Hi Ladies,

I was wondering if anyone could explain why nightmares/night terrors are a part of Peri and hormonal changes.

This was one of my first symptoms before anything started - even the change in my cycle and it has persisted for about a year straight now.

Last May, I had just moved into my fiances apartment, and every single night I woke up from some horrible, eerie, nasty dream which terrified me and which I didn't understand. It was literally almost every night and I felt so bad because he just didn't know how to comfort me after a while, and I myself was troubled and didn't want to go to sleep after awhile.

Also, these dreams were not like regular nightmares, where your unconscious is trying to work something out that is really happening in your life, or that you are trying to process.

Instead, they had this creepy weird feeling (almost like DR/DP in your sleep) and when I woke up it took me a long time to shake "the feeling".

I am completely confused and disturbed by this. Does it happen to anyone else?

Please let me know....and also, if anyone experienced a change in this after starting HRT?
Thank you so much....

Dee

Yes it happens to me too and even on bcp;s I get it sometimes. I try a benadryl when I have trouble sleeping and it knocks me out and helps. It is an awful feeling and the next day is soooo long. It is creepy. I feel for you. Usually a night or two of this and then I am back to normal. HOpe youare too.

I get the bad dreams as well.Waking up crying with my heart pounding.I hate it.It seems to be worse whenever I eat sugary or salty foods.I hope you can get some rest!!GOD-bless

Thank you both for your responses. It's just so weird, how many of these things we are all experiencing is due to hormones.

Once I thought I understood and actually marveled at the design of the human body and now I hate it and honestly wish I was never born. I dont think there is anything in this life that can make a person wish they were dead as the feeling of having a nervous breakdown. The sensation of the complete loss of "self". Its crippling. No one could understand unless they've been there and no one can take away the feelings that come from its aftermath.

I think its a horrible horrible horrible thing for this to have to happen to anyone and I am so caught right now between anxiety, anger, bitter sadness, resentment, and loss over my old life.

Does this ever get better? Does anyone ever feel like a real person again? Does anyone ever laugh again, have moments of love, joy, passion, fun????

After my "breakdown" on Saturday I am just drifting through each moment on a cloud of sorrow....wondering....

Dollie,
I've been through Dr/Dp... felt like I didn't know who I had become and where the old me went. I still get the hot flashes at night but that is little compared to the anxiety/Dr/Dp.
To answer your question, I do, I feel like a real person now.. I laugh.. love... have passion and fun, just like I used to (in some ways more because I'm so grateful) during times of doubt I thought I'd have the hormonal door slammed shut for good. Not gunna happen Dollie.. you're going to feel good again. Hang in there...

Hugs!

i understand completely, this morning i had dark, very erie and highly believable nightmares. i wasn't completely asleep because i felt my heart pounding and started to sweat. this happens alot to me and these dreams tend to start my day in a surreal way, and i hate it. i also take xanax yet the effects have worn off lately. i know one thing, when i'm getting these dreams, i am not in a deep state of sleep, i can hear every bird tweet and hubby getting ready for work, yet it's too early for me to get up, or it would be a long, doom filled day. yes, i agree many times lately that sometimes i wish i was not born, because i suffer thru life rather than live it.
my heart goes out to you and you are NOT ALONE!
boo

I wish I could give you a big hug!! Seriously,I have been in your shoes.It is so hard,just last week drug addicts broke into my house,and thank GOD I am still here.I still laugh,and I refuse to let them or my peri take my life from me.It is a gift,and I will not give up.You are going to cry,you are going to hurt,but you are going to love and laugh and pray and live.I am on a low dose birth control which has helped a lot,and today I am going to buy myself a bottle of wine,so at night I can have a glass at bed.My advice to you is to do something today that you have always loved doing-whether you feel like it or not,just do it.Start moving forward,we are here for you.PM me any time-you are not alone!!GOD-bless

GOD BLESS YOU FOR THIS POST!!!! I am going to hold on until that day. I am a strong woman and I know I can do it. I know I can, no matter how much it hurts and is scary right now.

Thank you all....Oh my God I am so very greatful to have found you.


Dee

In a word, YES! I'm several years post and I'm back to normal. I cannot speak for anyone but myself; however, I had at one time the entire list of 33 or 34 meno symptoms and now just about every one of them is gone. I still get hot flashes but nowhere near as bad.

I had the bad dreams you speak about, Dollie. Mine were just bizarre; I'll be honest and say that there was a recurrent them of looking for a bathroom so that I could shower and get myself cleaned up. I didn't have to go to the bathroom; rather, I had a stale, unclean feeling in the dream and I'd be shuffling around in my nightgown in the late afternoon or something. The whole dream was about searching for a washroom where I could shower and scrub myself clean.

I've also had a recurrent dream about a house that has a lot of rooms and beautiful views out of the windows and great architecture inside and out, but every room is cluttered and dirty; a lot of furniture and stuff all over the place. I go in the bathroom (yes, a bathroom again) and the bathtub is filthy. My mission in the dream is to get the house cleaned up and de-cluttered so that I can see how beautiful it really is. I never seem to be able to get it cleaned up, though. I'm getting sidetracked and interrupted in the dream and often wake up feeling tired and frustrated.

I don't get as many of those dreams anymore; I'll be honest again and say that I am on an antidepressant because I wanted to be one one. I went to my doctor and asked for a prescription after my husband did so well on it. My husband said he used to have "flatliner" dreams; they'd be gray and boring and uneventful (a flat line). After he started taking an SSRI he told me he started having amazing dreams and in color; he still has colorful dreams with car chases and intricate plots. Mine are not as complex, but now they are also in color after being gray and I've gotten away from that tedious theme of searching for a bathroom or trying to clean a house.

Just my two cents; it did get much better for me. Now I have to remind myself how bad it used to be, because I'm actually starting to forget!

CSugargrove,

Thank you for giving us hope.

Plumeria

"Now I have to remind myself how bad it used to be, because I'm actually starting to forget!"

Isn't that something CSugargrove... the whole thing was so stressful to me at the time I thought I'd never forget. Those memories are fading for me too.
Thanks for sharing.

It MUST get better .. or the world would be in CHAOS ,, can you imagine even 60% of the women in the world over 50 or 45 feeling like this .. nothing would get done !!! LOL

Just to add .. my mother is 82 years old .. and she says she has more energy now then when she was going through this .. (i just hope I dont have to wait till im 82 !)

So right here, you have proof! Just in these two posts, plus what I said. IT DOES GET BETTER! Hang in there; I never thought I'd forget the misery, either, nor did I ever think it would end. Maybe that explains the patient wisdom of elderly ladies when I'd ask them how they ever got through it. They would just look at me calmly and say that it begins and ends and life goes on. And they didn't have PS like we do.

I agree that is will get better...but the thing that has leveled me and been fueling my sense of hopeless depression (on top of the hormones) is that at the age of 40 I had just "gotten it together" I was getting married for the first time, building a home, started a new career, a new life. I was on top of the world. How long now is my life to be on hold ....again? Another 10 years 20 years? I dont have that time anymore. Am I supposed to shut myself in a (rubber) room somewhere after a tearful goodbye to my family. my freinds, my fiance, my home, my garden, my roses, my job, my happiness, my joy, my laughter..everything and say Oh well, I'll be back to see you again in about 15 years? Im not trying to be sarcastic or ungrateful in any way....please believe me....I am just suffereing very badly right now and feel like the world has become a dark, deep pit of despair and it is lost to me. Its been a quick descent into this "place" from the onset in December and all I want is my life back right now. I do not want to wake up from one more horrific dream and walk around inside another waking nightmare. How could any of this be normal? I am sorry, I am just so frightened and beyond exhausted.

Thank you all for being here, and for listening....

Dee

I know that dark hole you are talking about,I was a resident for a while.The best advice I have is to get some sort of hormone therapy,or low dose birth control.I did and I am much better.GOD-bless

I went through the real dark depression but it only lasted for a while .. when ever my periods would come .. for about a year I would say ,, for me ,, my symptoms have changed with the stage I've been in ..

early on - irritation, noise sensitivity
middle - very irregular periods (multiple in one month) , deep depression, anxiety, fear of some deadly disease, heart palpatations
late - wracking body aches,flu like symptoms, hair loss, skipped periods , dysphoria, gerd

theres more Im sure Im forgetting.

but as new symptoms came on .. the old ones would leave ,, when I hit the dark depression, after a while I knew it for what it was. I got a lot of massages, pedicures,, took more time for myself. But I think you should look for some chemical relief for your symptoms ,, HRT , or xanex ,, something to help you get through the darkness,, at least for the next year or 2,, then treat the symptoms as they come along..

i too experiance very vivid dreams- not too often ( thank god ) but enough- real intense vivid dreams that make no sense- much like my life lately- lol

Dollie, I'm so sorry about what you're going through. This should NOT take 10 or 15 years; from what I've read and heard, and my own experience, it should be one or two years. You get used to the new hormone levels and life goes on; it has to. There are many women out there who are productive and energetic and happy and they all went through meno.

Someone told me once that when I had a nightmare and woke up feeling disoriented and depressed, try to imagine how the dream could be made into a good dream. This is not meant to be facetious or superficial. It takes some mental control, but since you're lying there anyway, just start the whole thing over in your mind and instead of it going to a bad place, imagine how it could become a good dream. You may think this is silly, but it has worked for me. What you are doing is changing your mindset over from negative to positive. Or if you don't want to think about the nightmare, just force yourself to think of something, anything, that has made you laugh in the past or is a pleasant memory; maybe a trip you took or a fun time you had with a friend. Anything. If you start to have negative thoughts, force yourself back to thinking about something positive.

Another thought I had is that I do not know if you're on any kind of SSRI or what your feelings are about it; maybe you are dead set against taking anything. Sometimes we need a bit of help at various points in our life. It doesn't mean you have to take it forever, just now so that you can feel better and get on with your life.

I went through a depression in my thirties that was not hormone-related. It was brought about by a traumatic experience at my job. I thought I'd never feel right again. I couldn't sleep at night and then had to fight to stay awake during the day. It was like I was outside looking in at everything. I felt like I was made out of stone; one of those Roman statues in museums. It took almost a year for it to go away on its own. Depression is really bad. I hope you can get some help and that what I've suggested may also help you a bit.