My Girlfriend is Terrified of me when I sleep

[Tyl95]

Hello, first time posting- but I really need help and advice.
My girlfriend has become afraid of me when I sleep, not because I get violent or anything. But when I'm sleepy I tend to start disassociating & start 'acting like a scared little kid'. I dont remember much when I'm like that, only bits and pieces. It doesnt happen every night, but she's scared of me when I'm like that. Says it's like being in bed with a stranger.

Few nights ago I really upset her, because apparently I started talking about my old car while I was disassociating.
She asked which I love more, her or the car - I said I loved my car just as much as I loved her.
The car I had when I was a young child, which I'd hide in in order to escape the abuse I was experiencing (from infancy to age 9). It was the only place I felt safe in for an extremely long time, even as a teen. I had no friends or family who'd care for me or protect me, and I kind of got delusional with it as a kid. Thinking the car had feelings and was protecting & taking care of me when no one else would, that it was my best friend and caretaker, I'd hug it and talk to it and pretend it talked back.
My girlfriend's absolutely crushed and heartbroken that I'd compare my love for her with an object- which is understandable.
She says it's like I had a secret lover that I cant get over, that first love strikes the hardest & that she'll never be able to compare to it.
I love her so much though, way more than anything- but when I'm half asleep it's like I have one foot in today, and the other foot in the past. I cant believe I even made the comparison.

I dont know how to make things right with my girlfriend; I made her feel objectified and worthless when she means everything in the world to me.
Any advice you can give, be it managing my episodes at night or of some way I can make things up to her would be much appreciated.

I'm gonna be throwing away the 2 pictures I have and the car liscence plate. It was scrapped for parts when I was 14, which is how the whole conversation started- we were joking about the weirdest thing we've jerked off to, and I masturbated to the car as a way to try and comfort myself when it got scrapped- but thinking about the car unexpectedly put me in a flashback/dissociative state, and it was downhill from there). It hurts like hell but I dont want her to feel like she has to compete with some inanimate object.

 

[somerandomguy]

Wow @Tyl95 - I'm sorry you're struggling so much right now.

Does your girlfriend know anything about your history that you've shared here?

 

[Tyl95]

Wow @Tyl95 - I'm sorry you're struggling so much right now.

Does your girlfriend know anything about your history that you've shared here?

Yeah I've told her, but shes really struggling to understand how an object can be so important.

 

[somerandomguy]

It may be just one of those things that non-traumatized people could never possibly understand. If she's felt safe pretty much everywhere she's ever been, she's never had the experience of one place being totally safe and everyplace else being pretty much a hellscape. Have you put the situation like that to her?

Regardless, if you've been as forthcoming about your past as it seems like you have, she may just need some time to process it. She's being unreasonable right now, but that doesn't mean that she will always be unreasonable about this subject. Maybe it's not something that should be up for any more discussion right now.

Are you in therapy? If this happened to me, I'd talk it over with my therapist.

EDIT: It sounds like you might need help getting your dissociation under control, too - more stuff for a therapist.

 

[Tyl95]

Yeah... I might just need to give her time to cool down and think about it. I'm just a bit panicky, terrified she'll never forgive me- I've got a fair amount of abandonment issues.

I've been in therapy, but I stopped seeing my therapist because juggling school, studying, doctors appointments & a social life with my girlfriend has been a challenge. So I decided to stop going to therapy since the semester started.

 

[somerandomguy]

Yeah, I totally understand. Not enough time in the day for everything.

You might think about if therapy is something you can really drop, though, and maintain everything else you're doing the way you want to be doing it. My experience - and this might not be yours - is if I cut back on therapy, everything else in my life gets a little bit worse and more difficult.

 

[Tyl95]

I do really well during the day, it's just at night I get really out of sorts.

Next semester I'll see about maybe taking fewer classes so I can start going to therapy again, but at the moment my hands are tied.
Therapy's never really helped me with my nighttime episodes sadly.

 

[Friday]

I'm gonna be throwing away the 2 pictures I have and the car liscence plate. It

I’m going to suggest really strongly that you DON’T.

It’s very common in young relationships for grand gestures and huge demands to be made. There’s nothing exactly wrong with that, it’s just youth not understanding that real love isn’t threatened by these things. The heart isn’t a one dimensional thing that can only love one thing at a time, one way; but instead is capable of deep and profound love across multiple fields. There’s no reason to be jealous of things-that-arent-you being held by it. A lot of people? Don’t reach that stage until they become parents, or even until their 2 kid. Where they realize they love both their spouse AND their child at the same time, or both their children at the same time. Each with all their heart. Each best. Linguistically impossible, but that’s the reality. There are different kinds of love, and love grows exponentially when things are added to it, rather than is like a bank where there’s only so much to go around.

So my suggestion is that if you want to box up the things you loved best, and put them in storage to be rediscovered when you and she aren’t so insecure? Go for it. But unless you can see destroying the last tokens you had from a good friend as it’s final sacrifice to you? And will never regret that so long as you live? Even if the 2 of you break up in a week or divorce in 10 years? Or have a kid and she comes to understand what she asked of you and regrets it for the rest of her life? That grand gestures might better be placed towards acchieving things, rather than sacrificing things.

 

[Neverthesame]

She asked which I love more, her or the car

Why would she ask this in the first place?

I'm with Friday, keep your stuff. I think she could do with a bit of therapy herself, she sounds like has some insecurity issues of her own.

She says it's like I had a secret lover that I cant get over, that first love strikes the hardest & that she'll never be able to compare to it.

It's a car.... This isn't that Stephen King novel. Unless you're literally blowing her off to sit alone and pine over the car, she needs to lower the jealousy dial just a tad.
I'm sure she's a nice young lady, but this would weird me out were I in your shoes.

I'm not trying to shit on her, you say she's nice and you really care for her, I believe you. I'm just pointing out that a relationship takes two and this issue isn't born solely from your head.

 

[EveHarrington]

One rule in my relationship?

You don’t ask the other person anything besides things like “can you scoot over?” or “can you please give me more covers?” while the other person is asleep because it’s just not fair!

My BF’s ex used to ask him all sorts of shit when he was asleep and then use it against him. This is just fighting DIRTY!

You didn’t make your girlfriend feel anything. She is choosing to be dramatic by putting meaning into words that wasn’t intended. Don’t fall for this trap.