Screams in the Dark

I don't sleep well. I can't remeber ever sleeping well. I was moved into the far end of the basement to share a room with the twins. They are 7 years older than me and, as is custom, found it fun to torment me so when I was 5 and they were 12 the fun thing was to make me scream in the dark. I was afraid of the dark at 5 and had to walk the length of my entire base,ent to the the bedroom in the back. My basement was scarey, unfinished in all the common points and the furnace was the last thing I passed before my room.
I tried to be brave. To walk not run and on those nights when I wasn't plunged suddenly into darkness. The switches for the lights in the basement were both upstairs and down and the twins would turn off the lights and make me go in darkness to the bedroom and turn on the lights in there as my reward. They laughed and laughed at my pain.
I hated bedtime and what it held because, in my room there was a box in the ceiling for the furnace return. It was panelled and had 1/4 round and was the size of a coffin. Beneath notice for an adult, a way to m,ake the ugly furnace return look nice and finish the room. My brothers had me convinced it was where the monsters lived, led by vampires. Can you guess what my 5 year old mind had as the ultimate terror? You are brilliant, it is Vampires!
Best of all my bed was under this box. I slept under a coffin full of vamipires and monsters. My reward for making it alive to my room was to lay in the light terrified under the coffin and ....sleep.
Most nights I screamed. Sometimes the terror would come when I looked up at the coffin. I tried to be brave but I screamed and cried until I was hoarse and exhausted because the fear was constant. Imagine 2 hours of terror without letup....each night...or longer...hurts to even imagine.
I tried to listen to the radio, but it was across the room and I couldn't get out of bed. I would quake and scream and cry until someone herad me. It was never my mom or dad. They were in the living room and you could only hear me from the back door landing, my screams absorbed by distance and television and covered by the twins laughs. From my dad and moms perspective, now that I look back, I was in bed and the twins were happy and laughing. All was well.
I finally got a room upstairs when I was about 11, 6 years of terrifying sleeplessness and the same year as my dad died.
I love the dark now and Vampires don't scare me but I can't sleep. I wake and sweat and turn and toss and start. I don't sleep my 2 cycles of 4 hours and I feel grateful if I get 4 straight hours. I am exhausted from fighting to be positive and no sleep for 39 years. Fear and terror and death makes for bad sleep.
I am insecure and tired. I am afraid by myself with nobody to love me. I sleep when I can. I miss work to sleep because I have too, not because I am weak minded. I am this way for reasons as real as death. Sleep is an escape rarely and I feel refreshed, like a normal person, maybe 20 days out of 365.
Alone I am worse. Who can live without love? I can't it seems.
So who would want me this way? I have just begun...wait untill I get the miscarriages and hateful abuse from my ex...you will see I am not lucky like Barb or Vicky or Laura who has family and is strong, independant and can be alone and be happy. I am better with support. Better with love. Better with family. I am in rough shape alone so the question becomes the same as before.
Who would want me in this way? Who would be sympathetic and not, in 5 years say "I can't take this, your earning nothing, sleeping" Suck it up butter cup is the help many can muster and it is no help to me. I am sick. I cannot be cured, but everyone thinks if they yell, isolate, abandon, pep talk or tough love me I'll be better. I am not a bd child or weak minded. I am ill.
So I am a loser to those who cannot imagine a guy with as many great things going for him can be that sick. Most women would find me aweful and not relationship material because 10 years from now I'll still be sick.
Ask yourself this...would you date a person like me, man or wonam....ooooo that brings to mind the incredible sexism I face as mentally ill and male. We are not allowed to be weak indefinately unless we are limbless, but women have feelings and it is understandable after what her ex called her. That kinda thoughtless sexism is killing me too, but that will be next. Lucky you eh? LOL