EUNEIROPHRENIA- Finding Peace During Mental Healing: Not just a Dream

Being mentally healthy doesn’t have to be a dream. It can be reality.

Euneirophrenia is an ancient Greek word that means:

“The peaceful state of mind after a pleasant dream.”

What we want in this life is peace. We want the calm and smooth waters of life. Now the question is, how often do you reach euneirophrenia in life? Do you know what that feels like in your life? Personally, it has been a learning curve to understand what euneirophrenia means and how it feels.

My mind was eating and attacking itself inside out for years and it reached its climax when I hit my early 20’s. I couldn’t think straight and was plagued with guilt, self-limiting beliefs, corroding self-esteem, sorrow, heart ache, physical pain, emotional instability, and tears that didn’t quit. I was more tired than a bear during hibernation.

No matter what I did, it didn’t seemed to help long-term. I would have my good days where the mental poison was merely topped off and not spilling. It was a balancing act from day-to-day and the smallest thing could set me off. I was very fragile mentally, emotionally, socially, spiritually, and physically. Every aspect of my life was agony.

I felt like a lot of people couldn’t relate to me. They knew the gist of what it meant to have mental illness, but for the most part I was faced with impatience and conflicting opinions. It nearly tore me apart because people wanted to fix me. They wanted to find the calm for me.

“Go to a therapist.” “No, don’t go because it’s a phase.”

“Take medicine, it will help you balance out.” “No don’t, because it will erase who you are.”

“Rest, let others take care of you. “Push through because it is just for today.”

“Focus on what makes you happy.” “When can you get back to work?”

Talk about a headache on top of another headache. When it comes to solving and treating your mental illness, it is a personal decision. You know you best. For me, I listened to all of these pieces of advice and some helped to an extent and others didn’t. I realized that I wasn’t going to get better until I made the decision to make it happen.

When asked if I wanted to try something different to help me feel better I developed this motto, “If there is any chance of it helping, why not do it. Forget what other’s might think because it is MY BODY! They aren’t in charge of it, I am. I am the driver because it is my life.”

Now I did mention that some of these did help to an extent. They did not solve my problems. I went to therapy and I treated it like a school for the mental and emotional. My therapist taught me skills and exercises to do in between visits. I always left on a positive high, but it was hard.

I started to take medication and that helped. It helped me control everything and I become stable. There is no such thing as a happy pill. If anything, I see the medicine as a starting point. From that neutral line, you have the ability to peel back the layers.

Once I was used to the medication, other things started manifesting itself. My lack of energy didn’t improve. Depression and other mental illness tends to make you tired to the point where you don’t want to “life”. The medication helped me see how big of a problem my sleep was.

That was the driving force for my sleep study. I wasn’t conflicted about it. I was willing because I figured, why not? Might as well give it a shot and if it turns out normal, then it’s better to know than not, right? When I would mention that I was going in for a sleep study, people thought me odd because I am young, healthy, and physically active. Some told me that I didn’t need to bother because that wasn’t the problem. But I stuck to my motto, “Might as well know for sure.”

When I went in, I had no idea what to expect. I went with no expectations and I was okay with whatever the outcome was. This was me taking charge of my health decisions. It was my body and if there was something that I could do that could possibly change the quality of my life then I was going to do it.

The morning after the sleep study I met with the doctor. We had a one-on-one conversation, so I had complete control of the information I was receiving and the decisions I would make based on the results.

When he told me that I had severe sleep apnea, I just stared and blinked. I didn’t see that coming at all. I just figured that I was one of those people who needed more sleep than others and wasn’t a high energy person. I thought I was a regular tired Eeyore because that was my normal.

Everything I thought I knew about myself was erased because all the problems were a result of the sleep apnea. It wasn’t the true me. The true me was hidden underneath layers of depression, anxiety, and sleep apnea. I needed the therapy and the medication to help find what the core problem was.

The first time I tried on my C-pap mask and took my first breath I fell asleep almost immediately. I thought I knew what peace and calm felt like, but this was different. This mask and machine were there to whisk me away to a better life.

I am often asked if it is hard to sleep with a mask. In the beginning it was awful because I had four straps of Velcro stuck to my head and a plastic mask with a rubber sealer on my nose connected to a six-foot long hose.

I had to learn to not wrap myself up in the hose and to sleep with my mouth closed. I had to learn new positions to sleep in and I had to learn how to position the mask on the pillow as to not block the air coming from the mask. If the mask didn’t let air out on top, it would be like plugging your nose because the air being exhaled wouldn’t have anywhere to go. When that air hits the pillow, it makes the most annoying sound and it blows back into your face. It is most undesired, annoying, and who could sleep with air blowing in your face in as close proximity as that?

I had to learn to breathe with the mask on. The first few nights I used the machine I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. It hurt to breathe because I had to get used to the pressure of the machine pumping air into me. My poor lungs weren’t strong enough for that yet. With a C-pap machine you have to breathe deep and reach areas of your lungs you never knew existed.

When I woke up the morning after my first night using the machine I was exhausted and felt like a truck had hit all my organs. My lungs hurt, my diaphragm hurt, my stomach hurt, basically everything in my middle hurt. My organs had been fed oxygen all night long and were ready to work at full capacity, something they had never done before… And it hurt.

It got a little better the more nights I used the machine, but my head started to get sore because I wasn’t used to sleeping with the straps on my head. I had to adjust them so they would keep the mask over my nose comfortably, but not hurt my head.

I started dreaming and I couldn’t remember the last time I had dreamed. I would be tired when I woke up because I had run through Candy Land and dancing with sugar-plum fairies all night. Dreaming was exhausting for someone who had never dreamed like that before in their life.

It takes a while to get used to it all and at times it felt overwhelming, but I stuck with it. Eventually my head stopped hurting as I found the balance of comfort and making sure that the mask stayed over my nose. I also learned how to place my head on the pillow for maximum comfort.

My lungs got stronger and I noticed that I breathed easier during the day. The C-pap was whipping my old lungs into shape. My other organs started working properly and I was shedding my Eeyore complex, I was becoming a regular bouncy ball after being deflated for years. It was determined that I probably developed sleep apnea when I hit puberty as I drastically changed from being an energetic kid to a tired and depressed teen. I had possibly been living with it for almost 10 years. But you know what? That is okay because I was getting it fixed and would never have to have a suffocating night ever again. Now that was refreshing and seemed almost too good to be true.

Before I knew it, I was running circles around everyone. I was happy and had energy to live through a whole day without long breaks or ending the day early. I was free. I learned how to control my emotions because everything wasn’t as extreme as it had been. Little things stopped getting to me and I had the ability to problem solve rationally. I was in better control of myself and it felt good. It finally felt good to be me.

I found myself letting go of the little things and having the energy to try new things that I thought I would never be able to do in my life, like being in shape or hanging with friends. I could handle social situations better as I could keep up with them.

I had no idea I had lived in a nightmare for so long because that was what seemed normal to me. I had no idea that I had a low quality of life as mental illness had robbed me of it. Happiness is a choice, but it is also sign that your body is working the way that it should be.

I get stressed and sad like a normal person now. It is a small bump in the road that I can work through instead of shutting down like I had in the past. My normal base line is the highest that it has ever been in my whole life.

I have learned many life lessons and have been given a whole new perspective on life because of my C-pap and a high quality of sleep. It is because of it that I am able to write about it and share it with you. There are many aspects of healing and this is my story in a nutshell because I could spend a lifetime sharing different aspects of my story.

I am forever grateful that I was brave enough to take control of my mental health decisions and stood my ground and tried everything. I am so grateful that I didn’t give up and kept fighting till I had a solid answer. I am grateful that I applied what my therapist taught me and chose to get well instead of saying “It’s not helping” after a few visits. Healing takes time and a lot of effort. But may I just say… It was worth it. All the pain, the tears, the guilt, the loneliness, the heart ache, the depression, the anxiety was worth it because it shaped who I am today. Someone who I can enjoy who has finally been given what they need to live the fullest life possible.

I have reached euneirophrenia and euneirophrenia has reached me.

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