Irrational Fear

[Will86]

Hi,

Since my recent traumatic experience, I can't sleep at night if I'm in the dark unless I'm too exhausted that my brain can't even function properly and imagine some kind of weird stuff.

At the beginning, I had a lot of flashbacks and bad images but now it turned out that I'm scared over things which are not related to my trauma and I have never been afraid of since I was a young kid.

For example, I'm scared to see something appearing, like a ghost, a hand coming out of under my bed catching my legs or my harms, scared of having a hallucination too. I look around me to make sure there is no one in my room. I feel like I'm haunted and going insane..

My heart starts racing and this is it. I'm scared over ridiculous things like this and I somehow start feeling a bit ashamed because of it, I just hope it's not gonna last for long.

Have you experienced something similar ?

 

[Muted]

Yes.

 

[Friday]

Hyper-vigilance doesn't really play favorites. Loud noises -or tiny noises in the quiet-, unknown situations (like not being able to see, because it's dark), movement out the corner of your eye... All things that can cause an OMFG :eek: response when hypervig or anxiety are running hot.

 

[Will86]

''Movement out of the corner of your eye''
......... All the time ! To finally realise it's just a pile of books on my desk or one of the eyeglass's temples I'm wearing... :meh:

 

[J'qel]

Movement out of the corner of your eye, your peripheral vision making objects out of regular things, those are called "illusions" and they're pretty common. I have them when I'm tired sometimes-like seeing a pile of laundry and thinking it's one of the cats sitting nearby. It's nothing to be too concerned about. They're very loosely attached to hallucinations, but nowhere near as worrisome, psychologically speaking.

As for hallucinations when you're going to bed, the sense that something's there or even seeing frightening things, my husband has it. They've explained that it can happen because he has a rare form of waking narcolepsy. It means that sometimes, when he's awake, part of his brain is in a sleep state. Effectively, when he lays down, part of his brain falls asleep before his consciousness fades, giving him strange waking images.

I'd suggest getting a test at a sleep clinic (not one of the take homes, but the one where you wear the electrodes and sleep on site) to get an idea of what's going on, but it seems like a very similar case.

He got help by getting a CPAP machine, so that he gets a better quality of sleep. So far, so good. It's not all gone, but it's certainly diminished.

 

[Will86]

@J'qel

Thank you for the advice Jqel, as usual. I'm really sorry to hear about your husband.
I don't think I suffer from the same issue as him. I think it's simply my imagination that becomes out of control. Maybe something that is related to a very high level of anxiety due to what happened. However I will keep that in mind in case it becomes a real threat to my mental health and my ability to live a normal life.

I'm gonna see a therapist soon to clarify everything but so far, I don't think I suffer from PTSD even tho I have some symptoms. My traumatic event is still quiet recent so I believe it's totally normal and very common what I'm experiencing.

 

[J'qel]

Potentially. I'd keep it in mind. While waking narcolepsy is rare, it can be brought on by prolonged periods of insufficient sleep quality.

My husband's doing fine, he hasn't tried to swat at the spiders coming from the ceiling in almost a year now :P (we actually joke about it now-though I'm still very careful how I wake him up-and give him time to *fully* wake up first)

Take care of yourself, and if you can't get any answers yet, keep digging. This is the only life you've got, so best make it a good one :)