Annoying Phantom Cats

I have enjoyed reading Phantom Cat stories here. My personal experience has been somewhat disturbing.

Phantom Cats are not new to me, but I never called them that before now. I have felt them for many years, and occasionally seen one out of the corner of my eye. At first, they were more surprising than disturbing. I thought it was kind of neat! I was not disturbed at all. However, this has recently changed.

Several weeks ago, for the first time in a while, I began to feel the Phantom Cats again. In addition, I was again seeing the "creepy crawlies" in shadows. They are like Daddy Long Legs, but with hundreds of legs, kind of fuzzy and legs wiggling. They grow. I have never seen them leave the shadows, but I do see them on the periphery.

Well, when I began to feel the "cats" once more, it quickly progressed to feeling like the "creepy Crawlies" were climbing on to my feet and lower legs - that's what I thought anyway. There were multiple ones at the same time. They would bite my toes, and I could feel it very acutely, and with associated pain. I was scared of them.

I tried praying them away, I would "kick" them off, but they would persistently return. They would only go away if I were to fall asleep.

I thought perhaps this was some psychosis associated with peripheral neuropathy. As such, I tried taking more Gabapentin at bedtime. At first, I thought it was helping. That did not last long, and they returned in force.

I literally thought I may be possessed by some evil spirit. These incidents even began to occur when I was sitting or lying in my recliner and would move with me if I got up and walked around. At times I felt a heaviness from the creatures, and always a sense of feet of some kind walking on my lower extremities.

One night, I though "Oh my goodness - they're Cats! We once had a cat that would nibble at my toes at night. This, I thought, was an exacerbation of that. I felt much better, thinking these were phantom cats rather than the creepy crawlies.

To stop the biting, I began to wear shoes to bed, but that did not help. I could still feel the bites. I just wanted it to stop. I tried taking a sedative and holding off on getting in the bed until I was very nearly passed out. That helped, but sedatives tend to work a very long time with me, and I would oversleep.

I feel I am back to square one. I am afraid to get into my bed or recliner. I am experiencing progressive sleep deprivation and psychologically I'm screwed. I fear discussing it with my doctor for fear of being locked up or something. I'm not generally "crazy" - but this is slowly eating at me, and it is only getting worse by the day. I do not know what to do. Tonight, it started in my bed, so I moved to the recliner. They followed me. It seems this time there were even more cats than usual, and they followed me when I got up and went to the kitchen for a snack. That has never happened before. That's why I am writing this, hoping for some advice.