top of page

'A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow': My relationship with Sleep

The quotation 'a ruffled mind makes a restless pillow', attributed to the author Charlotte Bronte, is actually uttered by the first-person narrator of her first novel, The Professor. These words, spoken by William Crimsworth, have been lodged in my brain ever since I first encountered them as a child when I saw them quoted (completely out of context) in a fashion magazine. These words were the first time the mind-body connection became apparent to me, even though in some ways this had been obvious for years: I had been struggling to fall asleep because my mind was full of worries. My ruffled mind was definitely making my pillow restless.


It was as if my mind was a car on a motorway with no slip-road onto the lazy backroads. As a child, I knew no mechanisms to handle my brain that buzzed with ideas and hummed with worries. I kept my stress tightly enclosed throughout the day, but in the quiet and solitude of night it went wild. What if I had an illness that was going to kill me? Would my teacher help me with maths or was I doomed to never understand fractions? When would I start my period and how on earth would I survive the embarrassment? Did my friends secretly hate me?

Whilst I had a reputation— she doesn't sleep until very late, she can't go to sleep, she is a night owl the reality was that I was a child wrestling with anxiety. As an adult I've learned ways of managing all facets of my mental health, including my sleep. And like all facets of my mental health, it's not perfect all the time though.


Earlier this week, I went out to a poetry event and when I came home it was late, but I couldn't fall asleep for ages. The event had made my mind fizz with that creative and inspiring energy that poetry often instils in me. I had so much I wanted to think about, express, write, discuss. I am still on the fence about whether I should call this hypomania, partly because I don't want to use that word flippantly and also maybe it would mean I really should explore the possibility that I have some form of bipolar disorder (but that concern is for another post).


Hypomania is probably the most accurate word I have though because it captures the element of discomfort. When I enter this mental state happens it's almost like my mind is running a bit too fast, like a computer that's overheating or doesn't have enough storage, but it's trying to go ahead and run the software anyway. It hurts a bit and feels claustrophobic. I have to be very careful, and if I'm not, I will experience a crash— and it won't be pretty. Hello depression.


On Wednesday, I did what I usually do when I can't sleep and opened my Kindle, with its reassuring backlight and zoomed-in font all huge because I don't want to wake my husband because I'm scrabbling around for my glasses. The lack of glasses also helps me engage in wishful thinking; I hope the blurry eyesight will trick my brain into thinking it's tireder than it is. Although the funny thing is—as you will know if you struggle with insomnia— tiredness and falling asleep are not mutually exclusive (so annoying).


Earlier this week, as during so many other times in my life, I turned to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre as a 'comfort read'. This book is one of my eternal favourites and immediately transports me to a time and a place and a character that makes my heart just sing.


Reading when I'm finding it hard to sleep has about a fifty percent success rate for me, but in order to have that success rate I have to believe that it's going to work. Like pretty much anyone who ever has had insomnia, my worry that I won't be able to sleep and, more importantly, the fear of what will happen as a result of being tired can take over.


As a mum to a two year old, I understand these consequences well. When my little girl was a newborn I experienced sleep deprivation as all new parents do: to the point where it made me say things, in earnest, like: I understand why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture, I'm so tired I feel like I could genuinely die from tiredness or I am surprised I haven't been run over or had a serious accident because I'm so exhausted.


In the first year of my daughter's life, I had times when I was so desperate to sleep that even the thought of going to bed was upsetting due to the knowledge that after a couple of hours I would have to be ripped from sleep by my daughter waking. She was dependent on me for comfort as I was breastfeeding and she did not want to drink any milk from bottles or have cuddles with her daddy, just to be with me drinking milk. For hours on end. I started to think of Tom and Jerry and the match sticks propping the eyes up. It was nice to feel I had options if things got one iota worse.


In my relationship with my husband, as with all my relationships, I place a high value on open communication and honesty. For me, as someone who is perpetually anxious that someone has an ulterior motive, it's the only way it can work. However, in these early days, the sleep deprivation, and the sleep inequality in our relationship, got so difficult for me that I put a full-on ban my husband (the loveliest human being on this planet) forbidding him from telling me he was tired!


I couldn't take hearing about his exhaustion (no matter how genuine it was, and of course it was genuine) without flying off the handle! He was sleeping many, many more hours than I was each week, I couldn't bear hearing about his tiredness after seven hours when I'd had about four because and was close to vomiting with sheer exhaustion. I think this dynamic is pretty common, as evidenced by Mumsnet, but luckily for us those days are over. My husband can speak his mind once again just like those pre-baby days!


I've run out of time as (ironically) I need to go to bed, but other facets of my sleep that I wanted to write about are how I wake up at night when I'm stressed and also nightmares. I am so prone to nightmares and have been since I was a child. Oh and also how when I was depressed I could sleep at the drop of hat as a way of dropping out of my reality.


As always, I would love to hear any thoughts that this post may have prompted.


-Rosie x

























Comments


Copyright Rosie Cappuccino 2024

This website does not constitute medical advice. Please consult a healthcare professional for medical advice or mental health support. 

bottom of page