Terrors of the Night

I usually hear about people having night terrors as a child and that they grow out of it. I am a 32 year old woman and I still have night terrors. I can go for months without having one and then having several in a week. I think one time I had 4 in one night.

I never really knew I had this problem until I stayed at my SIL’s place one night (long before she was my SIL). I was sleeping in the guest room and I guess (as she tells it) she heard me screaming in the hallway about a spider. She came running out assuming that I was being attacked by someone (luckily she’s a marine) and saw that I wasn’t awake. She told me there wasn’t a spider and sent me back to bed.

Looking back I remember a few times jumping out of bed, when I lived with my parents, in fear of a spider. I also remember a time I freaked out and ran downstairs, completely sure a spider had fallen on me while I was in bed. I was so terrified I slept on the couch in the living room the rest of the night. I think I may have had at least one in college with my roommate but I’m not sure, since I don’t usually recall them unless someone was there to tell me about it.

Since living with Manly Man I’ve had more than either of us could count. He’s gotten (mostly) used to me jumping out of bed screaming my head off. Of course every time it makes him wake up immediately but when he realizes it’s a night terror he calms me down and we go back to bed. Often he has to reassure me several times that there is in fact no spider or no animal in the corner of the ceiling.

It seems to me I get these particularly when I’m in a high stress time of my life. I’ve had 2 this week already and I think I had at least 1 last week.

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