Tag: sleep

When In Doubt, Sleep It Out

Marinelle CabilloLeave a comment

For as long as I can remember, my main coping mechanism has always been sleeping. Whether I’m angry, sad, life in shambles, or have things heavy on my mind, the first thing my body wants to do is go to sleep. There is truly nothing a quick nap can’t fix. Just kidding, there is plenty that a short nap or even a deep hibernation can’t fix. But I have practiced this form of self-detachment for basically my whole life.

I am hands down one of the sleepiest girls you will ever meet. I am never not tired. Even when I get a great night’s sleep, I am still tired. I’m not a coffee or morning tea person, as I don’t want to be dependent on caffeine. I love tea, but 97% of the tea I drink is in my milk tea. As a result of my personal choice to avoid being dependent on caffeine, I am forced to run on my natural energy, which is close to 0 a lot of the time. I’m the bitch that schedules in a nap in-between events to make sure that I am recharged. It doesn’t matter if I take a long afternoon nap, I can still sleep soundly at night.

I overthink everything, to the point where I annoy myself. Sleeping is my way of shutting off my mind, even if it’s only temporarily. It’s like getting a break from yourself. You don’t want to overthink the scenario anymore, overthink the decision at hand, or jump to conclusions, so, you sleep it out. If you’re a person that gets in your head a lot, you know what I mean. I’ve learned a long time ago that overthinking can be the mental death of you. There are times when there’s literally no point to overthink things that have already happened or are just beginning to unfold. Of course, it’s a lot easier said than done, and sometimes it feels like it literally can’t be done.

Yes, it’s avoiding feelings and suppressing my emotions from time to time – well, every time – but if the situation at hand is not fixable in the moment, there’s no point in stressing myself out. I’d rather detach and deal with that shit when I wake up. I’m not saying it’s the right way to handle things, but I’ve noticed this continuous pattern that I’ve repeated since I was a kid. When I get overwhelmed, I’ll sleep it out until I get the motivation to deal with it, let it go, or keep suppressing it. Sleeping away my problems definitely won’t solve anything, but at least I’ll be well-rested.

Everyone knows that awesome feeling when your head makes contact with that pillow. You can go to bed with a thousand and 1 problems, but with time, you slowly drift in and out of consciousness. The things that are stressing me out, or whatever scenario is heavy on my mind starts to get cloudy. And for a moment in time, my problems don’t exist. If I’m not awake to think about what’s bugging me, then it’s not a thought in my mind. I escape my reality briefly. And for a split second, I’m just existing in the universe, problem free, and at total rest. I let my mind do its thing, and I eventually surrender to my own subconscious. When I’m asleep, I’m detached from worldly complications, life is still, I don’t have a care in the world – even if it’s just temporarily.

I flip and turn in my sleep, and in those brief moments of slightly being awake, I try my best to lull myself back to sleep. There have been many instances where I’m teeter tottering between being awake and remaining asleep, and my mind starts to remember the issue, and I quickly try to get some more shut eye. Naps and sleeping are a great escape from your present day problems. It’s a great distraction to have when the weight of the world is on your shoulders. It forces you to detach and revisit the issue at another time.

That’s probably why people say, “I’ll sleep on it,” when making an important decision. Sometimes in the moment, you can’t think clearly. It takes a while to process information, stress, and getting the full story on things. So at times, sleeping it out is a great way to delay that process when you need more insight. Because of course nobody wants to make decisions in the heat of the moment or act out irrationally. Sleeping allows you to let things sink in and buys you time to see what you really want to do. It’s a very crucial step in my decision making thought process. Ironically, being unproductive can sometimes help me be productive when I wake up.

However, it does have its bad aspects as well. I feel like sleeping can be very productive when you can come to a conclusion right after. But for me, sometimes my coping mechanism of sleeping it out just prolongs my decision. Or, I sleep on it too many times that I end up just doing nothing and not dealing with it. I can push it to the side and avoid the problem all together. At times I feel like that 1 episode of Avatar the Last Airbender when Aang frustratedly asks Boomi why he didn’t put up a fight / do anything when the Fire Nation invaded his land. He casually said that he was waiting around and doing nothing, waiting for the right moment to strike. He had to wait and listen for the right moment to make a move.

I feel like I’m Boomi, doing “nothing” by taking naps to escape my problems, waiting to see when it’s the right time to act on something. I’m just waiting it out and seeing how I feel when I sleep on it. Do I choose to react? Do I make a decision ASAP? Do I even have to make a decision? Do I just let it go? If it’s important, I’ll eventually come up with something. And if I don’t come up with something….

I’ll sleep on it…

Marinelle, Take the Wheel

Marinelle Cabillo

I’m in the car. Most of the time, it’s with my family. Something always ends up happening, and all of a sudden, we’re in an unsafe situation. Someone else needs to take control of the car. I have to take control of the car. I need to. I can do it. I have to act now before it’s too late.

“I can drive, I can do it,” I say to my family. I can feel it in my body that I have something to prove, this is my moment of truth. I can feel my heart pounding as I reach over.

I take the wheel. I take control of the car and steer us back to safety. The adrenaline is rushing through my body, what a thrill. I knew I could do it! I grip the wheel perfectly on 10 and 2. But how am I driving right now? I haven’t drove in so long? I’m thinking these thoughts as I drive along.

“I told you I could drive,” I say over my shoulder to my shaken up family with a smile. I have that ‘I told you so’ tone in my voice.

All of a sudden, I’m in a panic. I turn the wheel left, then right, then left again. I’m freaking out, my heart is racing, I can’t control the car anymore. At this point I’m crying and screaming. I’m dodging cars, but it’s as if our car has a mind of it’s own. The cause for the sudden shift is always unknown. Without fail, I go from driving perfectly to forgetting everything and losing control. At the climax of my fear and terror, I wake up.

This is a reoccurring dream that I’ve had for years…

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been terrified of driving. This phobia stems from my mom’s fear of being behind the wheel. Growing up, my mom expressed her lack of confidence behind the wheel, how it gives her anxiety, and how she refuses to drive unless she absolutely has to. Unknowingly, she planted the seed of fear of driving in my sisters and I’s heads.

What about driving freaks me out? Knowing that I am in control of a vehicle, and just 1 wrong move on my end can result in someone else’s demise. Also, the fact that I can be an alert driver, do all things right by the book, and be safe, but can still be in an unsafe situation due to the fact that I can’t control anyone else’s driving, terrifies me. Knowing that I can be the reason why someone loses their life gives me anxiety. Yeah, pretty dark. But that’s where my mind goes.

When I turned 18, I figured I had to get over my fear of driving. I felt like everyone around me was driving, had a license, or was working towards one. I had FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out, and felt like I wasn’t making the moves I should be making at my age. So, I studied to take my permit test. Of course I wanted to pass the permit test on the first try. And I did. I was happy, but then that happiness and relief turned to dread.

I kind’ve lagged on starting to drive after receiving my permit. Until my dad brought to my attention that the permit is only good for a year, and within that year I would have to take the driving test or my permit would expire and I would have to take the test all over again. And I was not about to stand in that DMV line again. So, I mentally prepared myself to take the wheel, literally.

It was so long ago that at first, I didn’t even remember who I drove with first, my dad or a driving instructor? And then I remembered it was an instructor because my dad refused to get in a car with me until I had some type of prior lessons. I got the number of my friend’s driving instructor and booked an appointment.

I remember my driver pulling up to Skyline college where the 121 bus stop is. I did not want to drive. But I knew that I would’ve taken my permit for nothing if I just let it expire. And lord knows I needed all the time and practice I could get if I wanted to pass that driving test the first time. I got in the car and realized my driving instructor had peddles of his own in the passenger’s seat. It was a relief to know that he could control the car if I straight up had no idea what I was doing.

It may have been because of that “student driver” sticker on the back of the instructor’s car, or maybe pure luck, but nobody honked at me that day. My breaks were hard, I was going slower than I should’ve been, and don’t even get me started on switching lanes. It was all a blurr. But I did what I had to do in that 1 hour session. My hands were sweaty, I hung on to the wheel for dear life, I was sweaty and anxious, and I wondered how people drive with music on!

After a couple of lessons with the instructor, my dad was finally confident to get in a car with me. He let me drive to school, to work, on the freeway, in neighborhoods, and around the area where my driving test was going to be. I was pretty good at it, but I was stiff and rigid. Everything had to be a particular way when I drove – no music, had to have certain shoes on, windows up even though I was sweating, hair in a half clip so no hair got in my face. If any of those factors were off, I didn’t feel confident. With time though, I put on music, but oh so slightly above a whisper. I felt myself getting confident with driving.

“You control the car, you tell it what to do,” my dad would tell me when I would freak out about driving.

I booked my driving test literally a couple days before my permit expired. I wanted to make sure I had all the practice, was prepared, and would pass. But by waiting so close to the date, I didn’t think of what would happen if I didn’t pass and had to reschedule. I didn’t think about that. I had to pass. That would be so embarrassing if I didn’t. My older sister passed the test on the first try, so if I didn’t, I wouldn’t hear the end of it from my parents.

My dad made me take my driving test in San Mateo because it was “easier” than Daly City. Which I totally believe because the roads were so much more wider! I remember asking my friends what they’re going to test me on, what questions they asked, what mistakes they made that I could avoid. As I waited in the driving line for my test, I saw a truck infront of me starting their test. They were way too close, ended up turning onto the curb, in a matter of 2 minute, they circled the block and came back. Yooooo. Now I was scared. What if I mess up like that?

My instructor came in the car. I passed all the questions and proceeded with the driving portion of the test. When I successfully made it out of the DMV lot I was relieved. Everything was going good. I felt confident and I made sure to make my motions dramatic and prolonged. It was going great until I got to a 4 way stop. This guy on foot was close to the curb and motioned for me to go. Of course, I motioned for him to cross the street. He refused and insisted I go. I knew that if I didn’t let him cross, I would fail the test. But here we were playing the game of “go! No you go! No you!” Bruh, just cross the street 😫. After what seemed like 1 whole minute, he finally crossed. I knew I passed.

We pulled up to the DMV and the last task was to park. I pulled in, put the car in park, and turned off the car. My instructor let me know that I passed. I was so excited! More so relieved that I didn’t have to take anything over again. I got out of the car and did what I had to do inside. When I came out, my dad was in the car. I looked at what a great job I did parking.

“Dang, I parked hella good!” I told my dad when I got inside.

“What are you talking about?” He laughed, “I had to fix it and bring it in because the butt was out.”

Womp. I was proud anyways. And that was literally the last time I drove a car. I was 19. I’m now 25. Why, you ask? Once I got my license, that meant that I would have to have insurance. My parents didn’t want the burden of a young new driver on their insurance, and I didn’t have a car to drive anyways. I was just happy that I got it out of the way and that I had a license just to say I had it.

I was less scared or driving at the end of all of this. That was until one of my best friends told me about her reading with a psychic. She started from the top of her reading, telling me what the psychic said about her love life, her future, her family. She went into detail and regurgitated everything the psycic told her.

“But then she told me one of my friends is going to get into a car accident with an older male,” my friend said. We went silent on the phone.

“Wait, why do I feel like I’m that friend….” I said.

“Dude, I thought the same thing!”

I was highly convinced that that “friend” was me. I was scared that I would be driving with my dad and I would mess up and get us into a car accident. I refused to drive, all the fear came back again. I was not going to put my life or my dad’s life in danger. I was genuinely scared.

I did end up getting in a car accident with an older male. Except I wasn’t the one driving, and it wasn’t my dad. I was with my cousins, and my cousin was driving the car when a girl “eating soup” while driving rammed us from behind. Elbows flying, necks are jerking, but we were all fine.

That tripped me out for a long time. Because 1. I did get in a car accident, the older male was my cousin who was driving, and 2. I was glad that I wasn’t the driver. It made me realize that I was really out here about to never drive in my life because of what a person told my friend. Its trippy because it actually happened, but what if it didn’t? I would’ve been scared for what? So much time has passed since the last time I’ve driven. Literally 6 years. I feel like I need to relearn how to drive again.

But I’ve had those reoccurring dreams for years, even before I stared driving. For the longest time, I didn’t know how to feel because I believed I was possibly foreshadowing my own death. And for the longest that played into my fear of driving. And I thought that for a while, until I started telling people about these dreams.

I’ve had a fascination with my dreams and dreams in general. I always look for deeper meaning, and look for the lessons or signs in them. I know there’s a lot of people that think dreams are just dreams, but I’m not one of those people. I dissect my dreams and want to know the answer to why I dream of the things I dream about. Back in the day my older sister had a dream book dictionary that interpreted the different scenarios and things in your dreams. From animals, to locations, to things, feelings, etc. Everything had an underlying meaning. That book is lost now, but just this passed Christmas I bought my sisters each a dream book that went more in depth with dissecting dreams.

Control. Is what everyone says my dream is about. Feeling like I have no control of my life, not being confident in my abilities, and the list goes on. I also noticed that in the many different versions of this dream, I’m always trying to prove I can drive. Sometimes I drive successfully, and sometimes I’m a mess from the moment I lay hands on the wheel. The conclusion is always the same though, I end up losing control of the car, regardless how well I was driving.

The people inside the car vary too, but most of the time it’s always my mom, dad, and sisters. Sometimes it’ll just be my sisters, or a variety of mixing and matching those 4 family members. I always want to prove to my family that I can do it. And I guess that remains true in real life. I want to prove I can be successful, but I’m afraid to be moded and lose control and have that success turn to failure.

I thought maybe it’s just my unconscious expressing my fears in life. Driving being one of them. I feel like my dreams are shedding light on what I need confidence in, or what I need to confront head on to not be afraid anymore. This has been a dream that has haunted me for a long time. Because each time it feels so real and vivid. It bring to light my flaws and insecurities. But I got to remember that I am in control of my own life. And if these dreams are really telling me that I’m afraid to take the wheel in my own life, then I need to stop being scared. Not having control is scary. Not knowing what path you’re going on is scary. Not knowing if you’ll be successful or not is scary. I guess this is what haunts me.

Do you have reoccurring dreams? What do you think they mean?