Is Weird Stuff Really Stuck In My Psoas Muscle?

[Chava]

My dreams have gotten pretty violent, but loaded with symbolism. A little girl getting her hand chewed up by a dog, murder and blood on the walls, a little girl being stabbed in the back by her mom...I'm almost always a bystander, not involved in the dream, but watching it like it's a terrible movie. So I can have these nightmares because I am sort of observing. But part of me is always the little girl.

The one child part that I've spent the most time with in therapy, used a knife to cut out her whole abdomen and then tried to hide from me.

I had a very similar dream...watched a guy cut his own guts out, which totally distracted me from what was happening to me in the dream (I was within that dream, but sort of disconnected from this guy cutting his guts out, though admiring his power). My therapist used the "spilling our guts" analogy. That might be part of it (he didn't die, btw, I woke up). A little girl cutting out her guts and trying to hide from you...protecting you from parts of your story or really deep, hard stuff maybe? In any case, yeah that seems to be loaded with symbolism.

The little girl in my dreams is the age I feel lots of time in therapy 4-7, and if closer to 7 she acts like she's about 4. She's helpless and just wants protection. It's probably helpful I feel for her. After her hand was all chewed up, she thought she was okay, but I took her to the emergency room. Grown up me knew she was not "okay".

 

[Hope4Now]

@Chava...sigh...I'm sad you're going through this too. What strange things our brains do to us. (I "took" all my suicidal inner children to the hospital as well and they stayed there for a good long while...then turned up again in the safe place I've imagined for them with my therapist).

She's helpless and just wants protection. It's probably helpful I feel for her.

All but one of mine are helpless and desperate for protection too. It is great that you feel for yours. This will help a lot as you process things.

 

[Springer80]

And the head/neck/jaw pain and terrible tension is from my attempts to deny and escape all of it.

Yep me to. Defiance.

and a clear memory of something I kept saying over and over again.

What was it?

all my exiled young child parts (and there are lots of them) were freaking out and trying to kill themselves. The one child part that I've spent the most time with in therapy, used a knife to cut out her whole abdomen and then tried to hide from me

Sounds to me like all your child parts but this one wanted to die so they didn't have to face anything. This one girl doesn't try toleave by dying but acknowledges the pain by attacking it. This leaves a sense of conflict, she is attacking herself and you at the same time and shame. So she hides from you. She wants acknowledgment, you feel ashamed. ???

... my dreams-- they've only just started emerging into consciousness occasionally in the past few months. All hideous nightmares filled with obvious symbolism, but with almost no emotion attached other than kind of shock. I'm trying to write about those, too, so I remember and don't push them aside

Shock is still an emotion, sort of. Mine are so vivid and I love how inventive my subconscious can be but staying with the emotion rather than grasping at the aesthetic is hard. Also I got really into researching symbolism which is interesting and helps me interpret but it isn't the same as allowing yourself and being able to identify emotion.

Sometimes I feel like writing about it is just obsessive compulsive and puts me into deeper disconnection from my experience, but other times it frees up something in my brain and gives me new insights.

I reckon the difference is in one you dissect it analytically and in the other from the first person emotionally. I did a lot of writing over the years and I reckon the majority of it wasn't directly helpful. Of course all of it was in some way, as at least I was doing something and it honed my descriptive skills.

PS. I made a sculpture of a little girl version of me with a poisonous abdomen falling out of her. A picture of it is on my trauma diary (Meet The E.p.s) I don't know if I feel it's a direct allegory of rape but the disgust that rape causes is so strong and it sits in the gut.

 

[Hope4Now]

@Chava, sigh. The things our brains do to us.
(btw, I "called" 911 to try to save all my self-destructive inner children...and they took them all to the hospital where they stayed for a long time). I do get a bit frightened by all this stuff, I have to say. Like if I let down my guard I might actually act the way the inner children do. I don't think I will. I seem to be good at stopping myself when things start to go in that direction, but the fear is there. I guess I don't quite trust myself. But at least I know I called for help when things got really desperate in my head, so maybe I can trust that I'd have the good sense to do that. :)

 

[Springer80]

After her hand was all chewed up, she thought she was okay, but I took her to the emergency room. Grown up me knew she was not "okay".

That's interesting Chava, I don't think I've ever done anything like that. I just tried to left the full force of the emotion travel through me. And then allow myself as much time to recover as I needed. Which is maybe a bit passive.

Do you mean you has yourself I little constructed day dream where you actually visualised the whole thing. Or did you have a little conversation with yourself?

 

[Chava]

@Hope4Now I can understand what you're saying. I think dreams can sort of be warnings, but more likely safe ways of working stuff out that we can't access well in daily life. Lately my location within them has become more central, though they've become less bloody. So, I'm actually involved. And instead of an anonymous little girl, my last bad dream was about my younger sister falling through the ice. I was the one who found her. She was pulled out, mostly dead, but on her way to the ER when I woke up. She might have really represented my sister, but also a part of myself...certainly closer in feeling tone than an ambiguous little girl.

@Springer80 I might not be exactly sure what you're asking. But the chewed up hand dream was a dream/nightmare. The little girl was like a little version of myself, but really just an anonymous little girl. I, the adult, was myself. But I had my mom's personality. When I took her to the ER, I was a little more myself. The cruel part, to back track, is that I set this up, this dog fight, so that the little girl would be killed. But I couldn't watch. When I turned to look, the dog (my dog, who is really a sweetheart) didn't manage to do more than chew up the girls hands, then he was finished. Her hands were all torn up and mangled and bloody. I was pissed off I had even gotten involved. But I suddenly felt responsible and even a little sad...but I focused on that moment and realized she just needed help and I had to help her. Totally disturbing, but I think it has more to do with my relationship to myself than anything.

And hands symbolizing connection to others or the world, or agency (I feel like you actually mentioned this in one of my dream posts!). She was damaged and I couldn't stay blinded to it. The fact that I initially set it up, I figure, came from a place of really detached rage, or like the part of myself that has been suicidal or self-injurious...and the part of myself that carried on my mom's detachment and rage. just hatred at this little girl who didn't actually ask for much...even when her hands were shredded, she said she was okay...no bother...

 

[Hope4Now]

Sorry I ended up double-posting in the previous two. The site did something weird so I had to rewrite it.

What was it?

"Get off of my skin!"

Sounds to me like all your child parts but this one wanted to die so they didn't have to face anything. This one girl doesn't try toleave by dying but acknowledges the pain by attacking it. This leaves a sense of conflict, she is attacking herself and you at the same time and shame. So she hides from you. She wants acknowledgment, you feel ashamed. ???

This is really interesting. Thank you for your interpretation; I hadn't thought of it as fighting back, but that makes a lot of sense. I still had a lot of fight in me until I was around 7 years old. Not sure what happened then other than a devastating move to a different place. I think maybe I just gave up.

I love how inventive my subconscious can be but staying with the emotion rather than grasping at the aesthetic is hard.

Yes, me too. I find dreams fascinating--my own and others' but I've never read anything about dream interpretation. Do you have a lot of emotion come through in your dreams while you're having them, or afterward? I had recurring nightmares when I was around 4 years old. For a long time. I freaked everyone out so much my parents stopped trying to be supportive and just got angry with me and convinced me dreams aren't real. I guess this has stayed with me for a long time, and I tend to dismiss most of what I dream about. But the new ones that I'm remembering are just so obviously tied to trauma that it's hard to ignore them. My therapist says that sometimes dreams are one of the ways frightening memories try to surface when we can't get to them consciously.

A picture of it is on my trauma diary

I will go and look at it. It's cool you did this. I've made some drawings of things I see in my "visions" but I haven't showed them to anybody.

 

[Chava]

A couple of my dreams involved being molested by my mom...which, whether it happened or not, would seem to relate somewhat to my deep feelings of not belonging in the universe and being safe and loved nowhere. And "disgusting." My mom actually used that word a lot.

Okay, I just hit the "this post sucks" button. But agree @Hope4Now our nightmares probably help us deal with gnarly stuff in some way. A couple of mine were a little hard to even tolerate when I woke up. This is about when I started having really messed up arrhythmia. So my body is trying to tell me something too. I just want it to be in manageable pieces.

I'm back to curling up in a ball because my lower back is chaos...I'm imagining worms crawling out through my skin...a little relief in that...and my little ball posture.

 

[Springer80]

I might not be exactly sure what you're asking

Yeah sorry! It's funny how you think you're being clear, then you read it back and it's nonsense (not to mention the odd spelling)

Anyway :rolleyes:, what I meant was...your comment about taking your little wounded girl to the hospital. I thought after the dream you had a sort of conscious fantasy that you took her there. And you chose to do that, like a lucid dream or imaginative therapy. When actually what I think your saying is that hospital sequence was part of the same dream and was played out by your subconscious.

 

[Chava]

Oh...yes, I get it. I've done that in a lucid, pulling out of a dream state...gone back in and "fixed" it. But in this one, I took her to ER while I was still in the dream. Whew! Horrible, but that was a good turn.

 

[Springer80]

convinced me dreams aren't real. I guess this has stayed with me for a long time, and I tend to dismiss most of what I dream about

Well they aren't tangible. My mum used to say to me 'but it's only a dream,' but my dreams were the only thing that connected me to my emotion, my reality.

Do you have a lot of emotion come through in your dreams while you're having them, or afterward?

I think I sort of live the emotion in the dream but can't necessarily identify it, then after I wake up I know what it was.

 

[Hope4Now]

@Chava sorry you're back in a ball. Sorry about your back. I empathize. I just got up off the floor myself a little while ago. My dog was rather insistent on having her dinner. When my pain is really bad I do a breathing thing that Peter Levine wrote about in his Healing Chronic Pain book...where you breathe up through one foot and let the breath cycle through your core and then release it out down the other leg and out the foot. If I can stay focused on it (which doesn't often happen), it helps a little.

I'm struggling a lot with emerging memories about both my parents. Very very hard for me to believe any of it. But it would go a long way in explaining my continuing problems with my mother, most of which I only became fully conscious of after my father died six years ago. I get the disgusting thing. Some of my inner children are very wounded in really surreal ways (e.g., one is covered with a sticky tarlike substance that she is desperate to scrape off her skin, and another is all bloody and looks barely human and has no hands or feet...this one terrified me when she first appeared).

And hands symbolizing connection to others or the world, or agency

This is really interesting! I'm going to need to read about all this symbolism! I have weird stuff happening with my hands and arms when I get body memory/flashbacks, and it's usually my arms that I go after when the self-destructive energies get away from me. Argh. Both meanings you mention here fit with what's happening in me.