. There’s so many parts with so many different feelings around SP that it’s overwhelming and confusing and I end up unsure what I really think or feel, almost as if there are too many conflicting thoughts and feelings for any of them to be “real” or “right” or “true”. It’s really hard to sort that out, and to try to make sense of any of of it. 

I can see where talking about going to bed, and the feelings or thoughts that go with that, and then stopping talking about that and seeing what is happening right then, right in the moment during therapy and talking about that present moment makes sense. I can see where it might help, or at least where it won’t hurt, or make things worse. But that is all grown up, logical Alice. If I am logical about it, it makes sense, it’s a good idea, it could be very helpful. (And, having an ah-ha! moment…..maybe, because SP only makes sense to me in this very cognitive, logical way, maybe that is partly why I always believe you to be more in the thinking part of your brain and not feeling…..) The thing is though, feeling wise……intuitively wise…..I don’t know what word I’m looking for….I just, I know in my head that SP is a good thing, but the rest of me, everything in me is screaming “No way. Just no. This is not an okay thing, I do not like this. Just no. No.” 

Maybe it’s because I spend so much time working to not feel the things SP asks you to let in (small piece of those feelings, or not, it’s still feelings I work so hard to avoid and now I’m supposed to let them in. Do you get how absolutely terrifying that is?), or maybe it’s because my automatic defense is to go far away, and with SP I’m not supposed to go so far. I mean, that’s really just SP butting right up against the very thing that makes me feel safe. 

Maybe it’s because the little girl feels disconnected from you anytime SP is brought up. I wrote a lot from her perspective, because it really does seem to be the little girl who isn’t okay with SP. There’s a teen part in the mix too, but I’m not sure where she stands. Maybe she doesn’t know. I do think she is there to keep the little girl safe. I think she’s still angry about things changing? I don’t know. ugh. 

So. I’m not sure where that leaves us. Because grown up me is willing to try SP, and wants it to work because I am tired. I’m tired like I need to sleep, but I’m also tired like tired of being scared every night, tired of panic attacks before bed, tired of nightmares and pictures in my head that play on a loop and feelings I can’t get rid of. I’m tired of all of it. Of course, body stuff scares me, and it does make me want to go far away, because I don’t want feel those things, but I want to try. I don’t want to give up after the first *real* try. But clearly, the little girl is not on the same page. She wants nothing to do with SP or body stuff. Nothing at all. Everything in her is saying not okay, not happening. 

So where does that leave me? Because I’m conflicted and confused and while I’ve at least separated things out a bit, it’s really all twisted up inside me, and I feel like I can’t make sense of it, like I don’t have a clue as to what I want. Ugh. This is really frustrating for me. Normally, I’d probably try to push the little girl’s thoughts aside and just follow what the grown up me thinks, because that’s what seems “right, or appropriate” or something, but we agreed I was going to try to speak up before things fall apart like they did in December, so I’m trying that. But it is a very vulnerable and nerve wracking feeling to do so. 

Okay. I think that’s all. I really have this urge to apologize for being difficult and frustrating, so instead I’m going to say thank you for understanding my craziness and putting up with me being difficult; I know you are only offering SP to help me, and I do appreciate that. 

Alice 

Alice, 

I think we need to address the little girl’s perspective tomorrow. That seems like a good place to start. I also wonder what it feels like to have the narrative cut off when we try SP? Because it’s all process and “what’s happening right now,” and it ignores the story being told on purpose. The story is just the access point to the “right now.” Being cut off from the story seems like it could bring a sense of abandonment, so I’m curious if you have any sense of that.

It sure didn’t feel thinky to me Monday–I was really caught up in the process and trying to find a way to help you stay present and access stuff. And your explanation about going away when you started to feel the caffeinated feeling was just perfect! That’s exactly what we’re looking for.

We’ll talk tomorrow!

Bea

Sleep, sleep, and more sleep

Ever since we worked through this last rupture and began to deal with the falling apart, out of control mess that was December me, we have been very focused on sleep. It started when I emailed Bea, telling her I felt a bit more like I had been able to put all the crap away, maybe into a suitcase, and it wasn’t gone, but it wasn’t really with me, either, and I could open the suitcase when I was journaling or in her office and so I was okay during the day, that the bad thing was at night, I couldn’t keep the suitcase shut, it just pops open and I have no control over it, so I can’t sleep because I have to keep the suitcase shut and stop anyone who might open it. 

So, 4 sessions ago, on a Monday, Bea asked, “Can we talk about sleep? Because I think we could do some work around this, maybe see if we can’t make it not so scary to go to bed.”

I nodded, sure, okay. “I guess so. We can try.” I wasn’t sure I really believed we could *fix* my sleep, but I was willing to try. 

“Can you talk about what your bedtime routine is like? Do you have a routine? Or even what your evenings usually look like?” She asked. 

I shrugged, and proceeded to describe how Kat has quiet time, watching a show and snuggling with me. After that, usually around 8, she gets her pajamas on, brushes teeth and we put anything in her room that needs to be there, like pacifier (yes, my 6 year old still uses a pacifier, please don’t judge me. She needs it, it is a sensory thing associated with her autism, and we are working on not using it any longer, but by nighttime, she needs it), or her iPad to plug in, or her current favorite stuffed animal. Then we put on a short yoga video, do a bed time meditation, and then I tuck her into bed, sing a song, do one more bedtime mediation, put on her audio book, and kiss her goodnight. By this time, it’s usually 9:00pm. I clean up, pack lunches, do whatever needs doing. And then I start to find things to do in order to put off going to bed. And then when I go to my bedroom, I won’t lay down, and I won’t turn out the lights. I will sit up, in a brightly lit room, and avoid bed and falling asleep. 

“So then what happens when you do try to fall asleep?” She wanted to know. 

I shrugged. I didn’t have a great answer. “I don’t try. I try not to. I don’t know. I can’t lay down. I mean, I can’t like, lay down and try to fall asleep. I just stay sitting up. And read. Or listen to a book. Or watch a movie. And I fight falling asleep. Until I can’t anymore. Then I just……I don’t know. I guess then I finally fall asleep.” 

“Do you feel less safe when you lay down?” I remember her asking this gently, trying hard not to upset me. 

I nodded my head at first, and then told her, “It just….it triggers things. Pictures. Feelings. I don’t know. It is triggering to lay down right now.” 

She mentioned that I lay down when I do yoga, but I shook my head. I may twist myself into pigeon, and then take the form of sleepy pigeon, or do an up dog as I move through sun salutations, but never do I lay down on my back. I just skip those asanas in class and take a different pose, and at home, my flows just avoid it. Savasana is done in child’s pose, and it took me a long time to even feel somewhat okay with child’s pose. I used to take savasana sitting up, in hero pose, so child’s pose is improvement of a sort. I tried to explain this to Bea, but my words got twisted up, and it didn’t make sense when I spoke out loud. So I simply said I didn’t know. 

Three sessions ago, on a Wednesday, Bea asked me if I felt okay continuing to talk about sleep, or if there was anything else I wanted to discuss. I didn’t have anything else, sleep and flashbacks and nightmares had become my new normal and I was fine with talking about and trying to mitigate the flashbacks and terrifying dreams. 

I’d written to Bea on Tuesday, upset that I never got the chance to be *normal*. I said that all I ever remember was being afraid of the dark, of wanting to hide under blankets or in my closet, of being afraid to sleep. I said all I remember is having bad dreams and being scared and alone. I said it was like that now, when I go to bed. 

“When you go to bed, and you fall asleep, or lie down and have a flashback, what is that like?” She asked me, after reading back over my email. 

“I…..Its like I can’t move. I get trapped there.” I told her. 

“Do you feel frozen?” Bea suggested, and she wasn’t wrong to suggest that, because frozen tends to be a common state for me. 

“No, not like that…..like……a child, afraid to get out of their bed in the middle of the night. More like, because it’s night so it’s sort of scary, but also, my mother had rules about getting up and getting out of bed. Until I was 5, she had to come get me out of bed in the mornings, because she had drilled that rule into me so well.” I explained as well as I could. 

Bea hesitated then, but she eventually asked me if it was the same when Kenny would put me to bed. 

I remember feeling extremely foggy, and not wanting to feel anything while I talked. “No..I…he would put me to bed and sometimes, right away…..he’d, well, you know, rub my back, sing a song, I don’t know…..and then….he’d stay in my room and bad things would happen.” As much as I didn’t want to feel anything, fear and shame and disgust still lurked around the edges of feeling. 

Bea murmured something validating and understanding and it seems it was the exact right thing to say, because I continued on with the story. “Sometimes though, he would put me to bed and then leave. And he might come back. And he might not. And I never knew. I couldn’t know. So I just stayed awake and waited. And waited. And I was trapped and stuck and couldn’t do anything!” I remember sort of shouting the last sentence at her, but Bea never gets upset by that type of thing. 

“That was hard,” she told me, “Really scary and really hard. Worse in someways, to just be waiting, not knowing.”

I nodded. Exactly. And then, in a very tiny voice, I said to her, “I wanted and didn’t want him to come back. It’s confusing.” I felt so much shame when I told her that.

There wasn’t any judgement in her voice, though. “Of course you did. That’s what we talk about, how bodies respond, and how these things can get very complicated, because our bodies are made to feel good.” 

I remember physically shrinking away from her words. “I’m disgusting.” I whispered. 

“No, I don’t think so. Not at all. Bodies reacting, that’s part of the confusing part, but it’s also part of that touch being too much for a little girl. You never should have been touched in that way when you were little. You were a child. You weren’t disgusting, you weren’t bad. That is all on him. And that’s when you went away, right? You went away because it was too much, too confusing to handle?”

I nodded, I agreed with her. She continued then, when I didn’t say anything, “You protected yourself in the best way you could. That little girl was very smart, and very brave.” 

I shrugged, and I felt even blurrier. “I went far away to the place in my head. That was different than here not here.” 

“Yes,” Bea asked, “Did you create a place you could go and feel safe? Did you have a place you imagined?” 

I remembered sort of day dreaming as I tried to fall asleep, but I don’t share that. They were always dreams of my Sunday school teacher or regular school teacher or my favorite aunt taking me home and letting me live with them. I desperately wanted to live in a place with no secrets. Instead, I opted to share something else. “Maybe a place from my book…..”

“Ahhh, yes. Books were very important to you, weren’t they?” Bea remembered. I learned to read really early, before school, even, so by first and second grade, I was reading chapter books. “Was there a certain book you pictured places from?” 

“Maybe the secret garden?” It came out as a question, but I had meant it a statement. It was just difficult to share that part of my story. I’d never before shared how I used the garden Mary finds and creates to feel safe. It made me feel vulnerable, like Bea could see through me and see all my secrets. 

“Oh, that is a good one. I didn’t read the book, but I imagine the garden was beautiful.” 

I didn’t respond right away, and then I told her, “You should read it, it is a really good book. It was one of my favorites, I read it all the time.” 

We discussed the storyline, but I didn’t remember much of it. It’s hard to recall facts, when the last time I read the book I was probably 10 or 11. 

“What does the garden look like, when you picture it?” Bea had wanted to know. 

At first, it felt too embarrassing to say anything. I cant explain why. I just get embarrassed when asked to share things from my imagination. I finally described how the garden is a secret, so no one can find it or even knows about it, and then I described the weeping willow tree with a bench under it, and how I liked the tree because it sort of hides a person who sits on the bench, and I shared how there are purple flowers on vines that climb every where (morning glories, Bea supplied the name) and pink roses, and other flowers, too, lavender, and ones I don’t know the name of. 

Bea told me it sounded wonderful and very safe. “I think this book could be a resource for you. Maybe you could read some before bed, see if it can help?” 

Before we ended therapy that day, Bea carefully broached the subject of trying some SP around my sleep issues. She told me she felt like SP was the perfect thing for the sleep troubles, because they were so much more than a memory, the sleep issues are happening right now, in my present day life, and they involve feelings and thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. She was very careful in the way she suggested it, making sure to stress that SP was just an option, not something we had to do. I agreed to think about it. 

During my session, I had shrugged off her suggestion of reading The Secret Garden at the time, but when I got home that night, I found a copy of the book on kindle with the audible companion, and downloaded it. I’ve been listening to the story at night, when I am trying to fall asleep. So far, it’s not helped, but it’s only been three nights that I have tried it.