adult night terrors?

[goddess_rhiannon]

i have a large amount of mental problems-anxiety,panic attacks,ptsd,bi-polar,delusional thinking,nightmares.they all seem to run in my family.within the last couple of years my spouse and i have experienced me falling asleep and just as i go under i try to strangle him.he can wake me up,though.just to add,about 2 yrs ago i was date raped and he didnt believe me-he accused me of cheating on him even though he had broken up with me and set me up with the man who date raped me.i was always angry that he wouldnt believe me because i didnt call the police,didnt throw him out right away(i sat curled up in my bedroom on the floor in a ball for over a day)and he believes im the type that wouldve fought more.also,2 days before all this,i went cold turkey off of 6mlgms/day of klonopin and had severe withdrawl problems.anyways,i started trying to strangle him a couple months after this all happened(we reunited 1 day after the rape and the only person i ever told was him).i was very embarrassed and felt very weak for not being able to take care of myself(ive been on my own since 15 and i worked as a prostitute and dancer to support a $300/day heroin habit although ive been clean for 20 years now i still have alot of anger towards men.is this related to adult night terrors?they run in my family,also.i dont trust my therapist-she says i wanted it and thats not true.what should i do?

[Dr Rajput]

Hi, welcome to the forum, there are two possibilities that can manifest as night terrors. One is, if you are sexually abused (depends on environment where you are staying) or it can be a manifestation of type of sleep disorder like parasomnias, wherein the certain events occur without the knowledge of the person.

Few of the individuals are known to suffer from parasomnias esp. when they are on non-benzodiazepine sedatives, drug abuse etc. otherwise no definitive cause exists in few individuals apart from stress, positive past history of abuse etc.

The associated symptoms with the following disorder are confusional wakefullness, sleep paralysis, nightmares and night terrors. This can occur in any sleep stage (REM and non-REM stage) .

To rule out parasomnias you need to undergo Polysomnyography and sleep analysis. You need to take out time for further evaluation. Sleep with light on. Short term benzodiazepine against prescription will help you. If stress is present, you need to go for relaxation exercises. I suggest you to consult a sleep specialist and get treated for the sleep condition. Take care and regards.

[harrald]

You sure have had your share of bad luck. I do not know whether I could get through a day if I were in your shoes.

I read and reread your questions. Do you think that your night terrors are the basics of physical and mental pain? I wonder whether you ever considered  using a sleep laboratory to analyze your episodes of night terror? I have had a sleep problem for a long time, and I wanted evidence of my poor sleeping habits, so my doctor refrerred me to a sleeping lab at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. I spent two nights at the sleep lab without any outstanding results. The sleep lab at Baylor is staffed with phychologists and the lab is within the Department of Psychiatry. I was told my brain action was normal, but I showed overactivity that made it hard for me to fall asleep. I remember there was a man in the lab who suffered with night terrors like you. A staff member put a clothed female mannquin in his bed after he went to sleep. The staff member wanted to see whether the man during night terrors who try to abuse or choke the mannequin thinking it was his wife. Before he went to the sleep lab, it was determined that the man loved his wife and would try to hurt her. On the second night of the man's night terrors, he awoke or was in a trance and began choking the mannequin and shouting. I never got to know how it went for the man, but his night terrors were filmed and documented for record. I wonder what is the factor in night terrors that orders a person to choke another person?

If you have not used a sleep lab in the past, it might be a way for scientists to analyze your sleep and night terrors so correct treatment could be purposed for you. As a guess, I would think that maybe your anger towards me is being played out in your night terrors to get even for the ways men have mistreated you. Your questions do no mention that you ever talked with a pshchologist about you fears. A psychologist at the VA Medical Cente in Houston, helped me remove the same dreams every night for three years. My mind refused to accept that I lost my job and kept replaying that I was still working. Worse, I saw and talked with the same people in my dreams that I worked with for a long time.

You surely need relief from your past like I did before I chose to talk with a pscchologist.

I hope you find peace.

Harrald