Waking Up Already Yelling / Attacking People Who Arent There

[lukesa]

Hello, glad to find this forum. I have issues with sometimes waking up yelling and swinging or waking up midway through jumping out of the bed to attack someone to defend myself only to find myself on my feet with no one there. I've almost dislocated my shoulder doing this and have accidently punched, kicked, or just collectively scared the shit out of my fiance in the process of doing this. She's very educated on ptsd and says she doesn't mind and I accept that I have severe ptsd and will continue to experience its symptoms.... but its honestly a very embarrassing and guilt-inducing experience for me and I hate the thought of her dealing with this.

She is never in the nightmare before I become conscious of what's going on and is just an unfortunate bystander who often is someone I'm tangled up with sleeping before all this takes place

Does anyone else experience this or have strategies to lessen this symptom from occurring?

 

[lukesa]

Also to note, I am on prazosin for ptsd related nightmares which help, but not much for this particular aspect of them.

I often twitch or jump violently when trying to go to bed without any accompanying imagery or related symptom. Its extremely.... not relaxing.

 

[I'll make tea]

Hi there, my husband sometimes wakes up jumping out of the bed and yelling.

You don't do this on purpose, right? No need to feel guilty then.

 

[open eyes]

@lukesa I take prazosin for PTSD nightmares too. I used to have similar symptoms- only much less intense. I would wake up scrambling & flailing whenever someone woke me up. I found that monitoring what I fell asleep thinking about helped me a lot.

Try vividly picturing yourself getting woken up, & having a normal reaction to it. It won't have immediate results but that's what I did & now I wake up calm. Also I'm not sure how much Prazosin you're on or what time you take it at. I used to take my 2mg pill a few hours before bed, & it would wear off by around 4-5AM. Now I take it about 20 minutes before bed & it lasts me through the morning.

 

[lukesa]

I take 12mg nightly but the tremors start before I fall asleep.

 

[jmni]

What are your nightmares about?

 

[lukesa]

Past trauma or the general intense feeling of not being safe, being under attack.

 

[jmni]

I have a lot of problems when I wake up. I've been told that I've attacked people who've woken me up. It's really the hardest for me in the morning for about an hour. Are you keeping a dream journal? Have you ever been able to wake and tell yourself its only a dream / not real? I have some success in reducing the intensity of nightmares by keeping a dream journal.

 

[Candleflames]

I had the same kind of problem before and for a while after starting prazosin. My husband actually started sleeping in the livingroom because he was tired of being hit, kicked and shoved off the bed. I always felt really bad about it too. My doc suggested I split my dosage up. He thought that if I had first, a more stable med/blood level throughout the day I would be able to get better sleep in general, and second, that taking the prazosin during the day would help my overall anxiety and reduce brain chatter as I was falling asleep. Now I am taking 3mg in the morning and 5mg at bed time. I also have the option of taking up to 2mg more if something very stressful happens at another time of day.

Now I rarely let loose on the hubbie in my sleep and the nightmares are much less intense. Maybe you could talk to your prescribing doc to see if less twice a day would be a good option for you. My doc said it's not for everyone but many people respond better to taking a smaller amount more frequently instead of one big load at night.

And welcome to the forum.

 

[Fadeaway]

My poor husband has been the victim of this. It takes me a while to realize it is him. I have been on prazosin for about a month but I did this the last 2 mornings.

Edit: I just read your post to my husband so he knows he isn't alone.
He wants to know what he can do not to get killed in the morning. His concern is that he never sees it coming because I am not tossing and turning or making any noise prior.