mindsquirt

When I am in bed, I am in a almost-constant state of paranoia. Oftentimes, in the moments before I sleep, I have thoughts about how people are going to sneak into my house, and without a sound, burst into my room and slay me in my bed.

Many times, these thoughts pervade my dreams, and I waken in the night suspecting that there really IS someone in the house. Sometimes I will search the entire house, but if I am feeling extra nervous, instead of going down the stairs and confronting the imaginary criminals, (where they could easily ambush me), I look out the window for signs of a get-away vehicle or listen intently in bed, at my bedroom door, or at the top of the stairs for further evidence of them sneaking about. I haven’t yet, but should I ever hear anything suspicious, I would have to jump into directly into attack-mode, which believe me, is so frightening it is beyond description.

Sometimes just waking up sends me into these panicky fits. The worst is when I wake up suddenly and for no reason in the middle of the night. If there is no obvious sound (such as a dog continuously barking), it bothers me because I don’t know the reason I woke up, and I lay in bed and wonder what made the mystery sound that woke me up but I can’t hear anymore. At that point, I can only assume that it is a burglar that made the noise, and they then realized their mistake, and would be extra sneaky on their way up to assassinate me.

Often after I get woken up abruptly, I fantasize about what the gang of maniacs are doing at that moment in my kitchen, and how I most effectively could dispatch them. After some thought, I realize that if someone really wanted to get me, even if I knew about it, there is little I could do about it unarmed and in my underwear in bed. This leads to more paranoia and less sleep (and some walking around, see above). Other times, I am too sleepy to care or I rationalize the situation based on the facts that A): I haven’t met anyone in my entire life that has had their house broken into , B): I live in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in rural South Eastern Indiana, far from the bad guys, and C): I don’t have anything really worth stealing or anyone that wants to kill me. Makes sense.

My only explanation for this behavior is that ever since we have had my daughter, I have had it in my head that I am now the guardian of my wife and daughter, who cannot defend themselves from the likes of the drugged-up murderous thieves that exist only in my mind. This mentality has festered in my brain to the point where I am obsessed about it and I continually go through these scenarios where someone would actually want to hurt one or all of us, and how to deal with them. These thoughts tend to happen in bed at night, where we are arguably the most vulnerable. These thoughts could be typical of fatherhood, or boarder-line psychotic, I am not sure. I also might simply just have an unrealistic fear of people getting us.

I thought I’d share it, because at this point, it is really kind of ridiculous. Anybody out there relate? Comments?