“Surrender is not about giving up, it is about wanting to give up the illusion of control.” ~Judith Orloff
Watching my mother lose her memory while I was lost felt like a cruel preview of my future – until I realized that stress is not genetic, it is writing my story.
It was 3:47 a.m. – again. I woke up at 2:13 and before that I slept for about ten minutes.
This has been my example for many years: waking up suddenly, checking the clock there offended.
Wake up again, check the clock, check the day before and plan for the next day.
But tonight is different. Tonight, sleeping in the dark, I have an idea that makes my heart panic: What if I do not sleep anymore? Sleep is important for mental health and I will end up with dementia.
My mother had dementia at the age of seventy. And here I am in my fifties, in the postmenopausal phase, forgetting the words and names I use every day.
Insomnia does not start overnight. It came in gradually. Start with sleep disturbances from newborn care, then difficulty sleeping during menopause.
Stress hormones drove my day to work in a busy clinic and feed my family. When night came, I was completely wired.
By the time I was fifty, I was managing to get twenty minutes of sleep a night. I forgot about the feeling of wanting to relax.
I tried to change my diet and eat natural sleep supplements. I saw a sleep specialist and tried different medications. Cognitive behavioral therapy and hormone therapy are of little use.
As time went on, I could not recognize the faces of my neighbors. Sometimes my family name is hard to remember and I lose my focus in the middle of a major presentation.
With insomnia and anxiety about losing my memory, I am looking at my partner and finding myself lost in a phase of anger. I can not see the way out.
And then my mother was diagnosed with dementia.
We have been separated for almost twenty years. I got the news of her illness by phone from a worried neighbor on the other side of the country.
Mom lost memory. And I was afraid of losing myself.
Management is not my choice. It is something I have inherited.
When I was young, being around my mother felt like walking on an eggshell. She is a single mother and her mental health is so uncertain that she manages everything and everyone to do it throughout her day.
I have learned that when things feel unstable or beyond my control, control can give me some sense of stability and energy.
So when the mood changed and the sleepless nights began to accumulate, along with my mother’s diagnosis and fears about my memory, I did what I always did. I managed.
I made a list for everything. I told my family clearly how to do it and complained and blamed when they did not do it my way.
I maintained a strict daily routine and lost all flexibility. If I could just keep all the people where I needed them to do everything I needed them to do, I could feel safe enough. Maybe I will sleep again and everything will be fine.
But I never asked myself Does this really work? Do I feel more stable? Do I sleep well? I never ask if this brings me closer to the people I love.
This control is on autopilot, which is completely under my understanding.
And it’s tired. Not just physically, though drowsiness is declining – but emotionally.
Management creates distance. When you are busy managing the lives of others, you cannot be present for yourself.
I remember the night I yelled at my children because they needed help with household chores, one crying and the other shut up. I just have nothing left to give them. I could not control how they learned in school, and I was overwhelmed and frustrated. And I heard myself yelling at them the way my mother used to yell at me – the same words, the same voice, the same anger.
This is heartbreaking.
At the same time, I have to take care of my mother on the other side of the country, the woman who taught me this pattern from the beginning. The woman I distanced from my adult life.
I remember vividly when I realized that conscience was not just something I did in my yoga class. It’s the lifeline I was looking for.
I was advised to attend stress reduction classes based on thinking as a way to support my clients. One of the first exercises is to notice what happened while you were sleeping in silence and scan your body.
It is exciting to be silent. I must “do”! Fortunately, the container of this app is a safe place for me to explore this model, and I have learned to notice and empathize with myself for busy and do-it-yourself needs.
Several weeks later we were given an exercise to notice how we automatically react to stressful situations in our daily lives. I have found a bright example of management.
When things feel a little difficult for me, I will prepare everyone and everything to make me feel safe. I realized that I learned how to deal with this as a child and did not think it would be useful. I just continue to use this counter-strategy on a regular basis.
When I find myself yelling at my children about something unreasonable, such as needing help with their chores, I realize that management no longer serves me.
I’m ready to leave it at that and learn more useful tools.
When I give up seeing my insomnia as a catastrophic problem, I have to manage my sleep much better. My body finally remembered that it was safe to sleep.
My memory is also recovering. I still forget some things sometimes and I probably always do. Not because I have dementia, but because I am human.
When I notice a drop in my memory, it is just a sign that I am overdoing it. I will not go back. I do not destroy every forgotten word or memory.
My fear of losing my memory is more damaging than my actual memory problems. And when I stopped feeding that fear with insomnia at night and made mistakes in the way I was dealing with stress, the mental space opened up.
The first time I sat with my mother and she did not know who I was, something unexpected happened. Instead of being hurt or angry, I just felt’s present.
I could see she was confused, disappointed. Do your best with what she has like I did.
We both have been running the same program – manage what you can do, stay alert and keep going. She learned it, passed it to me, and now we both lose control in different ways.
The difference is that I have the privilege of sacrificing my conscience and trying to live my life with a presence and compassion for myself.
It makes no sense to recall the past or have some big conversations about our relationship. I just need to be here now with her as much as I can.
And somehow that was enough.
Here is what I learned:
1. Management is fear by wearing the mask of authority.
When I am trying to control everything and everyone, I think I am responsible, active and caring. I’m really scared.
And management has kept me from one of the things I value most: the connection – to myself, the person I care about the most and to this day.
2. Our bodies do not know the difference between a real threat and a perceived threat.
My nervous system was in a constant survival mode – not because I was in danger, but because I believed I could be.
Learning to control my nervous system is not about positive thinking or willpower. It was about seeing a model that no longer served me and consciously deciding to let it go so I could teach my body to be safe.
3. You can not criticize yourself for healing.
Every cruel judgment I place on myself for being irritable, losing my temper, blaming others, or trying to control others just adds to the stress. Compassion – a deep compassion for my tired self – is what allows change to happen.
4. Patterns are crossed, but we can choose differently.
My mother taught me to control because it helped him feel safe. I’m not angry about that anymore.
But I also do not have to keep it. It is not mine. Understanding where the pattern came from does not mean I’m stuck with it.
I can respect what I have learned while choosing something different.
5. We can not control the results, but we can choose how we meet every time.
I can not guarantee that I will not develop dementia. I could not get myself to sleep well every night.
But I can be here now with those I care so much about. I miss those decades so much worrying about the future.
I refuse to miss it anymore.
Last week I woke up looking at the clock and it was 3:47 am, the old custom.
But instead of lying there, doing a catalog of fears and making a list of how I would fix everything, I just noticed my breath. Feel the weight of the blanket. ឮ My partner breathes next to me.
And I fell asleep again.
That’s what I got: Imperfect sleep, imperfect memory, not a perfectly cured relationship with my mother before she went through. But capacity here with it all.
Without the weight of control. Without a circle of fear.
Just here. Now. As much as I can.
I think I have to manage everything to be safe. As it turned out, I just needed to let go and be present.
And it changed everything.
What do you think about softening “turns almost instantly” into something like “greatly improved”? This can feel more realistic and prevent readers from getting discouraged if their process is slower.
