I'm here with My Friend Michael who has night terrors. So Michael, when did you
figure out you had night terrors?
>> When I was about 13 in my teen years and found out I was experiencing them a
few times a week, even sometimes, like three times in a night, and my parents
just took me to the pediatrician.
>> So what's it like to to live with night terrors?
>> It's exhausting. It's exhausting for me, it's exhausting for my wife. And like
when I was living with my parents, like family members just because they're
really intense. And at one point, I was having them every night, like sometimes
three times a night, but pretty much on a regular basis and that's, you know,
waking everybody up having to deal with the situation. And then, for myself,
feeling like I was asleep the whole time, but really, I'm up sprinting around
screaming my lungs off at whatever was going on and, and not, not knowing the
next morning like why I was exhausted.
>> And what's it like to have a night terror episode?
>> Sometimes, they are totally fuzzy. I don't know what I did at all, until
somebody wakes me up and tells me. Other times, you would remember everything
and, and the one that was the most terrifying for me, because, I was the only
one that would wake myself up from them was when somebody was coming after me,
whether it was maybe it was like a giant spider. It was like a person like
lurking in the room and you just be totally still, eyes wide open really
sweating. And, I was afraid for my life that if I budged or moved at all that
this, this spider or this person or whatever it was would come after me and,
and kill me or whatever. And, those were terrifying because you're just, you're
frozen and you're seeing everything. Nobody's waking me up, nothing. I'm just
still. All by myself and having to wake up from that on my own. The consistent
thing no matter if somebody wakes me up or if waking up myself from those ones
that are still, you're just always the next day, bags under the eyes. You're
just tired all the time, because you're, you're, you're running around in your
sleep, like you're, you're, you're exerting energy in a time when you should be
relaxed and your body should be refreshing itself, like you should be getting
energy back. Another thing that I, I've discovered is I get, I get really mad.
I'm like very aggressive when, I'm like, coming back out of that, that dream or
whatever's going on. That I'm very I'm just very pissed off. I'm yelling at my
wife, like, stop it, no, I'm not, just leave me alone. And then the next thing
that comes into that phase is just total shame. I'm just very embarrassed, kind
of curl up, just I, I don't, I, because I, whatever you see, I swear it's
there, I know it's there. It's just like looking at you right now, I swear that
you're there, but then, somebody wakes me up and goes, no you're, you're just
having a night terror, like and, and I don't know if that's where it kicks in
that you get mad and, and that I'm aggressive in that way. I, I don't know why,
why that feeling comes over me. But it definitely scares me to the fact that I,
I don't want to hurt anybody. Definitely don't want to hurt my wife and I hope
it never comes to that. I mean, I even have a little one now, and that's
definitely one thing that terrifies me. If I was to go running out of the room
or something, and God forbid, I, I had something happen to her. And that's one
thing that's always in the back of my mind is you know, I'm kind of, I'm, I'm
bigger guy and what would happen if that happened.
>> Now, is there anything that you want people to know about night terrors?
>> The worst thing you can do and, and people that have been around me and
experienced it, the worst thing you can do is to go along with the person,
talking to them, and trying to figure out what's going on. the person will seem
coherent, like their eyes will be open, I'll have a full-blown conversation
with somebody, but I'm, I'm sleeping and I don't know what I'm going to do
next, I have no idea. I have no control of this situation. That, what has
control over me is whatever I'm picturing, whether it's spiders, snakes,
whatever that, that's what has control. Not me, the, the situation. If you know
somebody that has it, if it's a family member, somebody that's going to be
around all the time, try to keep the door open, maybe have like a little night
light out in the hallway or something. I know it sounds kind of silly if you
have like like for me, I was a teenager, you know, put a night light, what are
you talking about? But looking back on it, it would have probably been the best
thing for my, my dad and, and people trying to help me out because they could
see me, it was so dark all the time, I'd go sprinting out of the room and they
don't know where I'm at, like you can't see anything. So it's little things
like that, that could help me out. And I don't know, as far as releasing my
stress somehow, kind of kept to myself. I don't know if I, I talked enough to
people to learn how to cope with stress differently. And I think that's what
ended happening is I got into the habit of not telling anybody anything. And
that was my way of coping, was going to sleep and thinking about it. So I don't
know if there's other avenues that way, I just haven't figured it out yet.