Mental Health Chronic Insomnia, Nightmares, Sleep Paralysis, And Fear Of Sleeping

[dopemaster]

Right, So I have been a chronic insomniac my whole life. I know this is a long one, but I am sure other people have these issues.

It started when I was a child and may have been self-induced. I grew up with my parents constantly fighting and yelling and my father was rather abusive.

I would stay up most the night and read or play video games as it was the only time I could have to myself.

Later on when I started using drugs and smoking I would stay up all night smoking pot and masturbate, play video games, and read.

So now I am almost 30 and I am what I would consider clean. I do not think my drug history matters much, but I have done every drug in the book and started with glue, gasoline, and alcohol around 5. I did go through over ten years of opiate habituation and most of them being straight up addiction.

My sleeping habits never changed when I was clean much. If anything it got worse. I sleep about 24-36 hours a week.

I get seriously awful nightmares where I feel real pain. I several recurring dreams where I feel real physical pain. I suppose I elaborate.

The worst one is I am in a knife fight and I am trying to grab the knife and my hands are torn to shreds and I am being stabbed in the gut and chest. It is no specific person and more of a dark shadowy figure.

I have other dreams where I am cornered by people who say they know me and want to extract some for of revenge. I cannot seem to move in my dream. I usually end up reaching for a gun or knife and wake up with my hand on my penis.

If I have a good dream which only happens a few times a year, I usually wake up in tears. That is the only time I ever cry. I have suppressed my emotions my whole life and am emotionally numb. I usually dream of having a good job, not having chronic pain and anxiety, a nice house, and a family. That is what I always wanted my whole life and well that is not the way my life worked out.

Usually if I sleep on the couch I will not sleep long enough to have dreams, so I often avoid my bed unless I use the alarm clock.

Also for as long as I can remember I wake up shaking and sick to my stomach regardless if I have a dream or not.

I never really saw this as a problem until recently. People I live with seem to have a problem with it though, but now I am really trying to get my life together.

Often if I have difficulty sleeping it is much easier for me to stay up all night because it takes me about two hours to get myself together at least after sleeping. So when I have an obligation in the morning I usually stay up all night.

The only other thing that works would be to drink or drug myself to sleep which I often do.

I haven't mentioned it to a doctor in a long time as I get a lot of medication which I need for panic disorder, agoraphobia, and chronic pain. I only get a prescription for one scheduled medication and all my pain medication is non narcotic.

I absolutely cannot take any type of psych meds (I have tried and hated all of them) other than ambien which my doctor will not give me because I am on a high dose of benzos which does make me functional and I have little to no problems with anxiety or agoraphobia with my medication.

So that being said I doubt that any medications would help me. I cannot smoke marijuana at this time which would definitely help and I am not willing to take the risk of scoring drugs at this time.

Really my only options are to get counseling, talk to my doctor, and try to work this out on my own as well. All 3 are in the works.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[herbavore]

It sounds like your mind is screaming to be heard.

That is a lot of pain to be stored up--no safety as a small child; drugs at 5??!!

What you are doing sounds like the right course (counseling, doctor, self-help) but it makes me wish that we had legal and regulated guided therapy using psychedelics available. Sometimes the pain is so old and so deeply embedded that it is hard to even access what you need to heal.

 

[dopemaster]

I feel a bit embarrassed that I posted this and only one person replied.

Last night I had a dream that was not horrific, it was more like I was running around in some sort of sci-fi facility trying to escape.

Still woke up feeling horrid, but now I feel fine after being up for a few hours.


I suppose I did always suppress everything nasty in my life. I have had doctor's tell me I have ptsd.

I do not think that is true and I am diagnosed with panic disorder and anxiety disorder. For that I take clonazepam, which works pretty damn well as I know longer have panic attacks. It used to get to the point where I would get dizzy, puke, and/or pass out.

I really should say as far as clonazepam or any benzo that it is very intoxicating to people who do not need them as I have seen people take small amounts of benzos and do stupid shit and not remember.

They are also highly addictive and I am legally a seizure risk and I cannot be taken off my medication legally without my consent. I have had a few seizures when circumstances put me between myself and my medication. I never abused it, I just do not carry around more than two days supply and I have been stuck at a friends house with no ride a few times and had a seizure and usually they ended up getting me home or scoring me some benzos.

I have spent some nights in jail in this old country and the dumb fucks never would give me my medication and that usually ended up with me being let out on my own recognizance and charges being dropped. I always tell them that I am going to have a seizure and well, I guess it has worked in my favor because they think I am bluffing so that being said being on this type of medication has its pitfalls.

I suppose if you have seen "The Soprano's", Tony would be a good example of how that works.

I used to have rather violent tendencies, but I have managed to stay out of starting fights for a very long time.

Unfortunately, I have had to finish a few fights, but luckily never faced any legal repercussions as people don't usually start a fight and lose and then call the cops if there are witnesses or cameras around.

I have had to disarm people wielding guns, knives, and the like more than I can count.

 

[dezz]

Interesting, apart from drugs at age 5 my childhood sounds very similar to yours with the parents and stuff. I also have a lot of trouble sleeping, have extremely vivid nightmares from time to time and experience sleep paralysis regularly. I also seem to often skip nights because it's just easier then trying to get some sleep and then struggling to even get going in the mornings. Maybe our childhoods are the source of this bullshit

 

[RobotRipping]

I also have insane sleeping issues. The way I deal with it is to fight back in my dreams with lucid dreaming. When sober I'm attacked in dreams and sleep paralysis but each day I gain more power and am less afraid. At some point I attack back like neo in the matrix and the power I feel is enormous. For sleep paralysis I had to learn to embrace the fear, I'd wake up to seeing dark figures stabbing me, demonic spirits torturing me and hearing people trying to break in.I'd often wake up screaming in my sleep so much so I started using my own screams to wake myself up and roll out of the paralysis. When I woke up everything was so calm and serene. These experiences are purely manifestations of fear, the less u fear, the less power these things will have over u. You are most certainly a strong person to deal with this shit, it is pure fear, uve been put through hell and survived, use that to build ur confidence that u can indeed handle this and if anything your strength is to be feared.

 

[dopemaster]

Its, weird but I ended up sleeping for several days straight. I guess the sleep deprivation finally caught up with me.

At first I was dreaming about relationship with family members and my girlfriend. Shit was fucking trippy and lucid as fuck.

After that I really do not remember my dreams, but they seemed less harsh.

I suppose it is something I am going to have to deal with.

It is good to hear I am not the only one this happens to.

 

[aq.]

^^

glad to hear that you ended up getting some rest.

it's been a few days since you posted this and said you were going to talk to your doctor, any news on that?

i suffer from occasional insomnia too and am sometimes afraid of sleep, and i really don't do anything for it. i just figure that it is the way i will be. i take otc sleep meds sometimes and benzos to help me sleep, but that's about it. i am interested to see what works for you.

 

[dopemaster]

I got my gabapentin tripled which is no surprise as I started at the starting dose. It really helped to sleep without serious pain.

I ended up sleeping for pretty much 3 days sleep with being up for 4 or 6 hours here and there. I was a bit under the weather and I believe I was having PAWDS.

All in all I feel better, but I didn't get any sleep last night, but that is most likely because my girlfriend stayed the night.

I suppose before I had alot of chronic pain I took melatonin, klonopin, booze, nyquil, tylenol and weed helped. I didn't take all at once, except I have had a klonopin rx most my adult life. I really can't recommend any of that besides the melatonin and tylenol.

I kinda just rotated through what I had and usually booze, benzos, and nyquil was the answer back then.

As far as any benzodiazapine, that is a conversation to have with a doctor.

Before I had the klonopin rx I drank alot of nyquil and drank heavily to sleep.


As far as what Dezz said I do the exact same thing and sleep usually every other night and often limit my sleep to avoid dreams.