White Noise

I've never really had a problem with sleeping, until I had mice.
I've never really had a problem with mice, until they started living in my house...

After discovering mice not only in hung out in my flat, but navigated their way to my bedroom too, I developed a fear of sleeping. Literally paralysed with an irrational fear (it's not like they could kill me), I often cried, refused to sleep alone and one night I found myself hiding in the bath screaming at a mouse who had got trapped in my bin!!!! I stayed up all night and in the morning had to facetime a friend to coach me through getting back in to my room for clean clothes and an escape plan!
Whilst the infestation was being dealt with, I genuinely became more and more mentally fragile. In my head I silently overreacted to every crumb left in the kitchen by my flatmates, and engaged in OCD tendencies to try and find some control in the situation. At night, heart beating with extreme anxiety I struggled to switch off and every sound was a potential danger. Like a child afraid of the dark and afraid of the unknown, the fear of mice grew exponentially into a fear of being alone. The last moment in the day, when action has abated and waiting for sleep; I found myself trapped in a fuzzy gap in the middle. My coping mechanism was white noise. Loud, in my ears, white noise.


White noise is a strange sound to get acquainted to and though it often woke me up, I began to meditate into the sound as a bizarre comfort blanket. Somehow this abrasive sound became my friend and held my hand in a dark loneliness. I write this in the past tense, because since going away with my mum (I suppose she was my protector then) and coming back to London, I have slept alone and with no sounds. I have however started waking up at first light, but this seems to be aiding my productivity! I'm reading more, running again and trying to turn off the tv (more displacement sounds). Now I listen to the trains chug past me and the crows caw, and though I am still afraid of mice, and still alone, I have created my own white noise. Softer and more generous than the exterior sounds, I welcome this pause from the myriad of thoughts & fears in my head, and hope that eventually I will be able to enjoy the silence in life.