“Afraid to Sleep”

My new nighttime routine shifted a few months ago into finding something on television that lulls my worried brain into falling asleep with ease. Old childhood shows, familiar in their characters and simple themes, settled into background sounds. Most nights, I drift off before the opening titles play across the screen. Some nights, an episode had me laughing right as I’d drift off. 

This determination to find something innocuous at bedtime wove into my life as the anxiety of waking up torments me. When the alarm sounds now, I think “What nightmare happened while I slept.” 

I could sit and write endlessly of the abuses occurring at this moment by this regime, but I posted the Project 2025 document daily for weeks and warned about the brutality of its goals. I heard rationalizations from the people I warned that I just didn’t like Trump. To be frank, a narcissistic sociopath in charge of any country should disturb any reasonable and intelligent person. The cult of Trump, though, embraces his corruption and destruction.

For me, waking up each morning reveals another level of the cult’s inhumanity. I shot out a post on Facebook recently, asking for people who voted for this man to PM me if they now regret their vote. I also stated that if they still believe in this administration to leave me out of their lives.   

Not a single person contacted me to say they regret their vote. Silence. 

It took me until this week to realize that some of the cult members didn’t bother to send their usual holiday greetings via mail, email, or text. I think they feel righteous in cutting me out of their lives as I gave them my permission to leave me alone. 

As we enter this year, we hit the anniversary of the Insurrection of January 6th. At least I won’t have to hear these disciples sing his praise. My faith in so many people, both friends and family, has been battered and broken since that day. 

If the world “rights itself” after this interlude with hell, will I still be afraid to go to sleep in dread of what mornings will bring? The main lesson I’ve learned over the last few years is that many people hide their cruelty and hatred under patriotism and religion. They won’t change. This is who they’ve always been. It is who they will alway be. They are the Bogeyman.

Copyright 2026 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman