Member-only story
The Return of Memories
Coping with adoption placement
Every year, I have specific months and generalized periods in which I expect myself to start reacting certain ways — I grow moodier, distant, irritable, experience a loss of my skills in logic, fall into a depression that even my medicine can’t help, and one of two things as the icing on the cake: insomnia, or endless nightmares.
Through December 2021, until the 26th, I spent each night sleeping with endless nightmares. I’d awaken every so often but every single time I fell back asleep, my nightmare picked back up. My emotions and strength grew thin with having no peace in my rest time. But December of 2015 was when I discovered I was pregnant and nearly due to give birth, leaving me with the choice of adoption or keeping the child in a life that he would not have had the resources he required. Ever since 2015, December has been wrought with either nightmares or insomnia. Adoption was the better option — the moral choice, however, came with hefty prices on my mental health.
The past couple of nights, I have awoken by 2:oo-3:00 a.m. and stayed awake, too full of thoughts and memories to get back to sleep.
None of my medications overpower this. I have no choice but to face it and deal with it.
