Living Bipolar - Sleep Paralysis

Last night I slept like crap. Seeking reasons and blame, hoping to rectify the situation by tonight, I begin pointing fingers.

OK, fan. You moved back and forth all night. Although happy to be cooled by you, you freaked me out. Every sweep over my body tickled my face with my hair. You moved my pj's when you whooshed over me and it felt like someone touching me. You jangled the dangling lens-cap on poor video camera who, until recently, did not share our room.

Hence, the second culprit. The sounds you made cap, were unfamiliar to me, I needed reminding every time I awoke.

You, light in the hall, seemed to portent an invader to be revealed at any moment. You may have been the third culprit, but you concealed a fourth culprit; the imaginary intruder. There is always an imaginary intruder.

Then, culprit number five, the ring-leader; the dreaded sleep paralysis.

"Sleep paralysis consists of a period of inability to perform voluntary
movements either at sleep onset (called hypnogogic or predormital form) or upon
awakening (called hypnopompic or postdormtal form).
Sleep paralysis may also
be referred to as isolated sleep paralysis, familial sleep paralysis, hynogogic
or hypnopompic paralysis, predormital or postdormital paralysis."
Source: http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/paralysis.html

All of you, fan, lens-cap, and light in the hall, coupled with an inability to move or communicate are frightening, sometimes terrifying. I have, in the past, tried to use any energy I might have to roll back and forth and flail. I have throatily groaned what, to me, sounds like my husbands name. Once in a great while it works. I make enough "noise" and my fingertips actually touch him. The times that it doesn't work are usually because he's not in the room and I am napping.

Last night I could not break free. Somehow, I would get back to sleep only to jerk awake and go through the whole experience again and again.

This morning, upon preparing to take my morning meds, I noted an Ativan remaining in yesterday's organizer. I remember choosing not to take it last night. My reasoning was that I was not feeling anxious but was felling tired. I didn't think I would need it. Famous last words of many bipolar patients.

Thus the culprit has been outed, and it's me. Not the Ativan. Me, because I chose non-compliance to the twice-a-day regimen. I am to blame. It will not happen again, well maybe it will.