At some time in our lives most of us have a patch of sleepless nights. I’ve been struggling to sleep for a few years now. Medication and mental health (anxiety and depression) have a lot to do with it. It’s got better lately since I came off the antidepressants and reduced my pain meds but last night, last night agh!

It doesn’t take much at the moment to make my anxiety spring into action. I had a niggly “he said – she said” conversation with a friend just before bed. It unsettled me. I don’t like being gossiped about, I don’t like my words and actions being twisted and used against me. I caper about life wide-eyed and innocent, trying to do right by everyone. Someone misconstrued something and got upset. Which got me upset, which kicked my anxiety off.

I lay awake for a few hours, tossing and turning. I gave up and went downstairs, thought about stuff, tried to make sense of things but no sense could be made. I just started thinking about the failures in my life, the dark times and it just got worse, I was slipping into panic attack territory. It was now 4am and I was cold and miserable so I went back to bed. I tossed and turned some more until my husband could stand no more and got up. I promptly fell asleep.

I slept fitfully for 90 minutes or so, I knew I’d been flailing because the sheets were twisted all around me. I woke up with a start and looked at my hands, expecting to see them covered in blood. I’d had another of my nightmares. They terrify me because they’re so vivid. I rarely get them and when I do I know things are in a bad way.

In my nightmare I was wildly slashing at someone with a knife, stabbing and stabbing until there was nothing but blood. I looked at the face of the body in front of me, the body I’d attacked so ferociously. It was me.