The Bed Thing

999 words

8 minute read

TW: Restraint

If I try to describe it, most don't understand.  

There are no pictures of it. 

After heel cord release surgery when I was three, and having the casts removed a month after my fourth birthday, I had suddenly had to accustom myself to sleeping in The Bed Thing.

There are really no words to adequately describe this bed brace / immobilizer / contraption I was forced to sleep in nightly for up to a year.  It was narrower than the width of my childhood bed, and rested on top of it, redundant, yet awful.  Half hard plastic or wood so I could lie on it (head to waist at least.)

It had a fitted padded slipcover printed with tiny yellow and white squares.  My memory from that age tells me that inside the slipcover was printed with Sesame Street characters.  I did not understand why it was always put on "inside out," showing the boring white and yellow squares.  I loved the two shiny butterfly stickers on either side.

I did not love the fact that I couldn't use my birthday car tent (meant to fit over our beds) like Tara could.  It didn't fit over The Bed Thing.

The first strap of wide, pink, loud Velcro was across my waist.  This secured me on my back so that my legs could stay where they were meant to be - in the brace-like features on the bottom half.  These were elevated a few inches, so they stretched my tense leg muscles continually all night.  My legs up, trapped between white slats where the Velcro was fed through and secured to the outside.  One strap across each shin.  One more further down each leg.

Strapped down in five places.  Then covered.  Then expected to go to sleep.

I didn't.  

I cried.  

It was so beyond painful.  And there was something more, that was beyond my ability to articulate at the time:

Being strapped down and then expected to relax and sleep was so frightening.  It scared me, not being able to move.  On a deep level.

I used to beg Tara:  "Please let me out!"

"But Daddy said not to..." Tara would worry, nervous.

Eventually, though, Tara would get out of bed, as our cassette tape of nursery rhyme songs played in the background.  She'd creep across the dark bedroom.  She would lift the heavy covers off my legs.

Then, I would get to work - easing off the strap at my waist - the only one I could reach.  I didn't have the trunk strength to sit up with my legs still elevated.  I needed them down.  I needed to be able to move and roll.  To get comfortable.  Tara went to work on the straps on my legs.  Sometimes, she got them all off, but I still couldn't get myself out of The Bed Thing without someone lifting me.  Tara and I were the same age.  The same size.

She wanted to help me, but we were both too little.

We tried to take the Velcro off as quietly as possible, but it was no use.  Our parents would always hear.  Would always come back, and quietly re-secure me, telling me to "Leave that on."

I was devastated.  In so much unrelenting pain.

[Image: Me getting my casts off at age 4]

I couldn't move.  Couldn't sleep.  If my pillow fell, I couldn't get it.

My best guess is that I exhausted myself eventually, because I was always shocked when I woke up in the morning, still in The Bed Thing.  (It was so much less daunting in the morning, because I knew I'd be let out...)

For up to a year (from ages four to five years old, every single night) this was my life.

A year after that, Tara and I moved into our great grandparents' house, where we shared their guest room bed.  A glorious giant (to us) bed that two six-year-olds could sleep in with plenty of room leftover. One side of the bed was against a wall while the other faced the room.  So Grandma and Grandpa moved kitchen chairs in to set beside the bed as a makeshift railing.

Related: What I Remember About My Childhood Bedroom

Grandpa would gently toss us into bed, making us giggle, and then cover us with the giant wooden scissors he used to grab hold of the blankets.  We would say nightly prayers with Grandma, asking important questions like, "How many years does a person have to go to school before being done?"

I felt so safe there those four months.  I can still conjure the smell, the sheets, the blankets...and Grandma and Grandpa there, making sure things were okay.

And they were.

Because there was no Bed Thing.

Finally, I was free to move.  To roll around and get comfortable.  It seriously gave me so much joy.  The only thing I had to worry about now is Tara insisting: "Don't take all the covers..." 

Five years after being forced to use The Bed Thing nightly, I still remembered it.  One night when I was 9 years old, I was sleeping over on my little brothers' bedroom floor in a sleeping bag when one of our parents came to check on us.  I was on my way to sleep the way that felt most natural and comfortable to me: on my side, sort of curled up.

"Straighten out."  

I heard the soft command in the dark, and hurried to comply.  Just hearing those words and making sure I was 'sleeping straight' brought back memories of being restrained to sleep.

It felt deeply unfair that everyone else in my family got to sleep however they felt most comfortable and I had to constantly mind and correct my natural inclinations even in sleep.

As an adult, I have a lot of anxiety around falling asleep.  I'm still hyper-aware of my sleep position.

It's been years.

My body still remembers.  I still remember.

I won't forget this.

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