Friday, May 15, 2009

Pavor Nocturnus


There are so many things I could blog about right now, but I am choosing something out of the ordinary. Some people know this about me, some do not, but either way a lot more people are gonna know real soon. I have sleeping issues. It takes me a long time to fall asleep and I generally do not fall asleep well unless I am very, very tired. I do from time to time take a sleep aid, usually Tylenol PM, Simply Sleep or Benadryl. However, I don't like to take anything that knocks me out too much because then I am afraid I won't hear the baby monitor. While Griffin hasn't woke up in the middle of the night in a couple of months, it still irks me that I could be dead to the world, but that might not be so bad I guess. You see falling asleep is the least of my issues. I wake up all night long and I fall back asleep. I wake up because I have night terrors. The technical name is pavor nocturnus and Wikipedia has a pretty accurate description of them. I have bad dreams that become, well, real. It's very scary for my husband. The poor guy will never know if I am sleeping or really being attacked because I act the same way (screaming, scratching, walking, talking, yelling, crying, more screaming, panic, etc). I have terrible, terrible dreams that I don't even want to say out loud and then I wake up and think that someone really is attacking me or they want to hurt me, or kill me or something like that. Last night was no exception. It was actually a pretty bad episode. It was so terrifying that when I finally did realize I was okay, I couldn't even utter to Jason what I saw. I didn't want to talk about it because, I didn't want to fall asleep and go right back to that dream. Sometimes there  isn't a dream involved. I suspect it has something to do with my anxiety. It can be really embarrassing and it really freaks us all out. The weirdest thing to me is how it affects us. The next day, Jason and I are so weirded out that we treat each other differently. And I wish I knew what to do. I've tried Ambien and either a small dose does nothing or a larger dose makes me crazy. I think I might have to tell a doctor. I have talked about it before but not in detail because I am little ashamed of it. What do you think? Am I curable or just plain crazy? Does anyone else do this? Help me. 

4 comments:

Lyssa said...

Is it getting worse? From my experiences with you, they were mostly amusing, but this doesn't sound funny at all. I think you should see your doctor. I'm not sure that medication is the answer, but maybe a psychologist or something. If you ever need to talk in the middle of the night I'm always awake! haha Just don't call me during the day...

Tanika Lee said...

Regan,

You are not crazy. I haven't had exactly what you are talking about--at least not consecutively like you seem to have them. They are just really horribly night terrors but they are few and far between for me. (and i just go sleep in the bathtub)I would tell a doctor. It's not good for you! But I am here for you no matter what. If you are scared. Call me. I will be here. I love you so much.

Kathy said...

I've been hearing a lot about night terrors. I'm starting to think they are more common than we thought. It's just people don't like to talk about it.
I'm very sorry you get them. I don't dream when something is wrong. Unless it's stress then I dream about a specific couple. I usually dream when I'm feeling normal.

tiburon said...

Eek! have you thought about a sleep study?

On a side note - I am having massive difficulty reading the text on the blog...