Weird word, huh? It's sleepwalking . . . also known as somnambulism. I really didn't know the scientific terms for it until today myself . . . 'cause it's the first time I looked it up.
Interesting phenomenon. There are some people who do crazy things while sleepwalking: raid the refrigerator, take walks outside, conduct orchestras, paint and draw. There have even been people who've killed other people while sleepwalking . . . some found guilty, some found not guilty.
Your mom was a sleepwalker. It started in Denver when she was about 5.
Before that, your mom suffered from Night Terrors. The first time that happened, it scared the daylights out of me! She woke up in the middle of the night . . . screaming! When I got into her room, I tried to comfort her, but she was rigid. I looked closer, and her eyes were almost glazed over . . . she wasn't really awake.
There was no Googling then, so I made an appointment with her doctor. I'd never heard of Night Terrors. I asked family and friends . . . nobody seemed to know what they were. I went to the library and found an article in a medical magazine. They're not like nightmares . . . they happen in deep, non-REM sleep . . . people who have them are not aware they happen.
Your mom had them several times a week for years . . . all I could do was sit with her so she didn't hurt herself . . . eventually she'd lay back down and sleep through the rest of the night. There's no cure . . . you just have to wait on the central nervous system to mature as they are generally caused by being tired, stressed or over-stimulated. They stopped when we moved to Denver.
But the sleepwalking started.
I was sitting downstairs watching a movie when I heard someone talking, so I turned down the volume and realized it was a child. It was so weird! When I got up to look around, I saw your mom sitting at the top of the stairs . . . I thought she was awake, so I walked up to put her back to bed and realized she was still sleeping. I don't know how she didn't fall down the stairs! I picked her up and put her back to bed.
A friend of mine had a little one that actually got out of the house during a sleepwalking episode . . . luckily it was summer, so she heard him crying . . . he was standing on the sidewalk outside their house! She had to put locks on her doors to keep him in.
Scared, I put chain locks on our doors . . . out of your mom's reach. We had cougars and coyote that roamed our neighborhood in Denver!!
THAT went on for years . . . until she was in middle school!
The scariest sleepwalking incident happened in our old house here. I had put the girls to bed and gone downstairs to finish cleaning up the kitchen before I could call it a night. At some point I heard a "thud" from upstairs. Thinking one of them had fallen out of bed, I expected to hear footsteps. I heard nothing else, so I didn't give it much thought.
I finished up about 11 and turned off all the lights to head to bed. When I got upstairs, I checked to make sure both girls were sleeping. Erika was tucked in . . . snoring quietly . . . I closed her blinds to keep the morning sun out. When I walked into your mom's room, I noticed her comforter was gone . . . AND SO WAS SHE!!! I looked around the room, but she wasn't there. Thinking she might have been the one to fall out of bed, I just assumed she might have crawled into my bed. She wasn't there either!
Panic! And prayers!! I tried to allay my fear with prayer!
I went back to her room to check the window . . . thinking someone had gotten in and taken her . . . that would explain the "thud" I heard earlier. But the window was closed. I frantically searched the house . . . upstairs and downstairs. No Caitlain!
I turned on all the outside lights and walked around the house, looking for something . . . still thinking someone had taken her. NOTHING!
I was about to go next door to wake my neighbor who happened to be a police officer, but I thought one more thorough search of the house might be in order. I literally looked in every corner . . . every closet . . . under everything . . . STILL no Caitlain. My bathroom was the last place I looked, and it had a hidden area I hadn't really checked . . . a corner I couldn't see from my room.
She was there . . . wrapped in her comforter . . . talking to someone . . . fast asleep!
My heart pounded out of my chest as I scooped her up and laid her in my bed. She slept soundlessly through the night, but I didn't.
Thankfully those nights ended, but worry never ends. You simply trade one worry for another . . . those ended when her teen years began.
Psalm 46: 1God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. 2Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea 3though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging 4There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place there the Most High dwells. 5God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.
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