Phobia Support Group
A phobia (from the Greek "fear"), is a strong, persistent fear of situations, objects, activities, or persons. The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject. When the fear is beyond one's control, or if the fear is interfering with daily life, then a diagnosis under one of the anxiety disorders can be made.
As I have said in many post before, I have a fear of sleep and it causes me sever anxiety. I'm always fighting my sleep and in doing so early this morning I started to feel like I could not breath and was going to pass out. I woke up my daughter, like always, and told her how scared I was. This fear has been with me for 15 years and I can't shake it, I want to be able to relax and sleep like normal people without fear, as I did before develping this horrible debilitating phobia. I was for sure I was going to pass out and I could not breath, so my little girl called 911.
They arrived quickly all wearing face mask and were all very calm, attentive, and gentle spoken, especially after discovering that I was not ill. Nevertheless, they said my boold pressure was really high and my heartbeat was in regular but there was no signs of danger and that they did not see any serious need to transport me to the ER, however, they would so if I wanted them to. I could tell that they did not want to take me to the ER so I just told them I believed it was ok for the moment. They told me to call them right back if I felt I needed to go to the hospital.
Approximately 3-5 minutes after they left, I started feeling the same and told my daughter that we needed to call them back, I could see the exhaustion and frustration in her face so I told her not to call. I laid down and got up about 4 times before falling asleep for about 5 hours. I have now been up for about 4 hourse and feel horrible. It's already horrible that I'm terrified to sleep, way is it that when I do sleep I'm never refreshed and revitalized afterward? It's complete torture. Somebody please, if you know of anything that will help me please do share. My daughter is starting to look run down and depressed, I'm sure from constantly being woke up by me going on about how I'm terrified to sleep. She's only 12 and should not have to deal with this. I do not have access to any mental health professional because I'm poor. So I'm hoping I can find a lttle help here.
-Nikki
Did you maybe consider the next time you get an attack like this one to go to the hospital and maybe you can get emergency treatment and go to the doctor/therapy for free? I am not a doctor but some meds could really help. Maybe some SSRIs or antipsychotics can have a calming effect.
Or maybe if you go to a type of social worker maybe you can get some funding from them and you could get some help.
But i really think you should somehow get help because it will be easier for your daughter and you.
I wish you all the best and am sending a hug for you and your daughter <3
I forgot all about this site until I received an email informing me of your comment. I'm still struggling, however, not as bad as I was when I created this post a few years ago . I think what intensified the fear is a hormonal imbalance, I believe I'm perimenopause, however, doctors are giving me the runaround, because they feel that I'm too young to be perimenopause. Nevertheless, I'm almost certain I'm perimenopause and I believe it started I'm 2020, when I made this post and it, at the time, intensified the fear of sleep that I already had. I had a surgery when I was 19 years old, and had a horrible episode a few days after the surgery, and was told that it was anxiety, however, I believe they had me on too many meds and they also gave me a vaccination but I don't remember what it was. After the " episode" I became severely weak and would jerk every time I would fall asleep, which made me scared that I would not wake up, and since then the fear has stayed with me.
But perimenopause can be treated quite easly so you don’t have to worry about it even though i can imagine it is scary.