spontaneous stripping disorder

 

I wake up naked a lot. I suppose that could be pretty hot, if one imagined that I’m waking up nude from a long night of sex. But I’ve been single for about a bajillion years, and there’s no one sleeping in my bed at night except me. And me, and me, and me. No, I wake up naked because of my “others”.

I used to sleep walk when I was a kid, which I thought was rather exotic and exciting. This potentially dangerous situation wasn’t dangerous at all, compared to what went on in my waking hours, and I chalked this wacky habit up to me being an oddball dramatic type. Some mornings I awoke to find my head at the foot of the bed, and my feet on my pillow. Days that I spent the night at my grandmother’s house, I awoke on the living room couch. It seemed I just got up and meandered about. I talked in my sleep as well, told to me by my mother, who remembers me trying to drive a car in my sleep when I was five. I told her I was trying to get to a dance recital, which must have been my older sisters.

My favorite weird nighttime sleep activity seems to be stripping. I have a habit of waking up shirtless. Or more often, just in my panties. Or better still, in completely different clothing than I started off in. I’d go to bed in my jammies, like cotton men’s pajamas, and wake up in a pair of boxers and a tee. Or maybe I’d go to bed in a silk nightie, only to find myself in a sweatshirt and bottoms in the morning. And there are times that I actually rummaged through the closet to get these items, because I know they weren’t easily accessible. I’ve taken to laying out several options on my bed, and just sleeping next to them like I have a ‘clothing boyfriend’. The options lie against the wall, just in case. It’s easier this way. I find I have less unexplained bruises in the morning from tripping over stuff in the dark, or banging my elbows on the closet door when my eyes are shut.

I have one particular “other” who seems to get the most enjoyment out of this. This as of yet unidentified personality gets incredibly hot when the rest of everyone is fine, and she starts pulling articles of clothing off the body. Off comes the sweater, off with the socks. She hates anything constricting on the neck line, so if I’m wearing a crew neck tee shirt at the time she comes out, I can pretty much kiss that shirt goodbye. She’ll rip the neck wide open, because it’s “choking her”. So when I wake up in the nude, I know whose been sleeping in my bed. I imagine she got hot in the middle of the night and just started peeling layers of clothing off. Although, it could be that she is a closet stripper personality, because I’ve always had a thing for pole dancing.

I think I can blame the missing bra on her as well. I had a favorite cute bra go missing for months at a time, and I couldn’t figure out where I’d lost it. I mean, I’ve lost a number of things in my life – my old Styx album, “Paradise Theatre”; my antique cigarette container that I used as a lipstick case; that year of my life in third grade – but losing a bra isn’t the same as misplacing your keys. It’s not like you accidentally set down your bra on a counter at Taco Bell. For the life of me I couldn’t find the thing, and then one day I discovered it hiding underneath my mattress. Like, wedged between the two mattresses. One of my kooky spiritual new age fluffy bunny personalities likes to blame this on the faeries; convinced that the fey came and made off with my bra for some reason. I think it must have been hot head, slinking out of the clothes when the rest of us were asleep. But seriously, did she have to stick it between the mattresses? To what end?

So yeah, it’s a little weird and funny, sometimes. Having this life I have. But for some guy in the world that finally decides to date me, I hope he might consider my spontaneous stripping disorder more convenient than annoying.