Adult night terrors- why don't the doctors listen?

Jacks_xxx

Me too. I've never even tried to tell people or the doctor about this, but obviously my husband and kids know.

In my head I always have some people (usually children) to protect from the monster of the week. I wake up exhausted - and sometimes actually bruised - from where I've punched or kicked the big scary wardrobe, or fallen partway down the stairs. I have the falling kind of sleep paralysis a lot but I've learned not to mind that so long as I'm safe in bed when it happens!

Luckily the worst I've ever done to another person outside my immediate family is kick them from my bed when they've been lying in a twin bed next to it. I shouldn't have been silly enough to share a room but I really didn't want to tell them about this, and hoped I wouldn't be stressed on holiday.

I remember staying at a friends house for the weekend and explaining that my insomnia meant I couldn't share and feeling awful when she showed me into a big double room with ensuite when some other weekend guests were having to share much smaller spaces. The room was beautiful but all I could think was "Omigod there's so much breakage potential if I kick off!" Plus it was directly at the top of a huge staircase that I was V scared of falling down.

We're s'posed to be going on holiday with my parents in a flat soon and although there's no staircase to fall down I'm dreading what I'll do because I'm always worse in strange places. The stress of worrying what I'll do is enough to set me off. At least in a hotel or B&B I can be locked in!

poppyolivia

mrbrightside842 wrote: »

I have a weird one, which I don't really tell people about because it sounds weird! But if I wake up during the night, which I often do, I get some sort of paralysis. It only last for a maximum of 2 minutes, but I'm completely unable to move during it. And I can hear a high pitched ringing during it. No idea what it is! I used to be scared of it, but am used to it now and know it will pass.

butler_helen wrote: »

Mrbrightside - I only get the paralysis when I am extremely tired, so tired that I cannot keep my eyes open... then I end up 'trapped' and it can last hours... I only know they last hours because I got it on a coach trip back from france once and was physically unable to get out for the toilet stop and my friends thought I was being 'lazy'.

Hi there!

I have sleep paralysis too had it since I was 15 or before...(im 34 now) I thought it was ghosts I was seeing, I've had the old hag next to my bed right next to my face, I've had 2 aliens at the side of my bed stroking my face, black shadowy figures at the bottom of the bed, something strangling me, something squeezing my head...all the time all I can do is move my eyeballs and eyelids..everything else is paralized...when I come out of it I can still feel exactly where the pressure was on my head or neck! So scarey that in that time I swear IF I could move I would jump out the window and kill myself!

I can also float upwards and move but all this time i have my eyes shut as I am terrified I'm going to see the old hag lifting me...its so real..can't explain it...the noise is like a loud growling getting louder and louder and louder and it feels like your head is going to explode ..

best thing to do is concentrate on trying to wiggle your big toe or move a finger...try forget whats going and and concentrate like you have never concentrated in your life and you WILL be able to snap out of it..just NEVER open your eyes because some of the sh*t I have seen would give you a heart attack!

I've tried heavy breathing to wake my husband up so he can shake me and that sometimes works....

I always seem to get it at 3AM (80% of the time).....which when you wake up and realise that (google it)...the fright you get with realising its 3am again will no doubt keep you awake til morning!

BUT DON'T LISTEN to anyone saying its a satan thing thats happening to you its not I have researched it all and there is an explanation for it ALL...nothing to do with ghosts, Jesus, God or Satan.

ok Ive waffled on abit haven't I......sleep tight xxxxxx

ps i haven't gone to the doctor because A they wont have heard of it or B they'll give me sleeping pills and the thought of not been able to wake up during an episode is enough to keep me awake for months! xxx

butler_helen

I think the worst one was when I was staying at my nans house, because she's older and doesn't understand. I woke screaming and she obviously thought something really was wrong, however I wasn't able to communicate that there was nothing wrong and I was 'dreaming'. I think I scared her more than me.

I can also get 'reverse night terrors' - stay with me on this one - where I see 'good things'. For example, I was screaming and screaming to my mum that she was missing her 'show'. She came running in... to find me staring up at the ceiling, apparently watching flowers tumbling down around me. Even now, I can remember feeling them and wondering when the box they were in was going to fall too. Sadly I also remember sleeping on the sofa on the same night as I was convinced there was something in the bed and knowone was able to proove there wasn't.

Jacks XXX - ''I have the falling kind of sleep paralysis'' - I think those are paralax errors. I get those too, although I can't remember the last one so I would say it's been a few months. I only get them when I am beyond tired and can't physically move from for being tired (most commonly when traveling- I've had them on planes).

I've decided to print this thread out and show it to the doctor next week... also I think I will keep a diary of when they happen. No matter how short.

I'm so pleased you don't all think I'm mad!

peachyprice

I think the difficult thing for 'outsiders' to understand is that we can't tell whether we're awake or asleep because our surroundings are exaclty as they should be. Even the clock has the right time on it.

I'm really not sure, when I'm in bed screaming, or more recently silent screaming (haven't decided which is worse) whether my eyes are open, but I feel like I'm wide awake, even though somewhere in the back of my mind I know the bed can't possibly be falling through the floor.

My OH has said to me, but you know it can't be real, why don't you just wake yourself up. He can't understand that I think I am awake, that's how real it is.

poppyolivia

I would love to be able to scream just to wake my husband up...it comes out as a soft moan though and very quiet...it takes all your energy to do it!..I have a friend that has the type where you can move..he's pretty bad with it, he sees the spiders and people in his room and he will jump up and try to fight them etc...he is 100% sure there is something/someone in the house...all too scarey!

I think the best thing to do (apart from going to the doctors)..is too look up the internet and research it all, go on to youtube and watch everything about it...I swear it does help a little bit..most nights now I realise from the sounds that I'm about to encounter something in my room, sometimes I can (in my head) tell it to booger off over and over again and its not too bad...other times though the feeling is so violent i think Im going to die and saying booger off in my head doesn't work it just feels like I'm going to die of a heart attack...BUT I have found that since reading up about it (sleep paralysis)..that its happening less..(touchwood) its more like I'm in control of it now instead of the other way around..don't get me wrong when I do read up about I will get it bad for about 3 nights in a row but its only because its in my head.


but whatever you do try not get sleeping pills...omg I can't think of anything worse..:( can you imagine being trapped in that and totally not being able to wake up because of the pills?

keelykat

Hi, whenever I've been stressed/upset/got things on my mind, I have wierd nightmares. Usually I think there's someone or something in the flat, last week i got up and scared my hubby by putting on the light and shouting 'there's something in here!'...i woke up thinking what am i doing!? Felt rather embarassed and got back into bed, luckily my hubby is used to this though now.

I most often dream about spiders being on the bed though, and usually end up jumping up, shaking the duvet (poor hubby again) and shouting that theres a spider on the bed. I wake myself up doing this, and feel out of breath and scared even though i then realise it was just a dream.

I find it embarassing more then anything, but I know what causes it as I can go weeks without any nightmares, then one day i'll be upset over something then i'll go to bed and have a nightmare. As daft as it sounds, i try to avoid reading anything that may upset me or scare me (could be an upsetting article in the news for example) or watching a scary film before bed. It's not just children that are affected by this kind of thing.

keely.

Jacks_xxx

butler_helen wrote: »

I've decided to print this thread out and show it to the doctor next week... also I think I will keep a diary of when they happen. No matter how short.

I'm so pleased you don't all think I'm mad!

That's why I posted hon, I wanted you (and everyone else who suffers with this) to know to know that you're not alone - and not demented!

Keep us in the loop, won't you.

Kaz2904

I've had terrors and horrific nightmares before but don't get them often. They are extremely frightening and I don't think anyone who has been there as a witness or acually had one wold ever deny this.
One thing that struck me was the fact that someone metioned 3am (can't remember who sorry!).
I'm a nurse and work mainly nights.
There is a lot of documentation that shows that most people die between the hours of 3 and 4.30 in the morning. There is also a lot of anecdotal evidence that many labours start or babies are born between these times.
Having worked nights for many years, we have found that 3- 4.30am is the worst time of night. It is when we feel sick, can't keep our eyes open, feel our heart rates slow down/ speed up for no reason etc etc. Anecdotally, this is because your blood sugar is at its lowest during this time of night and, generally, you are going into REM sleep. So why does it happen to us when we work nights? We eat at different times don't we?
That's a kind of poo poo to the theory but I have regularly gone hypo (dropped my blood sugar) at this time of night (we've tested it, along with my blood pressure- low and my heart rate- high) and that's when I'm awake and in night mode.
None of this is that helpful, I wouldn't imagine but be reassured that many thousands of people suffer from this problem and I'm clearly not the only person to have noted the 3am time- (espescially as it is someting you are told about by every night worker you ever work with if they don't know you are a regular night worker).

Another issue I definately notice as a night worker is the full moon. If I'm working (so not sleeping), I will very often experience a very mad night. Sane people will act quite madly. Another anecdotal thing- ever heard of lunacy? Try placing an R in there. Another anecdotal non medically recognized symptom is called "sundowners" where people are very "normal" during daylight hours and then when the night staff come in, they become extremely mad, random behaviour, agression etc etc.

Very few of these issues are recogninzed. I wonder how many would be more recognized if there was the same level of staffing in health care during the night as there was during the day?


Good luck and I hope you find a way to live with these night terrors or cure them.

hethmar

Sorry, havent read through all this but my son used to have these - the reason was he was hypoglycemic - when his blood sugar dropped in the night he either had night terrors or paralysed.

Have you checked out this avenue.