For a long time, the only item that helped me sleep comfortably was my old silver desk fan. I thought I needed the fan’s soft, steady hum and the nice air it made on my face to fall asleep. My friends made fun of me a lot, and my coworker Maxton even said, “I would rather marry a fan than a person.” I just laughed along and didn’t really think about why I needed it.
But then, things took a turn. I found an article online last week that really interested me. It warned that sleeping with a fan on could make your throat dry, make your allergies worse, and maybe even make your asthma worse. This news really shook me up. I immediately understood that this could be why I often woke up with a “scratchy voice” that was dry. The idea made me feel bad.
The First Attempt at Quiet
I chose to sleep without my fan that night. I unplugged it, got into bed, and lay there in complete silence. At first, I thought I could get used to the quiet. But the quiet made me feel strange and scared. There were a lot more creaks in the house than usual. The fan’s noise typically calmed me down, but tonight it made me think of all the things I put off during the day, such my writing projects that hadn’t moved forward, my unpaid bills, and even that “awkward dinner with my sister’s fiancé who kept checking his phone.”
I kept rolling around in bed because I couldn’t find a comfortable spot. By 2 AM, I couldn’t take it anymore. I gave in and turned the fan back on. As soon as I heard the normal whirring sound, I felt better. But even with the friendliness, “I couldn’t shake the unease from what I’d read.” I was genuinely torn between two choices: Was I really harming myself only to feel better?
Doubts and Sharing
The next morning, I told Callista, my neighbor, about the story and how I had trouble sleeping the night before over coffee. She merely laughed and remarked, “I’ve never heard anything like that.” But then her teenage son Ewan, who just so happened to be there, spoke up. He said that “his friend’s dad got bronchitis and blamed his fan at night.” This tiny thing made me doubt myself more and more.
That night, I tried a different plan. I decided to sleep with the fan facing the other direction. I felt I could still hear the comforting sound even if the air wasn’t blowing directly on me. But I woke up about 4 AM “soaked in sweat.” In July, it was really hot, and my bedding stuck to me like wet towels. I finally gave up on my experiment and turned the fan straight toward my face, giving in to the comfort I really wanted. I stopped my experiment and “snapped and pointed the fan straight at my face again,” giving in to what I actually wanted.
A More In-Depth Understanding
A few days later, I had lunch with Saira, a friend from college. She said she was having trouble sleeping and had been going to a sleep therapist. I took a big breath and told her how anxious I was about the fan, believing she would just ignore it. But what she said next “shocked me.” Her therapist had told her that some people had “sleep associations so strong they can’t rest without a certain sound or object,” just like my fan. She said, though, that the real problem was that people depended on it too much, which could be “masking deeper issues, like anxiety or unresolved stress.”
I tried to hide how I felt, but her words kept coming back to me. “Was I really using the hum of the fan to keep me from thinking about what was keeping me up?” This was a new and unsettling concept.
Confronting the Invisible
I decided to record myself sleeping on my phone that night. I wanted to know if the fan was making me cough or snore. The next day, when I watched the film again, I didn’t hear any coughing. But I did hear myself chatting when I was sleeping! I kept saying things like “I’m sorry” and “please don’t go.” It was quite upsetting. Who did I say I was sorry to? And why did I sound so hopeless?
I felt like I was losing my focus all day. I missed a deadline at work, and my manager, Leontyne, sent me an email to let me know. During our video conference, she asked me whether everything was okay. I wasn’t sure if I should tell her about my predicament, but in the end, I decided to be honest and told her I had been having trouble sleeping. To my surprise, she informed me that “she’d had trouble sleeping for years after her divorce.” I felt a lot better after hearing the news since I knew I wasn’t alone.
That night, I sat on my bed and thought about the last time I had a good time. It had been years, to be exact, “before my dad died.” I didn’t need a fan at that time. I would just lie in bed and listen to Dad sing old blues songs in the kitchen. Knowing he was there made me feel safe. After he died, the house was “too quiet and empty.” That was the first time I bought a fan.
It hit me so hard that I thought I couldn’t breathe. The fan wasn’t just for comfort; it was “a replacement for the safety I lost.” I had never made this important connection before then.
Getting Better by Accepting the Silence
That night, I unplugged the fan and got into bed, preparing to face the quiet for good. I thought about my dad and all the conversations we never got to finish. I cried for the first time in months. It was really quiet, yet it was also real. “I finally felt like I wasn’t running anymore,” I said for the first time.
The next few nights were terrible. I didn’t get much sleep. I didn’t switch the fan back on, though. Instead, I began to write in a journal before going to bed. I wrote letters to myself, my dad, and the people I thought I had hurt or let down. Every night I felt a little better. The dark didn’t look as scary anymore.
One night, I called my sister Lyndra. We hadn’t talked much in weeks since we didn’t agree on how to take care of Mom. I told her that I was having trouble sleeping and that I missed Dad a lot. On the other end of the call, she got tearful and said, “I’ve been having the same restless nights.” We both felt stuck, but talking helped us “move forward together.”
A few days later, my neighbor Callista came over with some banana bread she had made. She wanted to check on me because she heard that my fan wasn’t making any noise. I told her everything, and to my surprise, she told me that she still sleeps with her dead husband’s robe on her pillow. We chatted about how to deal with sadness, love, and “the silly things we do to feel close to people we’ve lost” until midnight.
I decided to talk to Dr. Hakim, Saira’s sleep therapist, a week later. He didn’t say anything bad about the fan. Instead, he helped me understand why I thought I needed it and taught me some easy breathing exercises and methods to be more aware of myself. “It’s not just about noise or silence,” he said. “It’s about feeling safe enough to let go.”
Eventually, as the days went by, I started to fall asleep in the quiet. I didn’t miss the fan any longer. I was proud and shocked that it took me so long to deal with something that seemed simple but was “so deeply rooted in my past.”
Unexpected Presents and New Beginnings
Then something happened that I never saw coming. Leontyne, my boss, called me into her office one morning. I was afraid I was going to be in trouble again, but instead, “she gave me the chance to lead a new project.” She told me, “She’d seen a change in me—a new focus and calmness.” I suddenly understood that those nights of being honest with myself had changed me in ways I hadn’t noticed.
But the biggest surprise was when Marcel, my dad’s old friend, called me out of the blue. “He found a box of letters my dad wrote but never sent,” he said. He wanted me to obtain them. I met him at a coffee shop. When I opened the box, I found letters my dad wrote to me while he was getting cancer treatment. He wrote about how proud he was, how much he wanted he could have stayed longer, and how he hoped I would be happy even after he was gone.
Reading those phrases made me feel like I was having “a last conversation I needed all these years.” It helped me get over a hurt that I didn’t know I had.
I took the letters home, went to my room, and read them all. For the first time since he died, I said, “I felt like he was right there with me.” “I slept that night without a fan, without fear, and without regret.”
The next morning, I felt great when I woke up. I ran, made a great breakfast, and then called Lyndra just to tell her I loved her. I felt more in touch with myself and the people I cared about. I felt lighter and more liberated.
Getting It and Going On
I don’t criticize those who say they can’t sleep without certain things, like a fan, a TV, or a blanket from when they were a kid. I get how important these things are for comfort. But I also know that there are moments when we have to face the stillness and listen to what it has to say. I know “how strong those comforts can be.” But I also know that sometimes we need to “face the silence and listen to what it’s trying to tell us.”
“I hope my story helps you realize you’re not alone” if you’re having trouble sleeping or need something to settle your mind. It’s okay to feel terrified of the quiet. But if you’re willing to sit with your memories and let go of your anger, you’ll discover peace on the other side.
Without us knowing it, life has a way of bringing us back to where we started. At first, I was only worried about a fan, but then I found parts of myself that I thought were gone for ever. Sometimes the noise we make stops us from getting better, yet being quiet might help us figure out who we are.
Thanks for taking the time to read what I said. If this message spoke to you or reminded you of your own experiences, please pass it on to someone who might need to hear it. Please give this post a thumbs up if you enjoyed it so that other people can read it and maybe feel a bit less alone in what they’ve been through.
