Fantastic, Another Nightmare...ugh

[Blue Survivor]

I am getting SO sick of these nightmares. Last week I could deal with them; they were scary but not involving my abuse. Last week I had nightmares about apex predators...an almost comically large Anaconda, and a saltwater crocodile. (In real life I am fascinated with large reptiles, so it is odd that they are so menacing & scary in my dreams). But night after night, I was in some scenario with this giant snake and giant crocodile, and it seems like no matter which way I turned I kept running into one after escaping the other.

But not tonight. Tonight I had a dream that I was back with my abuser. That's scary enough, but in the dream I just kept appeasing him to avoid his temper flaring up and to avoid him hurting me. What's odd is that I somehow knew what he was doing (controlling me by using fear tactics) but I kept appeasing him anyhow. At one point I grabbed his hand and started stroking his arm, which made me feel like I was dying inside, and he told me to 'Let the f-ck go of my arm!' and I just kept trying to calm him down by repeatedly stroking his arm. I was just so desperate to calm him down even though I was terrified. It was one of those so-real dreams that you wake up with your heart just pounding and you feel genuinely terrified.

It has been FOUR YEARS since I walked away - why do I keep having these nightmares?!?

 

[Intrepid]

PTSD has ways of making time, 4 years or 40, not matter.

Time doesn't in itself lessen the sense of threat from that abuser. Neither does getting away, moving to another planet, or the abuser dying.

I've been genuinely terrified like you. Still get there. I'm up in the middle of the night right now with a version of that terror.

But I've been through this before. I've just got one more crazy, awful set of flashback/memories to adjust so that I don't have to be haunted.

So, why do the nightmares continue? Because you are still in the process of working through being put in a place by your abuser that NO ONE should be put in.

That's what I think. Hope I'm not too off base, not really knowing the true nature of the stuff you are going through. Sorry if I made too many assumptions.

Hope you can get back to sleep.

 

[Wounded Scribe]

I am sorry @Blue Survivor I've had 1 night in 8 of full night's sleep. I am also, feeling the effects of nightmares.

 

[Blue Survivor]

@Intrepid what you said does make sense to me, a lot. I wonder if these nightmares are my brain's way of letting me know that I'm going to be okay. Like: "Hey, that dream was super scary but you're awake now and safe. See? We got this!" I don't know. I wish there was a way of avoiding them anyways, or pinpointing something that is triggering them in the same way one might avoid a certain food that will make them sick.

And @Wounded Scribe I am sorry that you're having nightmares too.