If I should die before I wake.....

So much to say and not enough attention span today to say it all.

Hmm..well I'll give an update first on the things that have been going on. We moved. It was frenetic, frustrating, and exhausting with occasional periods of fierce joy and gratitude. Maybe a little awe thrown in there. It's a truly unbelievable house. I still feel like I have too many decisions to make in any given day, and trying to force myself to make decisions stresses me out. I haven't been sleeping well. I'm in a new environment, and my paranoia insists that we absolutely must find ways to make this house defensible from everything from a burglar to a horde of shambling undead. There is just no way I can make a house this big feel as safe as I want right now.

I'm tired all the time from lack of sleep, or lack of restful sleep. I am having nightmares, probably caused by my irrational fear of going to sleep. I was attacked several times while I was the most vulnerable a person can be: while they are asleep. Twice raped in my sleep, several times woke up to being assaulted, groped, humiliated... Now I seem to be unable to accept the situation for what it really is. I really need sleep. I also really need to feel safe. Taking sleeping meds makes me more vulnerable to attacks in my sleep, because I can't fight back. I am aware that the odds are really against getting attacked in my sleep again, but fear is irrational.

So why am I so resistant to sleep? It's making my life miserable, this not being able to sleep well. A person should be able to feel safe where they sleep. I don't have that. Instead I have this screaming harpy in my head, insisting that the second I let my guard down, something horrible is going to happen to me again. They've taken away all my weapons. I used to sleep with a loaded gun and knife under my pillow. They have generously allowed me to keep my pepper spray for personal defense, but after having carried assault rifles, grenades, hand guns, knives etc. etc. pepper spray seems lame and useless.

I could rig deterrents throughout the house, but this house is big and it seems a shame to spoil the house with all my paranoid weirdness. I used to put wind chimes on all doors, and clunky easily breakable objects under windows. But I looked like a crazy person. I had it rigged so nobody could get in the house without me hearing it and giving me time to either get away or get to a weapon. Please don't judge me, I know how crazy this sounds. I already know I'm screwed up on so many levels.

I don't know how to solve such an irrational problem. Can I negotiate with my fear? I don't know. I'll have to spend some time thinking about it.