Sleep Paralysis 1st Time Ever

 Last night, I tried to go to bed in my own bed, but Kevin was diagonal, so I went in the other room. I started to fall asleep to one of my favorite true crime channels. He started to talk about a married couple that was murdered in Arizona. I was not paying attention until he said where the wife worked. She was the nurse at the child abuse emergency shelter that I worked at in the early 2000’s. The staff at this shelter had a TON of preexisting tension, so thick you could cut it with a knife. Being so young and having such a low self esteem and having grown up with it instilled in me that I couldn’t do anything, I internalized a lot of the hatred between the others. It was hard to deal with while taking care of kids in precarious circumstances. I have a lot of trauma and vicarious trauma from that job. I remember being on the road from Phoenix to Houston for the first time ever and thinking, I will not be surprised if some of those people murder each other. 

The only thing I remember about the nurse was her blonde hair that was just above shoulder length. I only really had one interaction with her, when she was teaching me how to give kids breathing treatments with a nebulizer. I only found out about the unsolved murder of her and her husband last night. I had no idea. I want to clarify that I did submit an anonymous tip with details about the tension among staff members in the early 2000’s. I just really hope that my anonymous tip doesn’t make anyone think that I’m accusing anyone. I cannot prove my suspicions, I can only hope that they believe what I tell them and look into it if they can. I do not believe they suspected her workplace, because their obituary stated to donate to the shelter where we worked. After I find out what they are going to do with my anonymous tip, if anything, I’ll talk more about her and her husband in detail. The murder is unsolved to this day, and there is evidence that several individuals were involved. They also think the couple knew the perpetrators.  

Even though the episode and finding out that she was murdered gave me some anxiety, I forced myself to relax and try to sleep.  Then, I started experiencing sleep paralysis for the first time in my life.  It was very scary.  

I was in the state that you’re in just as you start to drift to sleep- I wasn’t asleep yet. I couldn’t move at all but was aware of my surroundings and had a hallucination of a young blonde female putting her hand over my mouth. This video explains the medical reasons behind sleep paralysis, and anxiety and PTSD are underlying conditions. I’ve never experienced this in my life, nor have I ever hallucinated. I was finally able to get up and walk to my own bedroom and shake Kevin up enough to move over so I could get in bed. I’m afraid this means I have to see a psychiatrist. I really dislike psychiatrists. I know I probably need to tell my therapist, which is ironic, because she was just literally saying to stay away from true crime. She does know about the trauma and vicarious trauma I endured at that job almost 25 years ago though.