The Ultimate Hard and Fast debt clearing mission

Birdie85

Sounds like Grace could do with having her boyfriend round more often if he makes her drink more formula! Could do with the extra poo he makes her produce though! :eek:

Hope you have a lovely holiday filled with lots of lovely food and family time!

Has everyone got nice weekend plans? we haven't got a lot on, I'm off to a work friend's house tomorrow night for wine, nibbles and someone selling 'shabby chic' home bits, which I hope to avoid buying! Other than that I'm saving my energy for next weekend as it's OH's birthday party on Saturday and Lady Gaga on Sunday! :j

ruby_eskimo

Aww, I'm excited that we could have a whole lot of new little ones running around the thread soon! I'm not broody at all, honest!

Hope they've sorted the oxygen out Dinah and that you all have a fab time!

Went to see Ghost the musical on Wednesday night. It was ok, the special effects are amazing and the woman playing Oda May is the best bit about it. Bit disappointed as there were a few too many "filler" songs and a couple of the songs were obscure Jimmy Eat World songs with the lyrics changed! But it was a good night out with my old colleagues and that was the main thing!

No plans for the weekend Birdie, although I think we may be in the pub with the usual crowd tonight.

shrimpy_80

Hope you have a lovely holiday Dinah, NIM and Grace!

No exciting plans here for the weekend, aiming to avoid the pub as sober September officially starts tomorrow. It's OH's Grandad's birthday tomorrow so we're going round for tea, hopefully I will avoid the wine! I should just drive really but they live in the country and I think navigating those winding lanes coupled with OH stamping on his invisible brake in the passenger seat would drive anyone to drink!

ruby_eskimo

It's all gone a bit quiet over here without Dinah and NIM so I thought I would come and ask for some advice;

Last night, went to bed, everything was fine and then all of a sudden about midnight, was woken up by OH shaking me (quite violently I might add). I thought something was really wrong, like the flat was on fire or something but all he said was "I can't sleep" and then just burst into tears. Then he kept saying he didn't like living here, that the people upstairs were making too much noise (they weren't) and he's found it really hard to sleep since moving because of all the noises. And then he just wouldn't stop crying. I was half asleep and thought he was joking to start with but he was being really paranoid and I thought he might suffocate me because he was being so physically clingy.

Eventually I managed to calm him down and he went to sleep (about 2 hours later) but I couldn't. It was so strange and almost felt like it didn't happen (you know where you're not sure if you dreamt the whole thing or not). But this morning things were really weird between us. I think he's a bit embarrassed and I was a bit distant because my brain still hadn't processed what was happening.

He's epileptic and I've been looking at the side effects of the medication he's on and it can cause paranoia, delusions, distressing thoughts etc, so it might be that, but then again he's been taking the tablets for years and this is the first time I've ever seen him like this. Do you think I should get him to go to the Dr and talk about it?

I don't really know why I'm posting this here but I just feel like I need to talk to someone about it, but not anyone that actually knows him, because he would be mortified if any of our friends or family knew.

Kepp

Hi Ruby

My OH also does this from time to time. He's not on any medication and we think with him it's related to stress as that's when it seems to occur.

He can throw himself out of bed, pull the duvet off and fight with it, as you found he can also shake me very hard, and once he was at the end of the bed pulling off some less than graceful ninja moves. If I try to speak to him he says some very odd things, often convinced that someone else is in the room and attacking him.

It's pretty horrible to wake up to, especially as it's really disorientating to be woken so suddenly, if often forget exactly what he was saying etc.

I found the best thing to do was move away from him so I didn't get accidentally hit and rather than engage in whatever he is talking about or thinks he sees, I just say loudly and calmly 'you need to wake up' over and over again. He then eventually does. It doesn't seem so much like he wakes up as his eyes are already open etc but it's almost like he comes round if you know what I mean.

He then irritatingly goes straight to sleep and I can't!

He's often forgotten about it by the morning or only half-remembers it. I normally tell him what he said/did and then we have a bit of a joke of it. In the middle of the night it isn't funny but by the morning some of it can seem so

Have you done some research on night terrors etc? Lots of useful stuff out there.

We've considered the doctors for OH before but not sure what they could do?

Hope that helps

ruby_eskimo

Thanks Beccie, glad I'm not alone! I'll do a bit of research into Night Terrors and see what they suggest. It's all still a bit of a shock because I've never seen him like it before. I must admit he's under a bit of stress lately so it might be due to that.

Thanks, I feel a lot better now!

Birdie85

That's a bit weird Ruby, not sure if it's something akin to night terrors or if it's his medication making him paranoid. If it was a one time thing maybe it was just a strange stress-related dream that got a little out of hand and blurred the lines between awake and asleep IYKWIM. If he seems a little 'off' in general I'd be sending him to the doctors though, even if he's been on his tablets for a while with no side-effects doesn't mean that he'll never get any ever, small changes can mean that they no longer work as they did.

Have a proper chat about it when he comes home and find out how he really feels. You're renting aren't you? If he truly doesn't like where you live you can always see out the remainder of your lease and move somewhere else, in the meantime there are ear plugs to block out noisy neighbours (even if they're not really noisy, he may find comfort in not being able to hear much background noise from any other sources when he's asleep).

Beccie, I saw an interesting program a while back about people who had night terrors and other sleeping issues (might have been called Sleep Clinic or something like that?) and I can't remember what they did to help the people (either drugs or relaxation techniques I think?) but they sent the people to a clinic which monitored them when asleep and it was crazy what the people did, some were lashing out, some were shouting, some were walking around arguing etc. Scary! One guy had to sleep in a padded room at home as he was a danger to himself! :eek: If your OH's terrors are a regular thing then it could be worth going to the doctor, they could send him for monitoring and might be able to give him something to settle it down.

I feel lucky now that OH barely even moves in his sleep! He shared a room with my Dad one night when they were away for my brother's Stag do and he was so still and so quiet my Dad freaked out as he thought he'd died! He kept getting up to check on him!

Kepp

That sounds like an interesting program Birdie, wish I'd seen it!

It's odd because it's often enough to be a bit of a problem - once every 3 months maybe, but not often enough that he feels justified in going to the doctor if you see what I mean.

How long have you lived in your new flat Ruby? Oddly enough my OH's started when we moved to our current place, nearing on 2 years ago now. It had never happened before that but up until that point we had our own places separately and just stayed over and I had spent a large amount of our relationship away travelling so I wasn't sure if it did happen and I just hadn't seen it? OH rarely remembers it even when I tell him about it so he's no use for whether it happened before!

Hopefully it was just a one off thing for your OH and you'll have stress-free sleeping again! You definitely have my sympathy - broken sleep like that is not fun and neither is the odd feeling that hangs around the next day.

That's funny with your Dad checking on your OH Birdie

shrimpy_80

My OH does this quite often too, although he doesn't tend to move around a lot or shake me, just shouts and screams at the top of his voice! It is terrifying to wake up to at first but I do similar to Beccie and he does 'come round', you can sort of see the awareness dawning on them. If it happens again though I do think it might be worth a word to the doc just in case his medication is having an effect.

Do you think there is any underlying truth in what he said about being unhappy where you are? It could be bothering him but he has been bottling it up. Alternatively it could have been purely down to sleep confusion, OH has tried to throw me out of the house (verbally) in his sleep before!

ruby_eskimo

Yep we're renting, been here almost 4 months now and we've just had a change over in tennants in the flat above. I did go and have a chat with them on Sunday night because they were being a bit loud, but they are students so I made them aware that we're "grown ups" and have to be up early for work, and they've been fine since.

We have a long drive back to Essex tonight ahead of us so we'll chat about it then and see if he really wants to move. We're on a rolling 6 month contract so it's not like we'd have ages to wait if he did want to live somewhere else.

Called him during lunch and he did seem a bit down. Might take your advice Birdie and send him to the Dr's next week if he's still "off".