Dormant Hibernation

   Beyond my own boundaries lies night terrors, these are like nightmares on steroids. They are unidentifiable at the time due to many circumstances. Sometimes you are unable to recollect anything happening, but the fear and paranoia are still there. Other times it is like a movie-playing, scene by vivid scene. You know exactly what frightened you to the core and your real life is on hold stuck in this parallel universe. I am supposed to take tranquilizers for the night terrors, but with my ever-changing mood, I do not take them regularly. The reasoning changes from the mere I just feel I do not need them, I refuse to take them out of fear of going bald again, potentially dying, or because of the broad spectrum of how they work; either not at all or a full on sleep fest. These night terrors have had me paralyzed out of fear since childhood. I have literally had one of the same ones for as long as I can remember. It never changes and I wake up at the same point in it every time as well. Now that I am an adult, it does not horrifyingly frighten me as much as it did when I was a child, thankfully. I have had numerous ones about snakes invading my house and “waking up” to them covering me in bed. Several about my friends or family dying right in front of me, me killing people close to me, but more than I can count or want to recollect they are about me being killed or hunted. All this may sound like just Plain Jane nightmares to you, but until you have had to live through one, do not even go there with me. These things are serious business. I thought I was literally going crazy like Mort played by Johnny Depp in the movie Secret Window. In the moment that one is happening, it takes you over and that is the only thing your mind can comprehend. Not until the dust settles and everything finally starts to fade away, do you realize that what just happened was not what it appeared to be. It is almost like living your life with a pair of demented 3-D movie glasses on, that only show atrociously barbaric monster scenes, but not knowing you are wearing them and not being able to take them off when they turn Stanley Ipkiss into “The Mask“. Not only are the night terrors impairing to the mind, but to the body as well. They render a person from ever getting a good night’s rest and weaken the person, leaving them forever running on fumes. You are stuck in a state of sleep that never allows your body to recuperate. With the severe night terrors as a child I would also sleep walk, talk in my sleep, and I also thrashed so much I often woke up on the floor beside my bed and this happened on a nightly basis. Although I do not sleep walk now, I still talk in my sleep to the point I can hold a conversation with someone, talk to whomever or whatever is in my head while asleep, I even scream to the point of waking myself. My body jerks, twitches, thrashes, and I have even hit people. I breath so heavy while asleep during some of these episodes where I have worried people and the most terrifying and debilitating part of it all of it is when you wake up and reality is so tightly twisted into the night terror, there is no actuality and your stuck for hours in an upside down world. When you wake up from a night terror it is not the normal arousal of fear, it is a full-blown life or death paranoia situation going on. I remember not for the normal child-like reasoning’s but as a child, I hated taking naps. After the naps, I would awaken to a deep sadness and feelings of abandonment and I would literally run to find my parents or anyone else to prove that people other than me were still alive. I remember a time when I was approximately five years old, I awoke from my nap, the sun was going down, and I could not find my parents. I was so distraught I demolished the living room, threw the TV remote so hard against the wall it shattered and hit me in the face, I ran next door to a friend of my Mother’s looking for someone, any body. I literally thought everyone had left me for good or that they all died. I scared her to death because I was so upset, my face was beet red from crying, and I couldn‘t tell her what was wrong, but when it happens you are so caught in the firestorm that you do not know what exactly is or is not happening. To this day I still go through this more often than I let on. Unlike the childhood me, I am now an adult, abandonment, and feeling neglected are not as important as they are as children, so you learn to get by. It never stops the fear of it all, even when you are not having an episode. It never fails to stop me that any time I accidentally fall asleep or take a nap I wake up as if a bolt of lightening has hit me. First looking at the clock, then to check to see if the sun is still out, and then finally to see if people are around and in that exact order I do my checklist. I do not know exactly why I always do this, maybe I fear the feelings it gave me as a child, maybe because I am looking for assurance, or maybe because I am trying to “talk” myself out of the feelings of fear. What I do know is that sleeping, no matter the necessity, has never been my friend.

Chasity