Being Someone's Problem

Sleep disorders as a family business, and other problems we share

Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham is lovely. I admire the steadiness of her voice. I just read the section about sleep issues in her family. She somehow makes them sound endearing—like a family tradition—but really, they're just sleep issues. She writes that sleeping alone was hard for her growing up.

Sleeping alone was hard for me, too. I slept in my brother's bed until I was maybe ten years old. He never seemed to mind, and eventually came to expect it. But later, when I turned thirteen and my insomnia really came online, I made my sleep issues my dad's problem.

I would do my best to go to bed, fail, then spend hours reading, watching the clock, waiting for 4 a.m. Because at 4 a.m., I knew I wasn't the only one awake anymore. He was up, and he'd be ready for our walk soon—a walk he'd promised to take with me. On that walk, he'd guide me through breathing exercises and visual meditations, giving me strategies to help me relax. Or he'd tell me these odyssey-like stories about his day at work, and I'd go to bed afterward imagining it all unfolding.

Reading about Lena Dunham making her issues her dad's problem—and her younger sister making her issues Lena's problem—makes me smile. Family is just a bunch of people making each other's problems a group activity.

My dad's confidence that he could figure everything out—that all you needed was to believe it would work out—somehow, some way—formed the foundation of my own belief. That no matter what, I can handle it. That I can problem-solve, and when problem-solving fails me, magic will appear. In his stories, he was always the late-to-the-function protagonist dramatically saving the lives of innocent souls with complex cases who just needed someone crazy enough to try a third-door solution no one had attempted before. Everything went wrong along the way, but there was always a miracle that would make it all okay in the end—or the power of prayer.

When my friend Lauren—the friend I wrote about in "Serotonin Production Problems"—lost her mother, she said something that hit me like a tidal wave: "I'm no one's problem anymore."

Immediately, I told her, "You're my problem." And I meant it as a promise.

Being someone's problem—your family's problem, your friend's problem—is the greatest blessing life will give you. At its core, it means: you are never here alone. I will always help you. And when we can't figure it out, magic will appear—and all of this day-to-day chaos will just become an odyssey-like story we can tell for years to come.

Or in my case, write about.