A mental health concern

[ChocoOrange]

Right so I've been fine for about 8 months now, give or take. My biggest fear was always becoming schizophrenic and being a "bad" or violent person. Two things I never, ever want to be considered. Today I woke up in a really disorientated state and spoke to my Mum in this state, making zero sense. After a 20 seconds I disregarded it to my Mum and went back to bed. I googled it upon waking up properly and saw "Sleep Drunkenness", it said in two articles it can cause violent behavior and I'm really worried about this. Anyone have any experience/knowledge on this? I'm really concerned about it.


I was also boiling hot, same for another similar less scary occasion a week ago.

[ChocoOrange]

Anyone have any ideas? Didn't happen today but it's still worrying me.

[swgrl09]

I've never heard of sleep drunkenness, it sounds like just waking up still partially asleep. My husband has odd conversations with me while he is half asleep that make no sense. I don't think much of it, but do laugh when I tell him about it. One time he got up and started lifting up a chair! We had a good laugh about it later. I think it's just something that happens.

[MyNameIsTerry]

From a study:

For the study, researchers interviewed more than 19,000 people aged 18 and older about their sleep habits and if they had experienced any symptoms of confusional arousal. They were also asked whether they had been diagnosed with a mental illness and about the medications they took.

The researchers found that 15 percent of the participants had a confusional arousal episode in the last year. Over half of those people said they had more than one episode per week.

In most cases -- 84 percent -- the study participants said in addition to sleep drunkenness, they had other sleep disorders, a mental health disorder or used psychotropic medications such as antidepressants. Less than 1 percent of those with sleep drunkenness didn't have another sleep problem, the researchers found.

Among those suffering from confusional arousal, 37 percent also had a mental health problem. Those with depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, panic or post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety tended to be more likely to also have sleep drunkenness, the study authors noted.

Sleep drunkenness was also associated with sleeping too little or too much. About 20 percent of those who slept less than six hours a night and 15 percent of those who slept at least nine hours suffered from sleep drunkenness, the investigators found. In addition, people with sleep apnea were also more likely to have the problem.


So, anxiety & panic disorders get a mention in there.

I've had my fair share of these without knowing they had a name.

There have been recorded incidents of striking someone, which I'll guess will be the bed mate. But making a connection to schizophrenia is a massive leap and one that you are prone to making because you fear schizophrenia. Couldn't it be more likely this is related to your anxiety? Remember, schizophrenia has key symptoms and this isn't one of them so this alone is nowhere near enough for a doctor to consider it a possibility.

[ChocoOrange]

That's really odd how your husband could pick up a chair in that state, wow haha.

@Terry, my primary concern is the fact that I managed to make it through a door, up some stairs, and through another door still in a state that wasn't exactly "me" if that makes sense. It made me think that with the violence on record, could I not do all the above and then hurt someone? Kinda thing. It all is definitely my fear of schizophrenia, which I've been able to, for the most part, leave behind but this has bought a few feelings of it back.

[MyNameIsTerry]

There is violence on record in rare cases. There was also the rare case of a man falling over the deck of a ship and that was the end for him but your anxiety has focussed on hurting your mum, something that was already a worry within the context of the schizophrenia. That's a clue towards it being anxiety related because there is a higher probably of falling over yourself but you are not asking about that.

Look at those numbers. It's high. Yet violence is rare even in high numbers according to them. That makes it rarer & rarer.

I've done some odd things myself in these dazed states. I've taken paracetamols, moved an object from one side of the room to the other for no reason. It's weird stuff but I would never be considering the rare violence end but if I had your worries over schizophrenia, I bet I would have.