Sleep paralysis is not nearly as scary once you know what it is. I get it a lot. The first time it happened to me, I thought I was literally dying (I could hear a rhythmic thumping noise, gradually slowing, became convinced it was my heartbeat and that once it stopped I was dead).

Now when it occurs, I think, Oh. Sleep paralysis again. That's annoying. And then I either wait it out until I can wake up fully or try to fall back asleep and convert it into a lucid dreaming experience.

I've never felt an unbearable fear or the presence of some other being though. Just strange noises (usually a dull roar that is so loud it becomes a physical pressure on my body), tingling in my limbs, vertigo, and sometimes the feeling that the bed is tilted and I am continuously sliding down the incline along the sheets except that the sliding is infinite and I never move (a type of vertigo, I suppose, though this comes with the sensation of the fabric moving across my skin as I slide).