Trauma Dreams

A lot has happened in 2022, I am not going to list it all because that seems counterproductive, a plea for sympathy, and also because I really do not want to have a list of all the shit that has gone down since January 1, 2022.

But my mind is processing it all. I have had really traumatic dreams the past four nights. It is like my subconscious is the person at the party that is always the last one to get the joke. That is how it feels anyway. I can tell when I am stressed or processing, because my sleep is disrupted and then I dream really fucked up shit.

Last night was the worst. I woke up terrified and upset. It was a home invasion dream and there were these three teenaged boys who broke in. They were not really scary because they were stoned and dumb. But every time I tried to call for help, something didn’t work: my cellphone died, the neighbor who was coming up the walk way turned around, I tried to scream but nothing came out. Then through a weird, only can happen in dreams, set of events, the police showed up and had killed one of the boys. The only boy who was not white in the dream and the nicest one of the home invasion team.

It was such a weird dream on so many levels. The boys were all nice but it was clear that they were there to rob me. And in the dream, the house I was living in was empty. I was either moving out or in, I never figured out which. I think out because I knew everyone, including the boys that were robbing me. Somehow, I got away and was able to warn my children not to come home. Then I was back at home and the police burst through the door with the one boy shot and dying. They laid him in my hallway and there he bled out.

So incredibly fucked up. Because the incident was over, I was home, safe, the boys gone. No one needed to die. They were not armed. They were for sure breaking the law and caused me a lot of stress and strife but they were not all that threatening.

I woke up as the kid died in my hallway. I was a mess and started crying. It was all just so incredibly fucked up. All of it.

So after four nights in a row of fucked up dreams that leave me feeling distraught and upset, I guess it is time to own that I am grieving and processing all the shit that has rained down the past four months. And I am grateful to just own it. It has been so much and I am one of those people who never really stops to review all that has happened. I feel like I keep getting knocked down by the waves of life, but I get right back up and then forget how long I have been standing out there getting pummeled.

Four months. Well actually it is way longer than that, but I am keeping the timeline for my own sanity.

I have been working so hard on letting go of my life long protective strategy of stuffing shit. I am trying really hard to own what hurts, when it actually hurts, not like thirty years later. But I can see that I have some more work to do in this department. Like a lot more.

I so want to just focus on all the positive things that are happening in my life right now: time off from work, starting a new business, Logan coming home, my dad getting sprung from the memory care facility and being able to return home (for awhile anyway), my mom being in less pain and doing generally better, Maria and Ramiro healing, slowly, but healing, working on my book finally, starting a new job soon, getting to spend a lot of quality time with Grace. So many positive things. So fucking many.

And I allow the presence of positive things, to encapsulate me from the pain I feel about all the loss that is simultaneously going on. All of the stuff, the wonderful and the horrible, all at the same time. And it is hard to rectify it all. So I habitually don’t. I focus on the positive to avoid feeling the negative. And my dream life is letting me know that I have to make time for both. Grieving and praising. I have been a little one sided these days and my psyche is letting me know by fucking up my sleep.

Life is such a strange trip. All the good, all the bad, and we are so unprepared to deal with any of it! We are resilient, but we are often so off about how much we can take and how well we are managing. Until it kicks us in the teeth and we can no longer avoid it.

I am ok. But I can see that I have some inner work to do. My sponsor has already told me this by giving me a fuck ton of step work to do. Which I have put off like every good alcoholic does. I am going to write today because I know that will bring whatever is roiling beneath my surface the only peace it has ever known: comfort while in the midst of living life. Being ok, in the skin I am in.

Dreams, most especially traumatic ones, are there to show us things that our waking and living lives gloss over or miss entirely. I see that. I hear you inner grieving, scared, lost, afraid person. I got you. I will do the work so we can both sleep better tonight. Promise!