I've always had nightmares, as far back as I can remember.  The earliest nightmare I can recall is when I was about five and I dreamt of fish.  Fish flying out of the frying pan and trying to chase me down.  Where this came from is beyond me.  My Mom did not cook fish, as she couldn't stand the smell in the house.  Yet, I can remember waking up in the darkest part of the night, in a panic of terror and calling out for Mom. 

As I got older, they continued, the standard ones, that everyone has about school, friends, family, plus in the 80s nightmares about nuclear war.  The number of times I woke up sure that the world outside those four walls was in flames and death is uncountable.   

I dealt with them, spent many a night sitting up at my desk reading some sort of fluff, to keep the terror out of my head.  I would stay awake until I dropped from exhaustion in the hope of being too tired to dream. 

It never worked.  Every story I heard of war, death, accident, crept into my head and brought itself forth in my night time world.   

The older I got, the worse they got.  Until my night terrors became day ones.  Sitting anywhere the fear of death would clutch me and send me into a panic.  My heart would race, my breathing shallow and ragged.  Cold beads of sweat would run down my face. 

For a time I thought I was going insane.  The day terrors were happening more than once a day.  I was at a breaking point.   I was just 16 years old and sure I was headed for the asylum.   

The thing that saved me was learning that I wasn't the only one.  My Dad and his Mom before him, went through the same things.  Panic attacks.  I wasn't dying, I wasn't having a heart attack, I was going through severe attacks of fear. 

And they could be controlled.  I researched them, learned varius coping techniques, and the severity and frequency of them lessened.  In fact, for a few years they went away. 

Then, September 11, 2001.  I was done for.  They came back full force, to the point where just a few days following the terrorist attack, sitting in my bar, I freaked,  burst into tears, and Tony had to take me out of there. 

We came home, I felt somewhat better, but that day reopened my fears.  The nightmares are back and every day they worsen.  Last night was a horrid one.  Every time I got back into a deep sleep where your dreams are, I was in labryinth of death and destruction.  This after I had stayed awake until I could no longer make out words on a page. 

I slept a few minutes here or there all night, and part of the day.  I'm utterly exhausted.  I want nothing more than to go back to bed, but what's the use?  I'll only be awake and scared again, soon. 

Tony and I have discussed this before.  He knows that the more news I watch the worse the attacks, the nightmares become.  He tries to limit me in my watching of the news.  In the days following September 11, 2001 he turned away from CNN, to try and help me get the images out of my head. 

But, it doesn't have to be something as large as that.  I empathize with the pain of others, too much.  I hear about an abused child on the news and my heart aches.  I read about the nightclub fire and the deaths and I grief for the loss of people whom I've never know.  When Columbia exploded, I not only griefed for the lives of those seven astronauts and their families,  but, the pain from the loss of the Challenger came back anew.   

I can't keep doing this, but, I don't know how to stop it.  I don't want to be a coldhearted person who doesn't care for others.  I can't imagine being like that.  I just have to find a way to distance myself, even for a few days, just until I get control of the nightmares again. 

Suzy