Non-sleeping beauty

AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Jace Marley Hutton and I’m eight years old and, for the last six years and ten months, I’ve not been sleeping, like, at all!

But now I’m a champion sleeper.

Yes, my parents named me after Bob.

I have to say this about my horse-crazy self: I don’t have OCD but I have OHD; Obsessive Horse Disorder. I love horses.

When I was three, my mom gave me a “pony experience” as a birthday present. I was, like, “Oh my gosh, that is so cool!” Cuz I love horses. And I got to groom the pony, ride the pony, and I was like, “I can’t give this up!”

But I did have to stop for a couple of years because: 1. I had other hobbies; and 2, the stables, Horses Helping Humans, were moving all the way up to Maracas Valley.

Right now, I do school for, let’s say, one hour with my class teacher Amira Wignarajah on Tuesday. My main schooling has always been at home, so my mom says lockdown didn’t present too much of a change for us.

My mom says I teach myself “un-schooling” and my mom facilitates my learning.

If a child is interested in horses, all learning comes from horses: you learn to research about horses, learn math from the horse, write stories about horses, the history and geography of horses.

We used to have a cat named Smalls who used to follow my dad around like a dog. We have a cat, ‘Bago. I call him Potato but my mom says he doesn’t respond to that because he doesn’t know it’s his name. But, one day, I will go, “Po-tay-toe!” And he’ll come running!

And we have two pothounds, Yara, who looks like a meerkat lemur, and Lucky, who looks like she’s supposed to be a seal.

You should interview Yara, BC Pires! She would tell you a lot of things!

When I grow up, I want to own, like, a giant pet centre. So I can play with pets all day long. With a stables for the horses.

And somewhere where all the pets could dance, like a pet dance studio. With Pomeranians wearing little leg-warmers.

Horses give you messages. When I felt a twitch going down my horse’s spine, I thought, “Okay, that’s the message!” And the message from the other horse was, “I want to be part of the lesson, too! Don’t leave me out!”

My mom says that getting me to sleep was more work than her master’s degree.

I wasn’t able to sleep at all unless my mom was there and it took two hours to get me to sleep for ten minutes.

Basically, I was a miracle of nature. A miracle of nature.

My mom says everybody made fun of my parents. People called my mom and dad “Shhhhh!” and “Don’t Talk Around the Child!”

One year after I licked out my front teeth riding my scooter on a hill, my friend was riding on her bike on the same hill and she said, “Jace, follow me!”

And I was, like, “Sofia, nooooo! Press your brakes!”

But she was already rolling down that hill fast!

Basically, that was a violation of every single safety hazard ever. Luckily, she wasn’t hurt on her face, just her leg, so she was fine.

The same trauma I felt a year before, I watched my friend do again a year later. The same nonsense! My mom says, “The body remembers trauma and always shows it.”

And my first acute insomnia episode happened exactly one year later.

All the years I wasn’t sleeping well, I just thought, “Well, there must be something wrong with me!”

And I grew to live with it. Mom would put me in bed and have to stay long hours with me. After, like, two hours, I would doze off…and then wake back up! My mom had to set her work appointments for after 1 pm.

I was not sleeping well at all and my mom was like, we’re booking a flight to Miami! Because there was this sleep clinic and Dr Shahzeidi was one of the nicest doctors I have literally ever met! He was like, “Jace, I’m going to medicate you!”

Because I needed to sleep for at least five hours. So they could get through my whole sleep-cycle twice.

They put stickers on my head, legs, cheek and neck and put wires on me. It was the worst! Even when I (went back to the hotel), my head was still sticking to things. If I put my head on a pillow, it stuck!

Luckily I had a new toy I hadn’t opened yet, so that made me happy.

I was trying to play with my new toy in the hotel room in Miami but the toy didn’t work…and then I just crawled into bed and fell asleep.

For the first time in my life, my mom and dad watched me fall asleep easily!

And they hadn’t had breakfast. So, until after lunchtime, they just sat on two chairs in the hotel room looking at one another, watching me, afraid to say a word. But I don’t think an express train would have woken me up.

My mom follows earthquakes. She’s a seismologist-nerd.

We were at the sleep clinic for three days and Dr Shahzeidi said, “Jace, you have insomnia!”

I said, “Well, that explains a lot. Wait. What’s insomnia?”

I still don’t really get what insomnia is but I get that it makes you not sleep a lot.

Also, I don’t have it any more. I started sleeping better from that day. I had to have a sleeping plan.

It did not feel good not being able to sleep.

Riding horses has helped me build up more confidence in myself because I have to be confident, to ride horses and not fall off.

I’d lost confidence because I got defeated (by not sleeping). I didn’t feel I could do stuff by myself any more. Then I realised I had an illness that stopped me from sleeping.

I’ve been sleeping well on my own for 15 months now and it feels so much better.

I wake up and go, “Alleluia!”

Sometimes my mom has to wake me up! And I pull the pillow over my head.

My mom says part of the reason I can have a conversation with BC Pires now is because my rights and freedoms were protected from the time I was zilch years old.

I wasn’t forced or left alone or punished for my difficulty in falling asleep. I was always loved and supported through what was an illness, my mom says.

To me, a Trini can be a rainbow of colours. From my mom’s skin colour and hair, to mine, to Dad’s, to everyone.

I find that’s cool ‘cause, if you go to a foreign place, you can’t say, “Oh, there’s a Trini!” You have to ask them!

Trinidad and Tobago, to me, means home. Because I was born and raised here.

Also, Trinidad and Tobago means very good food. Pholouri! Doubles! Pelau! Watercress!

My mom and I made doubles at home over covid but the bara came out hard! Not thin and nice. And we didn’t have sweet sauce, so we had to water-down tamarind sauce!

Read the full version of this feature on Saturday at www.BCPires.com