You know what’s fun? Having both nightmares and night terrors, because one just wasn’t traumatizing enough, clearly.
Let me break it down for the lucky sleepers out there: nightmares are like your brain saying, “Here’s a horror movie you get to remember.” Meanwhile, night terrors are like the director's cut, where you scream, sweat, possibly throw hands at imaginary demons, wake up gasping for air, but the credits roll and you remember absolutely nothing.
Unless you're me.... Because my overachieving brain sometimes lets me remember my night terrors from time to time, just for a second or two after I wake up, which is a real treat at 3 a.m. when I’m already running on 4 hours of chaos-fueled “rest.”
I’ve been doing these sleepovers with Satan since I was 13. I’m 32 now. Years and years of therapy have not helped with this specific trauma response, that's for sure.
That’s nearly two decades literal hell.
Let me tell you, I’ve tried it all from melatonin, magnesium, many medications used off label as a sleep aid, actual sleep medication, hypnotics, sedatives, benzos, medications used for soldiers with PTSD who have nightmares (that one drop my blood pressure so low I thought I was going to die so that was cool) meditation apps, counting sheep, sacrificing my will to live. I have done it all🤷♀️ Nothing works. I just lie there hoping my nightmares are at least creatively written.
Right now I take a classy little combo of clonazepam and Gravol. It doesn’t keep me asleep and it sure as hell doesn’t stop the nightmares, but it does take the edge off the pre-sleep anxiety. Some nights I’m genuinely scared to close my eyes, so the fact that I’m not in full-blown panic mode right before bed feels like a tiny win, and hey, a win’s a win, baby.
Running on no sleep makes me… how do I say this? Unstable. Cranky. Emotionally unwell. So that's why today's therapy Thursday is on a Friday😅
I started writing this yesterday but I literally did not have the brain power or function to finish and do any edits😂💀
I’ll sleep when I’m dead I guess which, with this sleep schedule, might be next week.
Happy Friday 💋