Sleeping away from home questions

[laureah21]

Hi all,

recently I was at a hotel with my husband and felt a sense of panic.  Like I was trapped in my room and needed to leave.  Had this on a plane once to.  This fear of being away from home at night is growing is this a form of agoraphobia?
 I didn’t allow myself to leave as hubby was unwell and asleep and we were far from home so had a bath instead and had a talk with myself.  
I have started to inspect my anxieties and fears and find it useful to be my own therapist a bit to hold them up.  I’ve realised not everything I feel is truth so like to have a look at it first.  This fear seems to be growing worse as I get older and is entirely physical symptoms.  A feeling of sadness, a trapped feeling, panic symptoms.  Started in late 20s.  A feeling of having to be very vigilant away from

home.  Not sleeping well at all unless things are just right.  No sound and no light is what I need .  Don’t go on holidays and don’t enjoy them only for this reason.  I’d love to otherwise.  It’s The sleeping, once I’m asleep I’m ok.

I can’t do meds either  as have a paradoxical reaction to most mental health meds (Valium makes me want to fight people antidepressants suicidal etc )  apart from this im

well and happy so don’t need meds.  It’s the leaving the house that’s hard.  Now even late afternoon I have to push myself in winter.  I get tired and then mentally can’t deal with it

ehich I think it’s around vigilence 

as I was thinking about the whys, my early 20s came to mind.  Twice in my 20s two individual men have broken into my room in different places while I was sleeping, once in student accomodation as they had keys to my room and the other in a house share a man sharing a cab home with a housemate both had taken advantage of me while I was asleep.  Turning the lights on is what woke me in one incident and noise of someone in the room  in the other.

which im

thinking is the link with need for darkness and quiet to sleep.

I’ve never considered it as  a reason for my symptoms as for some trason

font really rember it apart from  it seemed better and safer to go along with the intrusion then fight so it wasn’t violent, but I did feel violated after.  Just tried to brush it off and now a bit forgotten.

do you think this could be the cause of my bodies physical

reaction to being away from

home at night?  
should I speak to someone about it?

does anyone else have trouble with this and what has helped.

thanks ❤️

[Sophie_M]

Hi laureah21,

Thank you for sharing here. We’re sorry to hear what you’re going through, and of those memories of the past, that sounds really difficult. We’re glad you had the strength and bravery to share this here though.

We’re reaching out to you privately to offer some support. If you'd prefer to call us, we're on 1300 22 4636, or you can reach us online via our webchat.

If you'd like to talk through the experiences you mentioned from your 20s, we're here for you. We'd also recommend contacting 1800RESPECT. They're really good to talk to about any form of abuse, or sexual violence. You can reach them on 1800 737 732, or on online chat, here. 

Thank you again for your courage and strength in sharing your story. If you’d like to share a bit more here about how you’ve been feeling, our kind community will likely be here to offer their support and understanding once someone spots your post.

Kind regards,

Sophie M

[Eagle Ray]

Dear laureah,

Through my own experience I’ve learned that traumatic experiences get stored differently in memory. They are not integrated like other memories because fear and tuning out at the time to cope (dissociation) keep the memory in our body in a way we aren’t even realising is affecting us for a long time. So it is possible there is a link for you between those two events and how you feel about sleeping away from home. It is something you could explore with a psychologist or counsellor, preferably someone with experience in the integration of unprocessed traumatic memories.

In my case I had two prior sexual assaults that involved considerable physical threat/aggression as well. I had completely compartmentalised them until last year. I had been processing other things with my psychologist for a while when during meditative time in a favourite place by the ocean the experiences came to me after years of suppression.

 I can’t say much about details without speaking of traumatic content but I had been experiencing stressful physical symptoms that suddenly made sense. I also went to bed one night seeing coloured shapes against a black background coming towards me. I was seeing my psychologist the next day and processed one of the assaults via a method called somatic experiencing. It worked in that my body got to activate the fight-or-flight response it was unable to at the time, releasing my body from years of entrapment. About 3 weeks later I suddenly realised what the coloured shapes were. They were patterns on textiles in the room at the time of the assault. So I had these fragments of bodily symptoms and imagery that were not integrated. Once integrated properly in memory, my body got to feel safer and I don’t have these autonomous fragments from those particular events appearing and affecting me. I still have some deeper childhood issues I’m processing, but these later experiences have lost their charge/impact.

Sorry for the long response. I didn’t know how to explain briefly. But there’s a few different methods for processing those non-integrated memories. I know EMDR is one that is meant to have a good evidence base but I haven’t done it myself.

 I would say a first step would be to speak with a professional therapist with knowledge and experience in how such past experiences might be affecting you. 1800RESPECT may be able to advise on where to get some assistance. I can’t tell if your current feelings are linked to those past experiences, but an experienced therapist could help you get in touch with your own inner awareness and then things might reveal themselves and begin to make sense.

Hope maybe that helps a little. I would say go gently with any approach to such experiences. Take care and hope you find some answers.

[laureah21]

Thankyou so much for sharing that it is all very helpful.  I’m sorry that happened to you.  It’s very interesting about the body holding it.  Thanks 

[Eagle Ray]

Your welcome. I hope none of what I wrote was triggering in any way. I just wanted to share that I was able to be helped with those experiences. It wasn’t until I found the right therapist to work with that they actually came up into consciousness, like my mind had suppressed them until I knew of a safe person to divulge them to. But they were present/stored in my body memory. So I think if you do counselling it really helps to find an intuitive person who can work sensitively with those issues. I think you kind of intuitively know within yourself when you have encountered the right person to work with. Whatever may be the cause of the sleeping away from home anxieties I hope you can find some good help and support for managing it. It sounds like you are doing well in being able to talk to yourself about it and sense how it’s affecting you physically. Take care and all the very best.