PTSD or Nighterrors/

[Amphitrite]

I poste dthis the other day in the Sleep forum and then saw this one and thought it better suited for this one.
So here goes...

  I have what they've called nightterrors since I was a child. As far back as anyone could remember I've slept walk, woke up screaming from sleep, and my parents have found me on many occassions just sitting up in bed with my eyes wide open like I was awake keeping watch, but I was really sound asleep. Now I'm 29 years old and these nighterrors only seem to get worse. Though I no longer sleep walk or sit up in bed sleeping.
  
I've always had an irregular sleep cycle. It feels like I can never get into a deep enough sleep because I'm always on guard waiting for something to happen...jumping up with every little noise, even a squeek in the floor boards can send me running out of bed in a panic. If my husband accidently touches me in my sleep I'll also jump out of bed ready to run in a panic.
It's as if my mind is so convinced something awful is going to happen when I'm asleep that my brain refuses to let me get too deep into sleep incase it really does and interreperates every sound and sensation as danger...Does that make sense, or is that even possible?

I used to take ambien for 5 years prior to getting ill and needing to go off of it and use pain medications for chronic pain. The ambien for some reason stopped my nightmares and nighterrors.

Now three years later I've been put back on the ambien again regardless of any medications I'm taking for pain and it has again helpped put a stop to the nighterrors but not the nightmares.

Is it possible that nighterrors and severe sleeping problems like the ones I've mentioned above when they continue on in adulthood could infact be PTSD resulting from blocked out childhood trauma?

This is what my therapist is now calling my nighterrors, PTSD. She's not the first to think along these lines but is the first to actually say PTSD. Everyone I have ever seen professionally short of insists I've blocked out childhhod trauma because of my sleeping problems, nighterrors and sexual problems.

I know of course no one here can tell me if mine are infact PTSD, I'm just looking for other opinions and thoughts.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts anyone may have. I'm open to any ideas. Sorry if this isn't the right forum for this question, I have no idea where else to ask it:)

Amph

[AnnaE]

I want you to meet others, too. That's why I said I hoped other survivors responded. You are like my students and myself. I want you to have what you need. For myself, group therapy and having varied responses to "my stuff." Now it is sometimes really validating to talk to both my therapist and also my psychiatrist.

On here, we need a forum exclusively for survivors. That would improve communication tremendously. We would also need a person highly familiar with abuse to be on the forum also. Ob the "Abuse" forum, I feel so "cut off" all the time, when non-survivors and non-professionals interrupt the flow of things. We would also need rules, for a forum to be considered an online "group." The "abuse" forum has no rules.

The PTSD forum is going terrifically, so far, I think. I feel a lot more free, and the other participatants do, too, I think.

A gentleman on here tonight triggered a flashback for me, and I think I will go forward from it. It was with his question alone, that I received a lot of validation.

To get more posters, perhaps we should start a new thread and mention survivors of abuse/need more posters.

[Amphitrite]

I always found it strange that these nighterrors never faded out with my getting older.
They say the nightterrors are my blocked memories coming through when I'm able to handle them. And so then being that they're memories coming to the surface it's being diagnosed as PTSD as well as some other things resulting from them.

I agree I need to stop spending so much time alone. It's probably not really that healthy for me right now. Usually I prefer to be alone.
But since coming here I've felt more alone than I ever have. I try to remember that people have their own things to deal with. But when I make a post I get so few if any replies. I feel like no one understand what I'm feeling or they just think it's not true so just don't answer. Or even worse that there's something wrong with me.
Being here has made me feel vulnerable and uncomfortable. And although writing my journals has helped and memories have become clearer it makes me feel even more uncomfortable and then I feel like I have no where to go with those feelings,
I know that's what therapy is for, but I guess I wanted to meet some others who've been where I am now or can at least understand.

I don't mean to complain. I just hate having to hold onto these memories until I see the woman I do because I have no where to go with them until then.
Group therapy is great idea that I'm going to look into regardless but then what's being a member of this site for? Ya know what I mean

I hope you know anna your friendship means alot to me and I'm not trying to disvalue all you've helped me with. I was just hoping to meet others too who can understand but when I get no responses I feel so alone.
But maybe I'm just being too sensative. Right now I'm more vulerable than I've ever been. Finally deciding to stop denying everything to myself is really hard.

[AnnaE]

"Night terrors" are usually confined to children. Night terrors are very diiferent from nightmares.  Adults who are bipolar are infrequently reported to have them.

Read more at about.com, or do a search on night terrors.

[AnnaE]

I meant recording my dreams. I hope some other survivors will answer you.

[AnnaE]

I think that a therapist can help you with this. I realize a lot by recoding my dreams. eve though it is diffict. I especially examine my emotional responses to the scenes in the dreams. Emotions, I feel, are the key, even though they can be experienced with geography, landscape, people, history, biography, whatever. You might try spending less time alone (I am really good at that).

Trying to force my memories was never a solution. Maybe you're different. If you try to live your life, I feel the important issues will reveal themselves. Again, I am one to talk.

I also think that goup therapy might be very beneficial in reassuring you and triggering some things that are close to the surface, so that you could work on them with a therapist.

[Amphitrite]

  Not really.
It's so difficult because the feeling only comes with these dreams/terrors. The feeling is extreamly familiar but I can't quite graso them.
Sort of like a word you can't remember thats on the tip of your toung. You know you know it but for some reason you just can't reach it.
And it only comes out later when you've stopped trying so hard to get it.

But I do wonder what would happen if I conciously tried to get in touch with these feelings internally.
This is all so new because it's only been three months until I was able to stop denying everything.
It's always so hard to explain. I always knew deep down but truely couldn't get myself to stop the denial.

Just liek the memories that have come back to me sonciously in waking hours since I've stopped fighting against them. After I get a memory I realize I've always had them and known them all along but have pushed them back so far and covered them so well that I can't get to them or bring them out conciously on my own at will.

Can anyone suggest to me how to help myself be more open to getting in touch with these fellings that come from the terrors/nightamres.
This is acyually the first time I've been diagnosed with PTSD because I would never admit that anything had happened to me. I always denied everything and told everyone there was just no way. And I would go home afterwards go to sleep and wake up screaming.
Since I've admitted something has happened my mighterrors have calmed down a bit but they're still a huge problem.

But reading about PTSD I can see myself in almost every explination. I just never realized it. I feel like we've finally found the answer and can now get somewhere.
The only things I've never had a problem with were drugs and alcohol because I have a need to keep in full control of my body at all times and with drugs and alcohol I can't do that. The effects cause me to have a panic attack because I feel in less control over myself.

Does anyone that's been abused feel the same way? Like they need to have constant control over their body and enviorment to a point it interferes in your relationships and daily life.
My hubby want's to ring my neck for it sometimes:)!

Anyway this is long and I'm rambling...sorry if it'd hard to read because of it's length.

Ampj

[AnnaE]

I think that this is an excellent site for your question. I think that many of the posters here can identify with night terrors and nightmares.

Have you tried to get in touch with the feelings or visual images that emanate from these night time experiences?