I Told My Family Doctor After Experiencing This For Over 20 Years... Her First Question Was, "Do you have a family history of mental illness?"

by Amy Lemmer
(Amboy)

I was about 5 years old when I experienced my first one. My father has them also. I grew up with my grandmother telling me that I was psychic (which I know is a bunch of bull). The episodes consisted of black figures watching me in the corner, my name being screamed over and over again, children running past my bedroom door, women standing beside my bed, footsteps, and (if I'm lucky) I am able to experience what some people consider 'out-of-body-experiences'. Though I know it has to be impossible, I sometimes find myself walking through my house unable to open doors and turn on lights or I find myself floating out of the roof and into the night sky. I say 'lucky' because when this happens the absolute terror that I had previously felt is suddenly replaced by an indescribably peaceful sensation as if I am free.

As a child I would have an episode about once every 6 months. But after I started having children of my own at 18 they began to increase drastically. I am now experiencing 1-5 episodes per week, last week I had five in one night. I finally broke down and said something to my doctor about it two months ago. The first thing she asked was if my family has a history of mental illness and then she sent me for a psych evaluation. My doctor and the person who gave me the evaluation have never heard of sleep paralysis before. Obviously I came out of the evaluation psychologically clean. Since I have vascular migraines with migraine auras I am now being sent to a neurologist and I am afraid that I will only meet more criticism and disbelief when I am asked about my 'episodes'.

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Kevin: Wow, thanks for sharing this Amy. It's always a frustrating thing when you know more about what you have than your doctor(s). They need to educate themselves. Unfortunately, sleep-related experiences aren't taught in medical school very often, something that we are trying very hard to change for the exact reason that you have highlighted from your own experience.

All the best,
Kevin

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