Wanting a life
Bronze Member
I just wrote yesterday that I don't have nightmares, but had a doozy last night. Wanted to "get it out of my system" by telling someone ... who cared enough to listen. Didn't sleep much; got up to get my meds this morning and then the staff person who is "assigned" to me this morning disappeared back into the off-limits office. Actually had the courage to tell her I'd like to talk about the nightmare to get it out of my system and she stayed in the off-limits place and said that she didn't think that would help me and to just try to think about other things and went back behind the WALL.
ANGRY! Why do so many people who have "knowledge, education, and lots of experience" with mental illnesses in general think that we don't know what we are talking about when we dare to let them know what we need? I went to the bathroom and slapped the backs of my hands as hard as I could for a while - release for the anger and shame of letting myself be vulnerable and feeling like my vulnerability and my intelligence were rejected.
So the dreams I usually have are often the goriest, most horrifying things if I describe them objectively to anyone. But the thing is, I often can relate exactly what they mean given what I've been thinking about or what's going on in my life, and how they use symbolism to process those things. And so, in 95% of these dreams, I am not freaking out. I don't get the FEELING of it being a nightmare, so I don't count them as nightmares.
But anyway, just to finally put this one down on paper so I can leave it and start to think about the rest of the day (because yes, it does work, off-limits lady who thinks you know it all!):
I was leading a group of young kids, some with disabilities, along a path in the woods. I've done this a lot in my real-life work. Everyone was happy. Two other adults with me, shared leadership, but I was leading. One little boy in a wheelchair so happy and excited to be in the woods that he was going really fast, missed a turn. Right behind me - just beyond arm's reach, but I couldn't do anything. He went down a slight embankment full-force and smashed his brains out against a tractor trailer truck that was there for some reason. I could tell right away that he was dead. I brought him out there to be happy and now he was dead. All the way dead.
For some reason it was decided that the other two adults would do what needed to be done with him and the police and his parents and all. My job was to keep the rest of the group of children from finding out what happened or being upset. Seemed like forever I was trying to do this nearly impossible job. Felt horrible, felt hopeless, felt responsible, felt great loss and as though the job of getting the rest of the kids through without damaging or scaring them was so beyond me.
I've been homeless for so long because of the challenge of working to make enough money to rent a place. So, living out of a few bags, I haven't had pictures of friends or family or the kids I've cared for and loved. Yesterday I pasted a bunch of those photos onto a posterboard and propped it up in the room I'm sleeping in in this crisis house. A bunch of the people in the pictures are dead now, and most of the rest of them I won't see again because of rifts with their parents or not for a long long time, if ever, because they are kids in the family who live overseas.
One is my only nephew, in Germany, whose 6th birthday is next month. When I was near a post office yesterday I had them weigh the package of really lightweight puzzles that I found to send him. They only cost a dollar, but they're really cute with good English vocabulary for him. I didn't have the $8.48 postage, though, so I took it back and will have to wait to see if I can afford it in time... I've only seen him twice. My brother (his dad) doesn't want a damaged sister ... Real sense of loss in not knowing him. I'm sure that's what the dream was about. I wonder if this posterboard does me more good or harm with all the feelings of love but also of loss that it brings up.
If anyone reads this, thanks for listening. If no one does, it still helped me to process and let go of the dream.
ANGRY! Why do so many people who have "knowledge, education, and lots of experience" with mental illnesses in general think that we don't know what we are talking about when we dare to let them know what we need? I went to the bathroom and slapped the backs of my hands as hard as I could for a while - release for the anger and shame of letting myself be vulnerable and feeling like my vulnerability and my intelligence were rejected.
So the dreams I usually have are often the goriest, most horrifying things if I describe them objectively to anyone. But the thing is, I often can relate exactly what they mean given what I've been thinking about or what's going on in my life, and how they use symbolism to process those things. And so, in 95% of these dreams, I am not freaking out. I don't get the FEELING of it being a nightmare, so I don't count them as nightmares.
But anyway, just to finally put this one down on paper so I can leave it and start to think about the rest of the day (because yes, it does work, off-limits lady who thinks you know it all!):
I was leading a group of young kids, some with disabilities, along a path in the woods. I've done this a lot in my real-life work. Everyone was happy. Two other adults with me, shared leadership, but I was leading. One little boy in a wheelchair so happy and excited to be in the woods that he was going really fast, missed a turn. Right behind me - just beyond arm's reach, but I couldn't do anything. He went down a slight embankment full-force and smashed his brains out against a tractor trailer truck that was there for some reason. I could tell right away that he was dead. I brought him out there to be happy and now he was dead. All the way dead.
For some reason it was decided that the other two adults would do what needed to be done with him and the police and his parents and all. My job was to keep the rest of the group of children from finding out what happened or being upset. Seemed like forever I was trying to do this nearly impossible job. Felt horrible, felt hopeless, felt responsible, felt great loss and as though the job of getting the rest of the kids through without damaging or scaring them was so beyond me.
I've been homeless for so long because of the challenge of working to make enough money to rent a place. So, living out of a few bags, I haven't had pictures of friends or family or the kids I've cared for and loved. Yesterday I pasted a bunch of those photos onto a posterboard and propped it up in the room I'm sleeping in in this crisis house. A bunch of the people in the pictures are dead now, and most of the rest of them I won't see again because of rifts with their parents or not for a long long time, if ever, because they are kids in the family who live overseas.
One is my only nephew, in Germany, whose 6th birthday is next month. When I was near a post office yesterday I had them weigh the package of really lightweight puzzles that I found to send him. They only cost a dollar, but they're really cute with good English vocabulary for him. I didn't have the $8.48 postage, though, so I took it back and will have to wait to see if I can afford it in time... I've only seen him twice. My brother (his dad) doesn't want a damaged sister ... Real sense of loss in not knowing him. I'm sure that's what the dream was about. I wonder if this posterboard does me more good or harm with all the feelings of love but also of loss that it brings up.
If anyone reads this, thanks for listening. If no one does, it still helped me to process and let go of the dream.
