Late Night Recovery Practice

Yikes. I noticed I haven't posted here in a l-o-n-g time. I've thought about it from time to time and didn't feel I had anything meaningful to say, but then again, if I wait for something I think is meaningful,
I'll never post or write anything. Perhaps I feel my writing should be exceptional but isn't even average.

I attended a meeting earlier tonight. I don't go to this one too often because it's right around dinner time on a Friday night and it's hard to break free from my family, but I also need to make a business of my mental health (for without it, I might not have a family). As it turned out, the meeting was exactly what I needed.

However, when I arrived at home, my husband seemed a bit upset and my child, a bit needy. I gave my child a bath and then we brushed the teeth. Afterward, we read in bed for a while. I called my mother, hoping my kid would actually fall asleep if I took long enough, but alas, that did not happen, so I spent the next 45 minutes or so in the bedroom waiting for sleep to descend upon one of us and thankfully, it didn't descend upon me.

I was hoping my husband would want to watch a DVD with me or spend a little quality time or at least chat a bit, but instead he wanted to snooze, not shmooze. And that is when I began to work myself up. I won't go over every single thought that ran through my head, but I did feel quite a bit sorry for myself and all alone in the house. I thought I'd sit in bed and read a book, but I couldn't settle myself. Then I saw the pile of clean yet still unfolded laundry in my bedroom and started to fold it, but that wasn't soothing, to say the least.

At last I started thinking and spotting. I remembered the chapter on sabotaging sleep in the book "Mental Health Through Will-Training." I realized that the word insomnia could be considered temperamental lingo and that if I decided to stay up and fold laundry for a while, of even go online and got less sleep than I had planned and hoped for, it would be distressing but not dangerous. Of course, I could also see the angry temper I had at my spouse for "abandoning me" (more temperamental lingo flitting through my mind) and fearful temper at making an irresponsible decision by staying up later than I should, but I dropped the judgment on both counts.

So here I am, rattling and prattling on and on about it. My hubby still snoozes on the couch and I'm typing up a storm, but we're both happy. Thank you, Dr. Low and the Recovery Method for saving another person from marital strife and a sleepless night.