Irrational Fear of Sleep

Yes, I have an irrational fear of sleep. I hate to sleep. I would rather sit up staring in a stupor at the computer screen, so tired I cannot even comprehend what I’m looking at, then actually go lay down and fall asleep. I would rather stay up as long as possible and be so tired I can hardly function the next day, then go relax and drift of to dream land.

I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This is one of the diagnosis's I received a couple years back. I think it’s one of the “heavier” ones they told me I had.

Because of it, I have terrible nightmares. These nightmares are so vivid and real like I will wake up scared out of my mind. I’ll be so scared I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I’m not even sure if I’m really awake or alive. I’ll be afraid to get up and use the bathroom, or to roll over and wake my husband up, for fear that the things that happen in these dreams are actually true.

Many times I will still be in the dream stage of sleep, so when I wake up I’m paralyzed. This is especially scary because I dream that I’m dying quite often.

So, even though I told my husband I was turning off the computer and coming to bed, here I still sit, typing a post that most certainly could have waited until tomorrow.

I do not like clowns, and have nightmares about them often.

Photo courtesy of  therealjondo

One Of The Reasons

I start to wonder if I'm really just wasting my time trying to get my BSN in nursing is when I start to have a panic attack and burst into tears when I'm told I cannot look over a test I've already turned in.

Because the instructor didn't give me the directions for the test before she let me start it.

Even if I arrived to class 25 minutes late on a test night so I wasn't there to hear the instructions in the first place.

And that's only because, apparently, I can't tell time.

How the hell will I EVER be able to hold down a job? A demanding nursing job, at that, if I can't even hold myself together when I'm not allowed to look at a test after the instructor gave me some instructions after I turned the test in?

I hate that I can not have a "normal" reaction to a given situation about 95% of the time. Well, I don't know if it's quite 95%. But that's what we're going to go with. 

I'm learning in therapy how to "be in the moment." How to use my "wise mind."

There's obviously a shortage of wise minds being in the moment around here.

It Starts. Maybe.

This is a blog I've wanted to start for a very long time. I've actually started it in other place, done a post or two, and then left it alone.

I want to blog about my mental health. It ain't always pretty and I don't like to put stuff that's too heavy on my other blog. I try to keep that one sort of funny. If you could call it that.

Whatever.

Anyway, I am just really scared to begin this blog. About a year and a half ago (2 years? something like that), I was diagnosed with some afflictions. See? I'm afraid to even say them. I put up a blog about it on MySpace, and my family saw it.

Needless to say, they were PISSED!! It was just one more example of how I'm such a bad daughter. How could I DO that to my family? Oh, it was terrible. Family members who I hadn't talked to in years and years were coming out of the woodwork to tell me how bad it was and ask me how I could do that to my family.

I did take that blog down. I realized that how I worded some of the stuff, it did sound like I was being terribly harsh and mean. but I didn't really intend for it to all come out like that.

I've thought about trying to make the blog anonymous, but then I'm not really being true, am I? Not only that but there are so many ways to figure out who is actually writing the blog. So, I feel that it's just kind of pointless to try to do it that way.

Plus my family pretty much doesn't even talk to me anymore. What do I have to lose?

But why do I feel the need to write this blog now?

To help me feel sane.