Night Terrors - The waking nightmare

This was originally posted on https://www.endoftheinnocenceproject.org/ for the blog. I am part of the core team working to end sexual violence.

The Waking Nightmare

No matter how many years of counseling I have been through, no matter how many years have passed since the abuse I suffered, no matter how happy, healthy, centered, or healed I feel in this very moment, my “recovery” will never be complete.  I am actually ok with that.  Healing is a process.  It doesn’t always make sense.  Sometimes it scares the hell out of us.  I see my past as a path that I have been on, that got me where I am today.  I wear it as a badge of honor at this point in my life.

Night Terrors are usually reserved for the very young.  Most of us grow out of them by the time we are in our late teens.  I am not so lucky, as I have been having them my entire life, most recently Sunday night.  

They are not really dreams, and not really nightmares.  I can tell the difference between all three.  During a Night Terror I feel very awake, as a matter of fact, I cognitively know that I am awake.  I can hear sounds and see sights.  I can feel touch, I can feel pain.  I can’t move, I feel frozen in place.  I can’t speak, and I usually feel like as though I can’t breath.  Afterwards I can’t really explain what has happened with any degree of certainty.  However, that feeling of sheer, unadulterated terror stays with me for hours, sometimes even days later.  It really shakes me to my core.  My heart will race as if I have just run a marathon.  I will be hyperventilating.  I will sometimes get dizzy or feel a little disoriented.

Sunday night I went to bed early, looking forward to a restful night’s sleep after a nearly perfect day.  I had done just enough housework to make myself tired, but didn’t over do anything because I didn’t want to be sore.  My husband was exhausted, so we decided to call it a night around 8:30 PM. 

For all I know, I was sleeping very peacefully until the moment I woke up screaming my bloody head off.  I am not sure if I scared my husband more with my screams, or he scared me more with his, but we were both very alert at that moment.  Once I finally stopped screaming and actually looked at the clock, I could see that it was 10:55 PM.  I was grabbing on to my husband’s hand for dear life, I didn’t want to let go.  I was shaking, panting, licking my lips, my heart was beating out of my chest, and my throat hurt like hell.  My eyes were wide open and I had cold chills with goosebumps.  We asked each other if we were ok. Both of us confirmed we were.

I wasn’t 100% sure what had just happened, I only knew that I was terrified, scared to DEATH, absolutely petrified.  I was brought back to my childhood nightmares immediately.  But this wasn’t that.  As I stated, I know the difference.  After a nightmare, when I wake, I still feel a little groggy.  I know for sure that I was dreaming.  With a Night Terror, there is zero grogginess, only terror.  The textbook definition is as follows:

night ter·rors

noun

1. feelings of great fear experienced on suddenly waking in the night.

For the first thirty minutes after we woke, we simply laid in bed, in the dark, holding on to each other for dear life.  Breathing.  There were no sounds at first, then suddenly we heard birds chirping.  Yes, birds chirping.  No motion, no movement.  We were both shaking, my husband just as violently as I was.  We were both stunned.  We verbally acknowledged the birds outside, chirping after dark..

After the first hour had passed, my husband got up out of bed, turned some lights on and looked around the room.  We started talking.  He had experienced his own night terror.  (I felt much less guilty for my screaming fit.)  He went downstairs and checked the house, I checked the rooms upstairs and sat with one of my cats for a few minutes, her purring was incredibly comforting at that moment.

The house was deemed clear and we both crawled back in bed.  We started to talk about what we had experienced.  This is the first time in our relationship that we had night terrors at the exact same moment.  (This was also the first time I ever screamed at the top of my lungs in the middle of the night.)  We have had them a day or so apart, maybe a few hours apart once or twice, but never, ever, at exactly the same moment.  They were very different experiences for each of us.  His was an “attack” version, mine was a “frozen in fear” version.  They were both very dark and negative. 

While we were talking I noticed that my chest started to hurt really bad.  I literally felt as if I had been punched in the chest with a closed fist.  I knew I hadn’t been, however, the skin hurt to the light touch.  Even now, more than a day later, I still feel like I was hit.  There is not a single mark on my body.  I can’t even begin to explain it….

We both laid awake for most of the night, encased in fear and anxiety.  I was so thankful to have him holding my hand, we comforted each other.  The conversation continued off and on well into the wee hours of the morning.  The last time I looked at the clock it was 2:22 AM and I still couldn’t sleep.  I know I eventually drifted off because I woke again while he was getting ready for work.  I knew it would be a long and hard day for both of us.

I had never been more grateful for the daylight Monday morning.  I went through my work day feeling happy to be alive, to have just survived.

After I got home from work the next day we talked again about what had happened, still in shock over the entire experience.  We both admitted to being a little hesitant to come in to the house after being away all day.  We blessed the house with burning sage, just in case.  Neither of us are really superstitious, but a little Native American blessing couldn’t hurt.  He asked me if I was ok with leaving an extra light on in the bathroom that night.  I said he didn’t need to ask.  We both slept so much better Monday night and felt rested when we got up Tuesday morning.

A lesser man would have been pissed that I kept him up all night, constantly reaching for his hand.  I am so blessed to have married a man that not only gets me, but is also down in the trenches, right there with me, at my very worst moments.

If you have issues with Night terrors, or know someone that does, and would like more information about symptoms and causes, please click the link below:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sleep-terrors/symptoms-causes/syc-20353524

You are never too old to be afraid of the dark.  As always, thank you so much for reading.