Nightmares, dreams, nightmares, and more nightmares, I can never get a good night sleep. The dreams are few the nightmares are nightly, the only variation is who is in the nightmare. Whether the main villain is my ex-husband or some other man unknown to me, a man is always present. Just so you know I am not a man hater or anything like that. I love the men in my life and have male friends, but my brain has a different concept of men and nightly makes me relive some bad stuff. Having been sexually abused starting at an early age its no wonder my brain has a bad impression of men. I don’t think all men are bad, in fact I personally know some very awesome men. So why does my darn brain afflict me with terrible images of constant fighting to save my life, trying to save random childrens lives, blood and death everywhere all the time. This is the reoccurring constant in my nightmares. All I want is to be able to sleep without interruption and feel refreshed the next morning. Is that too much to ask? In this case, yes.
I have always been a vivid dreamer. Colors, action, flight, you name it I have dreamt it. I remember most of my dreams too which makes dealing with nightmares so difficult. They have the tendency to stay with me throughout the day affecting my general mood. Its a constant battle, sleep and awake. The bad dreams that really get me are the ones where I am some kind of warrior killing because I have to save myself. These get so intense that I feel like I am really there experiencing the whole thing live. I sometimes become aware in my dreams and then they get really interesting. I like to fly, it is my escape and if I cannot fly well then something is holding me back. It could be something in my subconscious or something in reality not allowing me to feel the freedom of the winds force pushing against my skin as I dive towards the water to level out and skim the surface. Flying is an escape and gives me a sense of freedom. I once dreamt I was flying and when I realized I could fly I yelled out “I am free!” This one was good and fun.
However, being raped by a demon or trying to kill someone to get away is something that lingers. I hate these nightmares. Or when I see a large insect thing that looks like a face-hugger alien slash ammonite crawling across the wall and I jump out of bed screaming “what is is?! Do you see It?! Wait I think I’m dreaming”. To lay back down and instantly be snoring again makes for a restless night. I dream about so much intense stuff that I don’t know how I am still sane. But I am, I think. Probably one of the more recent nightmares was when I saw a hole in the ceiling opening up and bloody chains full of flesh and gore descending towards me and by then my eyes were actually opened because the hole started to morph into my bedroom and that’s when I flew out of bed over my husband flipping out and finally woke enough to know I had been dreaming again. Tiring.
I started this post a few months ago but never published it so here is an update. These nightmares became so cumbersome that I finally told my doctor and he prescribed me a drug that actually stops the PTSD dreams. They became so bad I started dreaming about actual events that had occurred and could feel all the emotions associated with the incident. The perpetrator was the actual person and then started to morph into my husband. This had to stop and now!
After starting the medicine I noticed almost immediately the dreams slowed down. I was still having dreams but not as intense. I am about a month in now on the new drug, and the nightmares are definitely taking a break, but I still dream about the desert and have dreams relating to escaping but this is manageable. There will probably never be a dream free night but as long as I am able to get a decent night sleep then I feel like I am doing good. There is hope.
My Silver Lining 