Growing up, I suffered with delusions. My entire life. Usually they crop up for women in their 20s but I always had them. It started with feeling uneasy at night when I was very young. Then, by the time I was 10, it was the belief that something would get me in the dark. Something inhuman. Not quite demonic. Something I couldn't describe. And when it got me (not if) it would do something to me that would be eternal and worse than death. It happened every single night I tried to go to sleep. I would sit in a corner on my bed, hyperventilating, praying, begging whatever existed to just let me live until I was 16. Just 16. I've never felt a fight or flight like it. Like I was a trapped animal in a cage, frenzied. I felt if I talked about it, 'it' would laugh mockingly or get angry and come get me sooner. 

I couldn't leave my house at night alone. Even in a group, I was uncomfortable.

I lived like this until I was nineteen. Every single night. Terrified, crying, moaning. I couldn't take showers and feel safe, either. Thought it would get me there, too. 

When I was nineteen I had begun to believe people would hurt me. It was after I considered stabbing someone with keys in 'self defense' that I finally talked to my psychiatrist.

She prescribed me Latuda. 

Before, I was on Ambien to mess me up so bad I could sleep, and wouldn't be so afraid. 

With the Latuda, a miracle happened. I felt *safe*. For the first time in my entire life, I felt safe sleeping. I felt safe in my own home. I still check under the bed. I triple check the door is locked. I can't leave the house at night.

But I can sleep. Maybe it has to be with the TV on, but it's sleep. And it's beautiful. Something so simple that people everywhere take for granted, that I never had. My entire life. I finally have that. 

It gets better.