Nightmares...

lonely in your nightmare
Originally uploaded by soleá

They're the worst when I wake up in a cold sweat, my heart beating uncontrollably, my stomach in knots, my head racing, terror overwhelming me, and I haven't got the slightest idea why. No matter how hard I try, I can't even catch a glimpse of what my mind saw. It seems like this would have a calming effect on most people, that a mind is blocking the memory of the dream as an attempt to protect them from the horrors, but for me, personally, it's even more unsettling to not have any idea what exactly was dreamt. I tend to lay there for hours asking myself questions, in an attempt to try to wheedle out any information I possibly can, but to no avail. "Did I see that man's face again?" "Were they hurting them?" "Who died this time?" "Was I tortured? Or did they make me watch while they tortured him/them?" It's terrible to wake up at some god awful time of night, especially on those nights when I actually get to bed at a decent(for me) hour, and to want desperately to call the one person that can make me feel better. Knowing that they have work early the next day I don't want to wake them, I just sit and suffer through my discomfort and unease and stress, begging sleep to swallow me up and steal me away to dreamless, rock-like sleep.

That's never how it happens though, if sleep finally comes and I don't stay awake to watch the sun rise in the east and fly across the sky finally to set over the hills to the west, I fall into another terrorizing dream, which I may or may not (usually not) remember. I've been dealing with this for the past two years almost. My parents only know that the nightmares have been going on since the summer, but these dreams have been like a locust plague inside my brain for much much longer than that. In the dreams that I remember, I see anything from just my abusers face, floating around and spouting awful words at me, to him torturing those I love, to strangers coming and killing everyone and making me watch, to just crazy dreams that make no sense whatsoever, but are freakish and terrifying nonetheless. If I'm at home I wake up wishing I wasn't alone in my bed, but when I wake up next to someone, I often wish I were alone. I don't like people seeing the weakness these episodes bring out in me. Seeing that I am in fact, not getting stronger, only weaker and more prone to breakdowns. I try to play things off and make them seem like they aren't as awful as they were, but when I've been laying in bed next to my boyfriend and sobbing uncontrollably for twenty minutes, begging them to 'bring him back to me,' it's VERY difficult to convince said boyfriend that I really am alright, especially because I'm usually not. At all.

But at the same time, when you've been through an ordeal like I went through, these dreams can, in a way, be cathartic. Or so says my doctor. He's told me that the nightmares that I have are my brain's way of coping with the pain and suffering the abuse caused to my heart, body, soul and mind, but it's being handled in a subconscious way, instead of battling it head on with just counseling and my parents trying to talk to me about it. It's my brain's attempt at healing itself, at putting me back how I was before.

So, though I hate them, I know that they are a necessary evil, and I have accepted them into my life. They are just that, dreams, or memories. Nothing coming at me in the present day, or the future, just made up, or remembered things from the depths and recesses of my mind.

ANYWAY. It's 6 AM, Jimmy's shuttle should land in Cape Canaveral in about an hour, I'm staying up for that, then braving my fears, facing the dreams head on and going to bed for a while.

Have a fantastic day, it's finally starting to seem like spring, so go out and enjoy it!

xoxo

sophie out