Great

This is just fucking great. I've gotten maybe two hours of sleep. Why am I awake now? Because I just had one of the most horrifying experiences of my life.

I am always a bit apprehensive at sleeping when I'm alone. You know, paranoia and all that. I managed to get past that enough to rest by falling asleep with the lamp on. At some point,I remember waking up and turning it off.

As I slept, I had the terrifying sensation of being jumped on from behind while I lay curled up in bed. I tried to move in my half-awake state, but I couldn't. For a few seconds, I was consumed with the terrible knowledge that someone was trying to kill me. I was even able to think to myself that this WOULD have to happen when Fangbunny is not here. I knew I wasn't getting any help from anybody; I was about to die.

Then, my body caught up with my brain, and I woke up to an empty room.

Of course, it was some sort of sleep paralysis mixed with a freaky hypnogogic hallucination. But it scared the FUCK out of me.

I took a sleep and dreaming course in college as a psych elective. I know that sleep paralysis is common,and that hypnogogic hallucinations (i.e., the sense that someone had just jumped on me from behind while I was still more or less asleep) aren't "hallucinations" in the typical sense of the word. They aren't manifestations of psychosis. It's what happens when your brain half-wakes before your body. You're still technically dreaming, but you're awakish. Your body is still in its state of temporary paralysis that everyone has while they are sleeping; you are just aware of it when you aren't supposed to be because of a misfire between your brain and your body.

Knowing the scientific explanation for it does NOT make it any less terrifying, however.

I have never had anything like that happen to me before, and I sincerly hope it never happens again.

Despite my struggles with paranoid ideation, I have never had any sort of hallucinatory experience. (Knock on wood.) Even though I know that what happened was technically a half-waking dream, it does not make me any more comfortable with my own (completely batshit) mind.

I hate to sound like a three-year-old, but I am now afraid to go back to sleep. I hate being scared, and I hate losing control. I don't watch horror movies or ride roller coasters for that very reason.

I don't want it to ever happen again, but I'm scared it will. I desperately need sleep, but I'm afraid to try it.

If I could only have two prayers granted by God for the rest of my life, the first would be to never have to be a hostage/slave/victim to my own mind ever again. The second would be to never hurt the people I love ever again.

Though honestly, I feel like the two are inextricably entwined sometimes. The various psychoses/disordered thought processes fuel my lashing out at people because they don't understand or because they are, wittingly or unwittingly, playing right into my deluded thoughts. Then, the guilt I feel for being an asshole leads to even more disordered thought, and it becomes a vicious cycle I haven't yet been able to break free of. Nightmares, delusions, and now this fucking sleep paralysis bullshit. The fear of falling asleep because I don't want to have any more of these things is just going to lead to more sleep deprivation, which is part of what causes thought disorder in the first damn place. Fuck me, this has got to stop. I can't live like this anymore.

This has gotten way too big for me to handle by myself. God help me.