From Sleepless Nights to Healing Rest: One Woman’s Story

When I first met her, she was exhausted in a way that words could barely capture. What had started as one glass of wine to help her drift off at night had slowly turned into many. Soon the wine stopped working and the insomnia became worse. After three days without sleep, fuelled by alcohol and spiralling into hallucinations, she was sectioned.

She was sedated and slept for nearly a week. When she was discharged, the only support she was given was a prescription for one sleeping tablet each night. No one had sat down with her to ask about her food patterns. No one had explained that her thoughts at three in the morning, the ones that felt so frightening, were in fact common and resolvable.

When we began working together, my focus was on giving her back a sense of understanding and control over her body. We built daily routines that nurtured her, created gentle rituals for her evenings, and taught her how to meet her body’s natural need for rest without alcohol or medication.

Today, she is sleeping without tablets and no longer feels the fear of bedtime. She has been able to welcome love back into her life, no longer walking the flat at four in the morning, but instead sharing peaceful nights with her partner. Her story is proof that exhaustion does not have to end in despair and that rest can be restored.