Night Terrors/ Setbacks

He did it again.

Not only did he make it passed the alligator infested moat that surrounds the castle, he snuck by her mother, and the knights that King sent to guard her door. And if that weren't impressive enough, Princess Georgia wasn't even staying in HER room. She was visiting her favorite uncle's castle, and her uncle was the biggest, most feared knight of all!

But he found her.

And he attacked.

It's almost like being raped. Like once again you are that stupid, drunk 19 year old who passes out after a night of partying, and wakes up with someone else's hands down your pants.

You didn't have permission to enter this house. You definitely didn't have permission to enter this bedroom, but you do anyways. Because you are a sneaky, slimy, disobedient coward of a monster.

Princess Georgia concludes that something awful must have happened to the monster. Something bad enough, to make him desperate enough, to attack her when she is her most defenseless!

Bed, my own bed, has always been my favorite place to be, in the whole entire world, (except maybe Mickey Mouse's Magic Kingdom..) and I have always considered a very sacred place. The first time I was taken advantage of, I was devastated. But it wasn't just that I'd been violated, or had my heart broken, or was made out to be a complete fool..it was that it all took place in my own room, in my own bed.

I spent the next week and a half sleeping on the couch, in the living room around the corner. He hurt me, hurt my feelings and my reputation, and he made me scared of my own bed. (Bastard.)

I have always maintained that sleeping with someone is far more intimate then SLEEPING with someone. Sex is a choice, it's full of many choices (more often then not). You can choose stop or go, top or bottom, fast or slow-it-down-I'm-just-getting-over-my-period! lol

Sleeping however, is no choice. It is you, submitting to one of Life's decisions for you. We think we control sleep, because we choose when to put or pjs on, we choose to brush our teeth or not, we choose to put zit cream on, and we choose when we fluff our pillows and get into bed. When we slip into sleep though, not up to us at all. Not even if we choose to do yoga or watch TV or pop some sleep-aid.

It just happens, when it needs to happen. I've learned two things about me and sleep: I do it much better with someone, and I actually don't NEED it as often as you'd think.

Sleeping better with someone in bed with me, is likely a problem, but I can't just deny it. It has gotten me in trouble, the desire..desperation to find someone to just spend a few hours in the dark, in a bed, dreaming next to each other. It's a problem because you're never more vulnerable then when you are asleep. You're never more exposed to all the awful that exists.

I'm a restless sleeper, but when someone is occupying half the sleep space, my body is embarrassed into keeping drowsy movements to a minimum! Plus I think I've never stopped fearing the dark, and I feel safer to fall asleep finally, and let my guard down, when I'm not alone. Thing is, you need to pick your company VERY carefully. And even when you do, even when you've learned from your mistakes and only let the most honestly secure boy in your bed, even then you're not guaranteed to be left alone by things that go bump in the night.

The week before I entered the Panic and Anxiety rehab program, I didn't sleep. No, like for an entire week, I didn't sleep! I'd learned the hard way that the worst panic attacks happen just when I start to dream, and I think I'm in the clear, so I did everything I could to stay awake! I learned that I could survive 168 hours in a row without getting any real rest! It wasn't FUN though, I wasn't full of RedBull cramming for an exam, or in the middle of some drunken party binge. I was deliriously tired, to the point where my body just shut down and I couldn't move, and the sensible side of my brain shut down and I was hallucinating. That Week, I was taking upwards of 10 Gravols a day (utterly desperate to subside a chronic stomach ache), and I wasn't eating, I wasn't moving..I was turning into MUSH, and I STILL wasn't sleeping. I was THAT scared of waking up in the midst of an attack.

That was...maybe 3.5 months ago though, and I've been through a mental illness program, I've gone days in a row without even one Gravol, and I have enjoyed (and greatly appreciated) normal, deep and sweaty sleeps! I thought I was passed finding myself afraid to sleep. But then I'm in a comfy bed, after a beautiful afternoon visiting with my Gramparents, and my mom is literally 2 feet away, and I find myself having to sit up immediately, waking up not even 2 hours after getting to bed, grabbing for my phone and my pillow and my wallet (which is home to emergency drugs) and running to a bathroom floor that isn't mine.

And then a cycle starts: being scared of being sick makes me sick, and being sick makes me scared to be sick. It took months to get to a place where I could work entire weeks in a row without having to call in sick, go out with my boyfriend, and go out of town without being terrified, and hesitant, thinking about the possibility of an out-of-nowhere attack. And months feel like MONTHS to a panic sufferer.

So now I'm back to sitting up in bed watching Greys over and over, doodling and reading, and browsing PerezHilton.com until I'm so tired I have no chance to over-think and no choice but to pass out.

Princess Georgia sits in her canopied bed putting on puppet shows for her stuffed animals, staring out her bay window at all the midnight creatures dancing around her garden, and sneaking into the castle's chef's secret stash of cakes, until her big brown eyes are so heavy, she forgets all about the Anxiety Monster, and she drifts into dreams.

And even then the welcomed unconsciousness only lasts an hour or two.

But like I said, the Princess and I have become experts at functioning on very little. And that's all the glass-half-full I can muster right now ;)