Are Your Nightmares Related To Your Trauma? Do You Yell Or Twitch?

[TonyG]

Yes I have been told that I do, I now sleep in a single bed so my wife can sleep

 

[Gadgie]

When my wife was alive she was very understanding when it came to my nightmares, my screaming would wake her up, then she would shake me, in an effort to wake me up.

Then when I did, I used to go to the bathroom to wipe myself down with a cold flannel, then my wife used to wipe my back when I returned to the bedroom.

She used to comfort me and reassure me that everything was OK, most times I would go make a cup of tea, and let my wife go back to sleep, as I was always too scared to try and sleep again, in case I had another night mare, which was quite common.

I always used to feel so guilty, as my wife was terminally ill with emphysema, then later she got breast cancer, which they couldn't treat, due to her weak heart condition, and her emphysema, so I had to be fully functional to care for her, but the day after my nightmare nights, I was always totally shattered with lack of sleep.

This went on for a few months, when eventually we got help from the Marie Curry people, who are wonderful people, they gave us so much help and they are so understanding about what we were both going through, they really are earth angles! I can't praise them enough.

They used to come and stay overnight three nights a week, to let me get some sleep. Then one would come and stay with my wife, one afternoon a week to let me get some shopping done. I don't think I could have gone on much longer without their help, wonderful people doing a wonderful thing.

 

[hodge]

I think my mind has being doing what your mind does, medic72. My nightmares are all trauma-related, but not reenactments of any of my traumas. They usually have to do with being at work at being unable to find what floor I work on, what I'm supposed to do, and then not being able to find my car at the end of the day, and more bad stuff. Last night's horrific twist was being with a man in an elevator who tried to cut the cables. I escaped, and ran down a hallway which I thought would lead to the university's security office, but was intercepted by him. He somehow closed a partition to that hallway and closed me into an office where he pounded some kind of multi-pronged thing into my hand. That's when I woke up.

Like every really bad nightmare, I have trouble getting to sleep again next time.

 

[InvisibleSun]

I cry, whimper, and twitch..although, I never yell. My dreams are usually centered around my traumas and the majority of my traumas embodied being silent. Sometimes I'll have random nightmares that are seemingly unrelated..at least on a conscious level.
PTSD nightmares feel ridiculously real, and IMO your husbands yelling is an uncontrollable response to what is happening to him in this dream. There has been a break from reality physically, mentally, and emotionally...and you become completely consumed by the horror of it all. Everything is just a reaction and nothing else is real...

 

[hodge]

Oh, Gadgie, I am so moved by what you have written. I am so glad the Marie Curry people helped you out so much.

 

[Gadgie]

Thanks for that Hodge, it all seems a life time ago now, yet it's only been six months since she passed. I think I'm over the worst of it now, my lowest point was when I almost put an end to it all, and was just about to take the pills, when my phone rang, but that's a whole different story.

Then when I found out exactly what her family did, which I don't think you would believe, even if I told you, which I think was harder to take than my wife's passing. As we both knew that she was terminally ill, in fact we even used to talk about it, and planned her funeral in advance.

I had an idea of what my life would be like alone, as my wife was in hospital quite a lot, and my whole day was planned around the hospital visiting hours. The difference now is, that I don't have to do that now, which makes my days longer. Being totally alone, without any visitors or phone calls, and totally isolated, is a lot different to what I had expected?

 

[hodge]

I hope you find a new path, Gadgie. I can't imagine being without my husband. I really feel for you.

I wake up from nightmares soaked in sweat. That's unpleasant, but the really bad part is the haunting all the next day of my nightmares. I really hope my psychiatrist can prescribe something for this. It's really unbearable.

 

[Gadgie]

I hope you can get help with your nightmares Hodge, as I was told that they couldn't do anything for me? In fact, I had one last night, it really tore me up, that's why I'm so tired tonight.

I'm still looking for a new path, but as yet all roads are closed off to me. At least now that the whether is getting better, I'm going out of the house as often as possible, as I get really depressed when I'm stuck in the house.

 

[hodge]

Thank you for your reponse, Gadgie It was a really nice day here today, but I had therapy this afternoon, which was hard.

 

[Gadgie]

I always used to feel shattered after having therapy, sort of tired and drained out. My positive thing for today was, the back brace I bought on EBay arrived, and it really helps with the pain, and a lot more comfortable than the last one I had?

As for the therapy, I think they stopped mine far too quickly, and it's frustrating for me, as now I have no one to talk to any more.

Of course living alone doesn't help much either.

 

[Leah Morgan]

Hey, I have these nightmares I am now awake after waking my husband and myself up by squirming and screaming. My dreams are alway similar I am in intense danger from some one or some thing I can't see and I need to hide and escape very often I have to protect my children. On some of the worst I have heard my children caught by the thing causing the danger. I am lucky to have a husband that doesn't mind bob ring woken by a scream a shove or even on the worst nights a wet bed.

 

[Melody coates]

i'm actually non responsive to my nightmares. they wake me up but no screaming or anything