I’ve chronicled some of the issues we’ve faced in dealing with my daughter’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnosis and the extreme insomnia she has because of it.

Who knew the solution could be as simple as it turned out to be: Let her sleep with her door open! Initially, due to some of the inappropriate “acting out” behaviors the kids had, we were told they needed separate bedrooms. They had alarmed doors at the foster home due to this very reason. So, even though those behaviors had been completely eliminated prior to coming here, I still kept to the “closed doors at night” policy.

My daughter was so terrified of the “bad men” the other night that she began crying hysterically, shivering uncontrollably, and had that frozen, clammy skin you get when you are emotionally numb about something. She screamed out for me, and when I went into her, I left the door open a little. That way, even though she has several nightlights, she still got some hallway light, in addition to keeping tabs on her dad and I as we went about our routines. I think having a visual to associate with the sounds she was hearing was really helpful, as well.

It’s been two full bedtimes now with nary a “pee-pee accident” and she’s out cold within just a few minutes! She used to make trip after trip on what my husband and I termed “reconnaissance missions” to the bathroom. We suspected she was just scoping things out due to the whole PTSD “hyper-arousal” stage of needing to be on guard.
I’m praying we’ve stumbled on a solution! It’s only been two nights, but they are the two easiest night sleeps she has had since joining our family.

It took a little thinking “outside of the box,” and we will still need to continue to address her extreme fear of “bad men” in therapy, I’m happy that it appears that we have an interim solution!

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