I'm not sure really sure what's been happening to me recently but I was hoping that someone here might know something that could help. It started a few weeks ago, I woke up with black bruises on my hips and I had no idea why. I don't play any sports, I didn't remember falling or hitting anything, but they were deep and they hurt like hell. I also didn't feel particularly well-rested, confirmed by the eye bags I saw in the mirror. I just thought it was a weird sleep and maybe I had been rolling around and hit myself on the sides of the bed or something. I do have a rickety metal bed so it kind of makes sense--my mom bought it from some rural estate fair and it looks like a bed that gives someone sepsis, but I'm 23 and don't want to sleep on a futon.
Anyways, I only started to get paranoid when this happened for the third night in a row. New bruises, on my shoulders and my ribs, and I woke up feeling just more and more sleep deprived, and my muscles ached. It's almost summer but I've had to keep wearing long-sleeved shirts and high collars to cover all the marks because I don't want my flatmates to worry. My legs were also sore in the mornings so I had the idea to take my friends apple watch and see if I was sleep-walking somewhere--I almost wish I had never tried to check.
The fourth morning was awful. None of the old bruises had faded yet so when I looked in a mirror I had the feeling that my skin was mottled with mold or rot, and this time I had bite marks. Bite marks on my thighs of all places and flecked with dried blood. And when I tried to look at the watch to see my steps or where I had went I found it on the bedside table, clearly removed before I ever left the bed--if I had even left the bed I still wasn't sure. I couldn't even go to a doctor because I knew what they would think, that I was a victim of abuse and send me to a battered women's shelter. At this point that didn't sound so bad if sleeping somewhere else might fix my problem. I started to cry in bed when I saw all the marks on my body and I called in sick to work for the day. Eventually I got up and went to the bathroom to wash it off of me: the blood but also everything else I was worried had touched my skin. In my mind I could almost imagine how I had been grabbed and touched even though I couldn't remember any of it. I was so caught up trying to scrub every inch of myself I almost didn't notice that there was more blood in the bathroom. If it had just been the toilet I could have believed that my flatmate had just used one of my pads, but it was the sink. The sink was full of blood and reminded me of the still heavy water that mosquitos breed in. The dark red surface looked like it was waiting to erupt with flies. I was too scared and grossed out to reach my hand in to unclog the drain so I used the shaft of the toilet brush to reach in and knock out the plug.
I'm highly sure this isn't normal but I'm really hoping someone here might have ever dealt with something similar because I'm running out of my ideas for what to do. I tried to set up my phone to film my bed at night but when I woke up it was powered off and the video had been stopped by some unseen hand thirty minutes in. I tried to set up salt by my door to see if I was crossing it and it was all swept up in the morning. I've locked my windows and put my keys in my flatmates room before I go to bed, and nothing changes. My neck is blue and yellow almost up to my chin so I've been wearing turtlenecks and scarves and my friends are starting to get worried. I don't know who to tell or even what to say because anyone would think I'm just trying to protect my abuser if I tried to explain I don't who's doing this to me or how it's even happening. I'm this close to calling my mom and asking if I can sleep in her bed but I'm scared she'll end up hurt too. Whatever's happening, I couldn't live with myself if she was touched by this... thing. But I'm just so tired. All I want to do is sleep and I can't. I've been pushing myself to sleep less and less because all I know is that I'm only safe when I'm awake.
Update: I was just about to post this the other night but I have something to add. Yesterday morning when I left my building there was homeless guy outside--not unusual in my city--but he said something unnerving. He looked at me and said, "Smile for me again, you were so happy last night." The thing is, I came home at 5pm the day before and I don't remember seeing or interacting with him at all. I asked what I looked like that night and he could only remember that I had red stuff all over my face and a man dressed in all black walked me to my door. I want to believe he's crazy and drunk and mixed me up with a neighbor, but at the same time this is the only proof I have that I am sleepwalking or possessed or something other than just hallucinating.
I can't bear all the bruises, bites, and cut I've been getting anymore. My wrists are red and tender as if they were tied with rope, my throat hurts and it looks as if someone strangled me, and there's scratches from finger nails in my hips. So I decided I just won't sleep. If that's when he comes for me I just refused to let it happen again, at least one night I wanted to keep my body safe even if it drove me insane. So I locked my doors, my windows, and waited, sitting on my bed and watching TV. At around 2am my computer started to fritz and then just turned off on its own.
I got off my bed, hoping the discomfort of the floor would keep me awake. At 3am my phone also just powered itself off. From here on I didn't know how quickly time was passing but it felt like an eternity. Maybe 30 minutes, maybe an hour later, every cut on my body started to burn. I just lay on the floor for ages slapping myself to try to numb the pain and trying not to wake my flatmates by sobbing. And by this point I don't know if anything I was feeling was real but I swore I heard footsteps, right up to my door and then they just stopped. After a few minutes of silence there came a trickling of liquid and the putrid scent of gasoline spilling onto the apartment floor. I still couldn't imagine facing him but then I smelled the flames. The bedroom knob already burnt to touch by the time I stood up, but when I finally got it open I never even saw the fire.
I woke up in a hospital bed. With one new mark, a bite on my tongue. The nurses were already looking at me with pity in their eyes and I knew what they thought, that they could save me from him. That they could take me away and put me somewhere safe. I don't think somewhere like that exists.