Why is it So Difficult to Fall Asleep in a New House?

A loud bang from the attic has woken me up again tonight. It doesn’t happen more than once at a time. Or maybe it doesn’t happen. I can’t be sure because my husband is always sound asleep next to me.

My usual mid morning/night routine is walk to the kitchen in the dark, drink a glass of warm milk and then try to get back to sleep. There’s always this rumble or tapping sound that breaks the silence and startles me awake two or three times almost every night. It’s a sharp low-pitched distant sound, like it’s right around the corner but in the back of my head almost like a tinnitus starting up.

I have woken him up to ask him about the sound before. Once five months ago, and once last week. The first time, he woke up angry and erratic and it took time for him to finally calm down enough to tell me there was no sound, that I must be just imagining it. He absolutely did not believe me. I couldn’t convince him that there was a sound. Actually, there might not have been. Later that day, he accompanied me to the psychologists office. Ever since then, he would take me in to visit the psychologist and he would wait for me the whole one hour I was in there. In the later sessions with the recent psychologist he has been attending the sessions along with me.

Tonight I’m not going to disturb him. I’ll let him sleep. He was very tired when he came back home. He didn’t even have any roast duck and that’s his favorite. He was so tired he showered and plopped right into bed. He’s been doing that the past couple of weeks too.

My husband is a business man. He is very handsome and a charming sweet guy. He always sleeps on his chest, facing the balcony which is so cute. He is taller than me by a foot and a half and loves that I am so small and delicate looking standing next to him. He loves it when I wear pink flats. He says I look better in dresses rather than pants.

There’s that sound again.

I really need to get some sleep but I think the doctor prescribed medicines that are no good for sleeping. I’m having the worst case of insomnia tonight. I went to this new psychologist the first time last month. She recommended I take these antidepressants. She said it would help me sleep. I’ve gone to her four times already and my husband has met up with her to discuss my case two more times. Every time I go to her the sounds die down for a few nights afterwards. We’re supposed to go meet her tomorrow, my husband booked an appointment for me. He thinks this one is the right one for me. The previous ones refused to prescribe any medications, they thought talking would make me better and one suggested I write down my feelings and experiences in a journal. My husband hated the idea. Some of them even claimed psychologists aren’t supposed to prescribe medicines. Can you believe that?

Anyway, tonight that sound is getting worse. It happens every few minutes. I’m also beginning to hear low moans. It almost sounds like it’s coming from the attic but there isn’t anything in the attic. My husband showed me. He unlocked the door and took me up there to show me there wasn’t anything inside after I came back from the first psychologist’s. He turned over all the boxes and showed me there wasn’t anything there, the one window was nailed shut so even little wild animals couldn’t have been there.

Our house is very big, we have four bedrooms, two bathrooms, one large front hall, two reading/family rooms in the left of the hall, one large dining room/kitchen of the right. There are more rooms but I try not to wander too much so that I don’t misplace something. Hubby thinks I might hurt myself by mistake if I go off to explore on my own or even lock my self into some room.

I only moved into this house recently. We’ve been married for a whole year already. My husband came here six months earlier to set up everything for me. He told me that there are lots of fragile equipment and inventory from his work in the back rooms and in the basement, that people who worked on the house and some employees from his firm put things, “private things” in there so I can’t go down there, the boxes would move out of order.

I guess it’s a good thing too that he has locked up the rooms I don’t need to go to. I’m such a scatter brain I might wander in there by mistake. My husband has been trying to help me with this too. He says it might be genetic as my twin sister, Michelle, is very similar to me. She came unexpectedly to the new house without letting me or my husband know one day, before I moved in. She made herself comfortable in one of the guest bedrooms and stayed for three whole weeks! My husband was so angry with her. She even had the audacity to trash the kitchen before she left. I haven’t spoken to her since.

Actually I spoke to her only twice after we got married. She called me from my husband’s phone when she came to the house the first day. She called to let me know the mischief she was up to, she found the address to this house from someone and said she thought I would be there. My husband told me she had run away from her boyfriend. He says she did it to be nasty and teach her boyfriend a lesson by making him worry for her. The second time she called to let me know she was leaving and that she was going to miss me. She was completely devastated and cried like a baby.

There is this transparent packet with white powder all the way in the back of the bathroom cabinet. I woke him up the second time last week because the voice sounded like crying and it scared me. My husband woke up angry again. This time he tore my night dress in the front. He apologized a lot afterwards he said he was having a nightmare. He gave me a spoonful of this white powder to help me sleep that time. It is really effective too. It knocked me out cold. But I shouldn’t take it without letting him know first. But I don’t want to wake him up. I don’t want to sleep in tomorrow morning either though. The last time I slept in he didn’t wake me up, he said he couldn’t wake me up in the morning and just went to the psychologist on his own.

Sitting alone in the dark here reminds me of when me and Michelle used to hide under our pillow and blanket fortress. She loved to be a pretend explorer. We made tunnels and caves all over between ours, our brother’s and our older sister’s rooms and would stay up and play quiet hide and seek between these rooms. We had to stay as silent as possible, I would always hide and she would always seek. I became very good at hiding too. I remember one night we startled our older sister awake by dropping the picture frame from the bedside table. She boxed our ears pretty good too, but made a lemon and cream pie the next day as an apology. I loved her pies. I don’t talk to any of my family anymore after the wedding.

Maybe I’ll continue browsing reddit until I get drowsy.

There’s that moaning and scraping sound again, it sounds like it’s just above me. No no. I’m just imagining it. I don’t want to hear it. It’s not calling my name.

Credit: Nina (author)

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