Traumatic Sleep Event
I have always had a troubling relationship with my brother. When we were younger, he would sometimes fight me for no reason and I had to fight him back the best I could. I always worried that one day he would kill my mom who lived with us. I was wrong, he tried to kill me. In April of 2008, I went to bed like I normally do every other night. My mom leaves for work early so it was just me and my brother in the house. At about 8:00 am I am awakened to intense pain in my face and wake up to my brother with a 20 pound weight he just used to strike me in the face. Both front teeth are broken and a couple others are loosened. I jump out of the bed with blood splattered on the wall and try to collect myself. He looks crazy, like he is on drugs on something. I try to talk with a garbled mouth asking what the hell is going on. He swings again and hits me on the left side of my head near my temple. I then realize I need to fight for my life. My brother is heavier than me and not in good shape so I jump on his back with my arms around his so he cannot swing. I put all my weight on his back for about 45 minutes until he was so tired he could barely move. I then had to make a dash for the front door and try to unlock it before he swings the weight at me again. I get the front door open but not before he hits me one more time in the back of my head. Lucky my old babysitter still lived in the building and I was able to run downstairs to her and call the police. I was rushed to the hospital and so very luckily my injuries were treatable. There were able to split my teeth and I had a double root canal to fix my shattered front teeth. I had very deep stitches (probably close to my skull) from the hits that I got from the swing weight. Today, 12 years later I am physically fine with no effects. Emotionally, I now suffer from anxiety and suffer from chronic sleep episodes where I wake up feeling eminent doom is coming and I scream and run out of bed as if I’m escaping an attacker. My sleep has never been the same since.
