In the still of the night by Ruth Neuwald Falcon

Like so many, I’ve struggled with ‘sleep issues’ for years. Most of us who do are older, and mine certainly increased with age, but I also know children for whom night time brings its terrors. One little girl has kept recordings of fairy tales playing beside her bed all night since she was five. Another little boy battles demons while he sleeps. “I think it’s because he has such a vivid imagination,” says his mother.

One of the forms my ‘sleep issues’ has taken for decades is, even on nights when, as far as I can tell I’ve slept through, I wake up exhausted. It’s as if my nervous system remains on alert, not letting me drop into the deeper sleep stages which might actually refresh me.

“While sleep duration is undoubtedly important, it is not the only part of the equation,’ says the Sleep Foundation. “It is also critical to think about sleep quality and whether the time spent sleeping is actually restorative.”

I find this strangely comforting. It means I am not (completely) crazy and not alone in sleeping without resting.

I was so tired last night that I went to bed early (for me)—turning out the light a little before 11. I slept. I woke up. I slept again. I woke up, this time into a state of complete terror. I could feel it in my body, a pulsating fear that flooded me from the top of my head down through my arms and torso. all the way to my feet. Stone cold terror that erupted onto my skin in tiny beads of sweat. Well, I thought sitting up, al least the night must be nearly over. The FitBit on my wrist gave the lie to that. It was 1:15.

Okay, I thought. What’s going on?

I knew what it was, of course. One part general existential dread (the thing that jostles us awake into the darkness at whatever age we are, whispering, You’re going to die. Everyone you love is going to die. And it could happen at any moment.). One part specific intergenerational trauma (grandparents who lived in dread of being taken away by booted Storm Troopers in the middle of the night; a mother who had to live with the fact that she had been unable to rescue her parents from their fate).

According to the NIH, “There is now converging evidence supporting the idea that offspring are affected by parental trauma exposures occurring before their birth, and possibly even prior to their conception.”

Again, I find this comforting. Again, it means I am not (completely) crazy and not alone in dealing with the after-effects of events that occurred before my birth.

I don’t know if finishing the family Holocaust memoir I’ve been working on, off and on, for more than two decades will help me sleep at night. I do know that not doing so is keeping me stuck, and more tired by the day. I’m not sure what it will look like, but I’d like to bring you on the journey with me. Maybe it will help me dive back in if I know I can talk about it with you. It would be good to simplify my portion of existential angst to the general variety. Or maybe it would be helpful to look that in the eye as well. I suspect so.