How do I stop nightmares?

[ellzeena]

Early morning before rising I have nightmares. I mean, anxiety dreams. I have a very tragic loss of my 23 year old daughter to a complex mental illness that ended in her suicide in 2011. That's yesterday to me. The only peace I have all day is when I climb back into bed at 7pm, propped up on pillows, take my Xanax and mess with my tablet while watching TV with one eye. I do this until midnight and then very reluctantly go to sleep. Very reluctantly.

This morning, the dream involved a dog, one of many I've loved and saved (it's my job, also did alot of high kill shelter rescue). This one was a Whippet, her name was Bianca, and she had a breeding related problem, she was fearful and anxious her entire life. This dog became a Canine Good Citizen AKC and earned an obedience title, heavily socialized also, but despite all efforts I couldn't overcome her anxiety and avoidance behavior. Toward the end of her life at almost 17, which is old for a Whippet, she was cognitively impacted. She was safe and cared for but was clearly suffering some form of canine dementia. My daughter's mental health was crashing and burning at the same time. She said to me, "When are you going to do something about this dog" in a manner that really hurt me and even shocked me since putting Bianca to death was something I never really wanted to face (I've done it many times but it's always very difficult.) My daughter shortly thereafter went into the hospital for the second time for her mental illness in crisis and I decided life was so awful how much worse could it get if I put Bianca to rest. She clearly needed it.

So I did. Since then, I sometimes dream about Bianca. This morning's dream involved taking her to some very large dog event that involved fun and special care. I left her in her safe spot in this dream and then returned to find she was gone, she had "slipped" away. I began screaming her name, searching for her all over this very crowded person and dog environment, really worried and stressed, afraid and grief stricken, screaming and screaming BIANCA BIANCA BIANCA. I tried to interject myself into this dream to turn it around but I couldn't do that.

So I woke up a basket case even worse than most days when I wake up and wish I had died during my sleep. And i'm still upset. I guess I let her down. I guess I didn't do what she needed me to do. I guess she felt abandoned. Every single one of these statements really pertain to my daughter, I feel I must have not been as protective, as strong, as parental as she needed but I was having a breakdown at the end of her life and her psychiatrist had told me "Don't let your anxiety interfere with her treatment" because obviously, no kidding!, I was very anxious - I was LOSING MY DAUGHTER. I didn't know what to do, I had tried her entire lifetime and given her a fantastic life, she was adored, cherished, protected and she knew it. So all of this, everything, transferred to Bianca in this dream.

HOW DO I STOP THIS. I'm afraid TO GO TO SLEEP. I'm exhausted every day. I need to take a nap every single day at about 2pm. IT HAS TO STOP.

 

[parrotthepolly]

It sounds like mental illness really took a hold of your daughter. You tried your best and most people would have a hard time keeping their cool during a crisis, that's why professionals are trained for it.

I can't offer any solutions but have you gotten any treatment or therapy?

 

[Movingforward10]

You had two awful deaths. Your daughter and your dog. I'm so sorry for your loss.

I've not experienced anything like what you have, so ignore this if not helpful:
I wonder about your feelings of responsibility and how you can take some of the pressure and maybe blame that you are putting on yourself and let those feelings go? It wasn't your fault.

 

[Charbella]

I’m not sure how to stop nightmares but I struggle to remember mine whether nightmare or dream. The research says if you wake up and sit still you’re likely to remember them, which means the opposite is also true. If you wake up and get moving and think about your movements it lessens what you remember. I’m not sure if that would help but speaking as someone who remembers in terrible detail my trauma I can say I wish I didn’t. So I can’t help but think you could shake the nightmare easier if you couldn’t remember it.

On another note grounding techniques can help you orient to the present and that could help it so you aren’t tormented all day by them?

 

[ellzeena]

It sounds like mental illness really took a hold of your daughter. You tried your best and most people would have a hard time keeping their cool during a crisis, that's why professionals are trained for it.

I can't offer any solutions but have you gotten any treatment or therapy?

13 years of therapy and psychiatry

 

[anthony]

HOW DO I STOP THIS. I'm afraid TO GO TO SLEEP. I'm exhausted every day. I need to take a nap every single day at about 2pm. IT HAS TO STOP.

You solve it by facing the trauma. Symptoms are just that... they are the result of the underlying trauma. Face the trauma, solve the trauma, go head on into the trauma, and that is how the nightmares stop.

I know you said 13 years of therapy, but that means nothing if you aren't being honest and aren't really digging hard to find the root. 13 years of therapy, do you still feel guilty?

 

[Friday]

Your daughter is dead.
The dog she tied herself to, related to, in your own heart/mind, is also dead.

How. The. f*ck. Would. You. NOT. Be. Having. Nightmares. Of. Them?!?

That’s the most natural thing in the world, IMO.

Wanting to separate the two, & sleeping all blissfull peacefully? Would require some seeeerious trauma therapy. Because HOLY f*ckING SHIT, YOUR DAUGHTER IS DEAD, AND THE DOG SHE AKINNED HERSELF IS DEAD. That’s flat out grief/regret/remorse/pain territory. It would be freaky if you didn’t have nightmares binding the two together.

 

[RainbowSearchParty]

I have nightmares every single night and have for my entire life. It's exhausting. I'm middle aged, and just so very tired of feeling unrested all the time.

I've never figured out how to make them go away. But I have shifted my relationship to them a bit over the years, which has really helped. I try to not remember them. Up in the morning and lots of grounding to orient to the day. And then at night, trying to do calming things before bed and surround myself with comfort as best as I can. And napping, when I need it, because sometimes that's honestly the best option for me.

It's a bit of radical acceptance I guess. Maybe not the answer you are looking for, but it's helped tremendously in terms of how much the nightmares affect me.

 

[ellzeena]

You solve it by facing the trauma. Symptoms are just that... they are the result of the underlying trauma. Face the trauma, solve the trauma, go head on into the trauma, and that is how the nightmares stop.

I know you said 13 years of therapy, but that means nothing if you aren't being honest and aren't really digging hard to find the root. 13 years of therapy, do you still feel guilty?

Are you serious? I lost my daughter, my only child. You can't solve THAT. And 13 years of therapy is how I stayed alive.

 

[anthony]

Anger is normal. Your response tells me already, why you still have problems today. You are hiding behind the loss of your daughter. You're a victim. I will assume that nobody has pushed you, and instead just been sympathetic and allowed that sympathy and victim status to rule everything. Your daughter died. Nothing is going to change that. You are alive and living a shitty life, wanting help... reaching out for help... So...

I will ask again, what do you feel guilty about?

I have lost people in my life, family... it wasn't me who died, so I am not the victim, they are. They died, not me. I am collateral and like everyone left alive who loves them, has to deal with their loss. Again, what do you feel guilty about?

 

[ellzeena]

Anger is normal. Your response tells me already, why you still have problems today. You are hiding behind the loss of your daughter. You're a victim. I will assume that nobody has pushed you, and instead just been sympathetic and allowed that sympathy and victim status to rule everything. Your daughter died. Nothing is going to change that. You are alive and living a shitty life, wanting help... reaching out for help... So...

I will ask again, what do you feel guilty about?

I have lost people in my life, family... it wasn't me who died, so I am not the victim, they are. They died, not me. I am collateral and like everyone left alive who loves them, has to deal with their loss. Again, what do you feel guilty about?

What do I feel guilty about? On my birthday six weeks before her death, I took her into a sporting goods store and looked at a shotgun I needed. I did that without any thought because apparently Im a useless POS of a human being. This young woman, the love of my life, was going through a bottle of 30 count Klonopin when I walked in on her totally unexpectedly a few days before Christmas in 2010. She would have been dead by the time I realized it was late in the day and she hadn't gotten up. So despite this, and her psychiatric hospitalization, being the f888king genius I am, I took her into that store. As it happens I was needing to attend a seminar the first week of March for home protection using a shotgun. I had already done all the study work and submitted results to the NRA instructor and the only thing left was to buy the gun. I didn't buy it, obviously, I didn't want her to know it was in the house. I did have handguns in the house but they were in a safe behind a padlocked door and the ammunition was in another safe in a very inaccessible place no one would ever think to look. But a shotgun is an entirely different thing. I actually went the next day to purchase it, without her obviously. But I did take her there. And that's how she kille dherself, she went into THE EXACT SAME STORE AND BOUGHT THE EXACT SAME GUN. I might as well have shot her myself.

Further, having lived with her mental illness for her entire life and raised her with exquisite love and care, and having been through four of her psychiatric hospitalizations, the first of which I'm surprised to have survived since I was in that hospital with her night and day, I was having a breakdown and didn't know it. I actually thought about finding a drug to kill us both and DID find it but at that time I realized I could NEVER harm her in any way, let alone figure out how to give myself intravenous drug sufficient to kill me so I wouldn't wake up with a dead daughter. THis is how sick I had become. So the day she went out to go "shopping" at "Target' (perfect isn't it?) I totally FORGOT that I had seen a video she watched on You Tube on how to load a shotgun. I had spyware on her computer, it sent a thousand links to my laptop every few hours, one of the links I landed on was that video. So apparently GOD or whatever it was gave me a heads up but I didn't get it. AT first I was shocked and dismayed and just plain SICK AND TIRED of worrying and keeping her safe. My hosue was a lock down psych ward, she couldn't get a butter knife from me, the stress was KILLING ME and that day I had lots to do and was exhausted so I just decided it was curiosity because she knw I was going to take that seminar. That day she asked for my credit card to go buy an electric blanket because hers had stopped working and I know I checked becasuse I didn't believe her any more, she was dangerously sick, dangerous to herself. But it wasn't working and I gve her the car keys and let her go. I never saw her again.

THAT'S WHY I FEEL GUILTY.

 

[Sideways]

I’m sorry. It makes sense that it’s incredibly distressing for you.

But you can let go of the guilt. Or at least hold it more lightly. Because with or without that trip to the store, you did not control or inspire your daughter’s decision. And you are not responsible for her choice, or her death.