A Night of Unexpected Sleepwalking: A Daughter's Tale
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Chapter 1: A Restless Night
I found myself struggling to drift off to sleep, plagued by an unsettled feeling in my soul. My recent arrival in Colorado to visit my mother may have contributed to my restlessness.
Suddenly, my door burst open.
“Mom? Are you alright?”
“I don’t know. I’m scared. I’m lost,” she replied, visibly disoriented.
I jumped out of bed and rushed to her side, noticing she looked completely unlike herself. Panic gripped me for a moment as I feared she might be having a stroke, but then I realized she was sleepwalking.
“Did you take a sleeping pill?”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
Oh no. I had heard many stories about her sleepwalking episodes, but this was the first time I had witnessed it firsthand. I thought this was a problem of the past, but here we were again.
My mom is a vibrant woman—far from frail—but seeing her so confused was distressing.
Section 1.1: Concerns About Sleep
I have always been anxious about her struggles with sleep, and I’d often urged her to stop taking those pills, as sleepwalking is a known side effect. But she insisted that she couldn't sleep without them.
Later, she reassured me that these incidents had not occurred in years, yet I remained worried.
“Let’s get you to your room, Mom,” I said, as she clutched the door handle, convinced she was standing on the edge of a precipice.
“Come on, Mom, you need to go to bed,” I coaxed.
“No, I can’t. I’ll fall off the cliff!” she insisted.
I tried to reassure her that there was no cliff, and with tiny, tentative steps, she began to move forward, still fearful.
“Am I going downstairs?”
“No, Mom. You’re walking on the floor.”
As we made our way, I noticed her swaying, unstable and afraid. I thought it best to position myself in front of her, giving her a visual cue that she wouldn’t fall.
However, when we reached the kitchen, I was confronted by chaos: items were strewn about, the ironing board lay toppled, and clothing was scattered everywhere.
“How