How do I stop nightmares?

[anthony]

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.

Ok. You took her to a store with guns and she was suffering mental illness for her entire life. You did this six weeks prior to her death. You purchased the shotgun the next day. You said she purchased one too, without you knowing. When? Did she have this for six weeks or did she buy this the day she decided to die?

And that's how she killed herself, she went into THE EXACT SAME STORE AND BOUGHT THE EXACT SAME GUN. I might as well have shot her myself.

So if you took her into a car dealership to look at cars, purchased on the next day, then she went and purchased one and decided to drive it off a bridge, is that your fault?

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.

Ok. So you experienced a short amount of what she suffered daily, and you wanted to kill yourself and her!

If she was suffering this much, do you think she did the right thing or wrong thing?

Do you feel relief that she is gone and that you no longer have to look after her under such stressful terms?

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.

Sure, but not exactly conclusive. How much random stuff did she watch on Youtube? Hell, I go in some weird directions on Youtube, because it gives me random stuff.

Buying a gun requires certain things to happen though, doesn't it? Did you believe she could get through those checks? Did you even consider that?

You had spyware on her computer to monitor her, to try and keep her away from the bad stuff this world has. She said she was going shopping at Target, and if this was normal for her to do, then why would you think she was going to buy a gun and kill herself? Did she have to lie in order to buy the gun, having a history of psychiatric illness and incarceration, I'm sure that usually means you can't buy a gun!!!

AT first I was shocked and dismayed and just plain SICK AND TIRED of worrying and keeping her safe.

You're beating yourself up because she made a decision and carried it out. That is not exclusive to mothers. You loved her, but also whether you know it or not, you had hit the same point that most people hit around seriously mentally unhealthy people, in that you need to get away and distance yourself. Friends leave friends all the time for this, and one feels abandoned and one feels relief and guilt. Go figure!

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.

Women grow our children, you have a bond that nobody who hasn't grown a child within them can ever understand. Beyond that connection though, we're all pretty much on similar grounds. You did your role as a parent and tried your absolute best to protect her, love her, raise her the best you could, to help her grow, to support her mentally declined state. What else do you believe you could have done?

Don't go hindsight, that is nonsense. You wrote above your situation, as you can best recollect, what happened and your feelings, the situation as it evolved. She has a reason to go to Target. She lied to you. She had a reason to kill herself. She lied to you. She likely had to lie to the attendant selling the gun too / they did not do their job correctly with checks and balances.

She was mentally unhealthy. You wanted to die after helping her, let alone that she wanted to die to stop her pain. I know that part, because I have been there. I still have zero issue with dying, as it will relieve my mental pain, even to this day. Hers was obviously so vast that she felt no other option.

I am going to assume at some point, you also feel relieved. That too brings guilt. You think, who feels relieved that their child is dead? Well... anyone who has suffered a lot trying to raise and protect a child with mental illness. There are a lot of parents who feel guilt because they believe they failed their child, yet relief that their child took away their suffering by taking their own life. None of that makes sense, yet it also makes perfect sense.

Nobody can tell you what to feel. That is all up to you. But what is torturing yourself accomplishing? If you are picking up where looking after your daughter finished, then you may as well succumb to suicide too. Your daughter, from the sounds of what you have written, according to me, took away her pain and yours. I doubt she wanted you to continue to suffer. I could be wrong, but when I was in the process of killing myself, I wanted to end my pain and I wanted others around me to stop suffering because of me. Now that is stupid, obviously, because what I didn't think about at that time, was that my death also causes a consequence to those around me who love me.

Here is what I missed. Those people all had a choice to be around me, to love me, to support me. I would have caused them all pain and possibly guilt that you feel. The self-blame game. I know that now, but then, I could only see death as ending pain. Your daughter likely felt similar, you have felt similar from what you have written.

You're a mum... your child protected you by taking her own life. None of that makes sense to a parent, which I too am one. Here's the thing... our kids growup and they make decisions. Those decisions have consequences for themselves. They made the choice, they live with the consequence. You can't take on their actions as your own. Every adult parent would be a stupid mess if we all did that. Our kids make their own choices. Yours was suffering in pain, you endured a small fraction of that and wanted to die... maybe, she is no in peace and hoping you too be in peace with her decision.

 

[ellzeena]

Ok. You took her to a store with guns and she was suffering mental illness for her entire life. You did this six weeks prior to her death. You purchased the shotgun the next day. You said she purchased one too, without you knowing. When? Did she have this for six weeks or did she buy this the day she decided to die?

So if you took her into a car dealership to look at cars, purchased on the next day, then she went and purchased one and decided to drive it off a bridge, is that your fault?

Ok. So you experienced a short amount of what she suffered daily, and you wanted to kill yourself and her!

If she was suffering this much, do you think she did the right thing or wrong thing?

Do you feel relief that she is gone and that you no longer have to look after her under such stressful terms?

Sure, but not exactly conclusive. How much random stuff did she watch on Youtube? Hell, I go in some weird directions on Youtube, because it gives me random stuff.

Buying a gun requires certain things to happen though, doesn't it? Did you believe she could get through those checks? Did you even consider that?

You had spyware on her computer to monitor her, to try and keep her away from the bad stuff this world has. She said she was going shopping at Target, and if this was normal for her to do, then why would you think she was going to buy a gun and kill herself? Did she have to lie in order to buy the gun, having a history of psychiatric illness and incarceration, I'm sure that usually means you can't buy a gun!!!

You're beating yourself up because she made a decision and carried it out. That is not exclusive to mothers. You loved her, but also whether you know it or not, you had hit the same point that most people hit around seriously mentally unhealthy people, in that you need to get away and distance yourself. Friends leave friends all the time for this, and one feels abandoned and one feels relief and guilt. Go figure!

Women grow our children, you have a bond that nobody who hasn't grown a child within them can ever understand. Beyond that connection though, we're all pretty much on similar grounds. You did your role as a parent and tried your absolute best to protect her, love her, raise her the best you could, to help her grow, to support her mentally declined state. What else do you believe you could have done?

Don't go hindsight, that is nonsense. You wrote above your situation, as you can best recollect, what happened and your feelings, the situation as it evolved. She has a reason to go to Target. She lied to you. She had a reason to kill herself. She lied to you. She likely had to lie to the attendant selling the gun too / they did not do their job correctly with checks and balances.

She was mentally unhealthy. You wanted to die after helping her, let alone that she wanted to die to stop her pain. I know that part, because I have been there. I still have zero issue with dying, as it will relieve my mental pain, even to this day. Hers was obviously so vast that she felt no other option.

I am going to assume at some point, you also feel relieved. That too brings guilt. You think, who feels relieved that their child is dead? Well... anyone who has suffered a lot trying to raise and protect a child with mental illness. There are a lot of parents who feel guilt because they believe they failed their child, yet relief that their child took away their suffering by taking their own life. None of that makes sense, yet it also makes perfect sense.

Nobody can tell you what to feel. That is all up to you. But what is torturing yourself accomplishing? If you are picking up where looking after your daughter finished, then you may as well succumb to suicide too. Your daughter, from the sounds of what you have written, according to me, took away her pain and yours. I doubt she wanted you to continue to suffer. I could be wrong, but when I was in the process of killing myself, I wanted to end my pain and I wanted others around me to stop suffering because of me. Now that is stupid, obviously, because what I didn't think about at that time, was that my death also causes a consequence to those around me who love me.

Here is what I missed. Those people all had a choice to be around me, to love me, to support me. I would have caused them all pain and possibly guilt that you feel. The self-blame game. I know that now, but then, I could only see death as ending pain. Your daughter likely felt similar, you have felt similar from what you have written.

You're a mum... your child protected you by taking her own life. None of that makes sense to a parent, which I too am one. Here's the thing... our kids growup and they make decisions. Those decisions have consequences for themselves. They made the choice, they live with the consequence. You can't take on their actions as your own. Every adult parent would be a stupid mess if we all did that. Our kids make their own choices. Yours was suffering in pain, you endured a small fraction of that and wanted to die... maybe, she is no in peace and hoping you too be in peace with her decision.

My daughter did not take away my pain, she gave me hers without the hallucinations. She left me a letter. It began, "You have been the LIGHT OF MY LIFE." Then she went on to say what she should have said to all the psychiatrists I dragged her to, to the therapists, to the HOSPITAL STAFF. So they could have HELPED her or tried to. So they would have known more about what was going on in her mind. But she thought it was spiritual warfare, she would not accept her diagnosis which was, by the way, a terminal one. Schizoaffective with bipolar tendencies is a terminal illness. It kills most of the people who have it, sooner or later. Her illness prevented her from seeing it, it hid from her. Her IQ dropped by probably 50 points and this is not my observation, this is fact. Psychosis destroys cognition. That letter kept me alive for the first year, that and a psychiatrist, two therapists and three medications, because I put myself into the psych ward the day she died. And that was a mistake. I should have taken a firearm out of the safe in my room and shot myself.

I'm not a victim. I'm a destroyed woman who lived a fiercely independent life, owned two houses without any man paying the mortgage (paid for the second one IN CASH, $200,000). I'm a single mother by choice whose daughter was cherished and loved, carefully and intelligently raised, was protected from the world which is filled with RANK FOUL SUBHUMAN FILTH. She was the reason I was born. She was the reason I struggled in the first two decades of adulthood, struggled with self examination on and off with therapists so I could be as free as possible from the harm done to me in my childhood by emotionally unavailable and abandoning parents. When other women were worrying about what some man wanted from them, I was having a BABY BY MYSELF because her "father" was and is an emotionally abusive bipolar (I didn't know that at the time) unfeeling selfish immature POS. And I raised her by myself, and I raised her well. She was kind, very creative, started drawing exquisitely at age THREE, wrote a novel at age TWELVE, nver did one thing you expect from kids like be nasty, stay out all night, I WISH SHE HAD. She never even went out on a date. She was hallucinatory since early childhood, she reported having seen angels and other living things in our home that weren't there. NONE of the mental health professionals I took her to throughout her childhood saw what was happening to her.

She didn't protect me by taking her life, that's AN ABSURD THING TO SAY. She didn't want me to "stop suffering" she never once said that to me in her letter or I'd be dead now. What she said was heartbreaking and then she told me how much she loved me, and she ended with "Maybe I'll come back to you as an animal." She didn't want to leave me, she wasn't doing anything to set me free of her, she was IN PSYCHOSIS. Manic. People don't understand what psychosis is because of the ridiculous way its portrayed in movies. A person can be in psychosis and appear pefectly OK to others. She walked into that store and just seemed "nervous", don't you think I SUED THEM????? No one would have known she was going to use that gun five minutes after she walked out with it. BUT I STILL FEEL GUILTY BECAUSE IT WAS MY JOB TO KEEP HER SAFE AND NOT ONLY DIDN'T I DO THAT, I SHOWED HER WHAT TO BUY! You bet I don't want to be alive. You bet I'm suicidal. I just don't have the NERVE to do it. Yet.

So before you start projecting your own sh*t on others and making statements about what my daughter wanted or didn't want, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW IGNORANT THAT IS? My daughter didn't "want" anything, she didn't "want' to die, she NEEDED to stop her torment and the damn county therapist and committe of psychiatrists DIDN'T BOTHER to notice HOW DANGEROUSLY SICK SHE WAS. There's another little girl who recently did something similar only she did it to others. Her name was Natalie. She took a photo of herself the day she walked out of that school baathroom and shot those people and that photo was so similar to one my daughter took that I knew exactly what was wrong with Natalie and how she fooled her parents AND HER THERAPIST. Only Natalie was unloved and raised in a terrible dysfuncitonal home by two IDIOTS. She directed her anger and torment outward but she was in PSYCHOSIS that day and it can be seen in the photograph I saw of her on X. So I cry for Natalie too, because if she had me as a mother she wouldn't have needed to kill anyone, she would have known she was loved. I cry for Natalie very day. And I'll cry for my daughter every day until the day I die, the moment I die. My daughter could never have harmed another person, and she never would have, but without the love and careful guidance and commitment from me, she might have become a Natalie out of desperation. There's too much ugly in the world, there are too many dysfunctional morons having children, there are too many idiots not parenting those children. No one can be blamed for a genetic illness and that's what bipolar is, it's an accident of conception, a misfired chromosome, one subatomic particle gone wrong in a millionth of a second. But the stigma and the INCREDIBLE IGNORANCE OF THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY is to blame. And people like you who make OUTRAGEOUS STATEMENTS need to SHUT THE HELL UP.

 

[anthony]

My daughter did not take away my pain, she gave me hers without the hallucinations.

Like I said, this is the cost that taking your life does not present when highly depressed and doing the action.

She left me a letter. It began, "You have been the LIGHT OF MY LIFE." Then she went on to say what she should have said to all the psychiatrists I dragged her to, to the therapists, to the HOSPITAL STAFF. So they could have HELPED her or tried to. So they would have known more about what was going on in her mind.

No argument from me whether or not the mental health community misdiagnosed. Mental health is not a science, it really is a best guess based on clinician experience.

she would not accept her diagnosis which was, by the way, a terminal one. Schizoaffective with bipolar tendencies is a terminal illness. It kills most of the people who have it, sooner or later.

Ok. So the mental health community did get her right then? Which is it. You said your daughter wasn't honest, that the therapists and doctors had no clue, but then you state they diagnosed her with what you believe is terminal. Oh... and schizoaffective is not terminal, it can be managed to live a full life. Same with Bipolar. Mania is part and parcel of schizoaffective. I think you're making shit up at this point, to be honest. Your anger is either false and trolling, or your anger is doing what anger does, making you lose sight of actual facts.

I'm not a victim.

You sure are acting like one. I don't think you have been told this enough... too many people bowing to your anger, walking away from you because you're just being difficult. You can help you, nobody else. So either step-up and help yourself, or keep going and die. Its a choice that only you can make, nobody else.

She didn't protect me by taking her life, that's AN ABSURD THING TO SAY. She didn't want me to "stop suffering" she never once said that to me in her letter or I'd be dead now.

If she loved you, she wanted you to stop suffering. That is what love is. You are angry, and that has potential. So let me fire a little of your hypocrisy back at you here.

And people like you who make OUTRAGEOUS STATEMENTS need to SHUT THE HELL UP.

So before you start projecting your own sh*t on others and making statements about what my daughter wanted or didn't want, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW IGNORANT THAT IS?

And here you are, taking very wild swings and diagnosing a little girl who shot a couple of people, based on your own anger, situation, zero experience with this girl, and all from a photo. Wake the f*ck up... you are either a troll or you're so far lost you can't find the switch to turn the lights back on if it smacked you senseless.

that photo was so similar to one my daughter took that I knew exactly what was wrong with Natalie and how she fooled her parents AND HER THERAPIST. Only Natalie was unloved and raised in a terrible dysfuncitonal home by two IDIOTS. She directed her anger and torment outward but she was in PSYCHOSIS that day and it can be seen in the photograph I saw of her on X.

You are at a point in your life where you need to start taking some action to change your life, stop being a victim, stop being guilty for things that you have zero right in owning. Own what you own, don't own anything more than that.

 

[anth9ny]

Like I said, this is the cost that taking your life does not present when highly depressed and doing the action.

No argument from me whether or not the mental health community misdiagnosed. Mental health is not a science, it really is a best guess based on clinician experience.

Ok. So the mental health community did get her right then? Which is it. You said your daughter wasn't honest, that the therapists and doctors had no clue, but then you state they diagnosed her with what you believe is terminal. Oh... and schizoaffective is not terminal, it can be managed to live a full life. Same with Bipolar. Mania is part and parcel of schizoaffective. I think you're making shit up at this point, to be honest. Your anger is either false and trolling, or your anger is doing what anger does, making you lose sight of actual facts.

You sure are acting like one. I don't think you have been told this enough... too many people bowing to your anger, walking away from you because you're just being difficult. You can help you, nobody else. So either step-up and help yourself, or keep going and die. Its a choice that only you can make, nobody else.

If she loved you, she wanted you to stop suffering. That is what love is. You are angry, and that has potential. So let me fire a little of your hypocrisy back at you here.




And here you are, taking very wild swings and diagnosing a little girl who shot a couple of people, based on your own anger, situation, zero experience with this girl, and all from a photo. Wake the f*ck up... you are either a troll or you're so far lost you can't find the switch to turn the lights back on if it smacked you senseless.

You are at a point in your life where you need to start taking some action to change your life, stop being a victim, stop being guilty for things that you have zero right in owning. Own what you own, don't own anything more than that.

You're an idiot. I'm not blaming Natalie, I'm mourning her illness. You're an extremely insensitive person. I feel sorry for your family members fk off.

 

[Sideways]

Mod Note:
@ellzeena - please log in to post

 

[anthony]

I'm not blaming Natalie, I'm mourning her illness.

I have approved this single post you made as a guest, instead of logging in to your account. Why? Because here is the crux of the issue.

You won't admit that your daughter killed herself. She purchased a gun, and chose to shoot herself. Everything you have said here, that is factual. You won't accept the facts. She chose to do it. You won't blame her for killing herself, yet she killed herself. You are mourning an illness... your words, where you should only be mourning the loss of your daughter. The illness killed your daughter, it is very much to blame along with her carrying out the choices and actions made.

Your words, you won't blame your daughter for killing herself. She killed herself. Her illness is very much to blame for this, along with some sort of lapse in weapons purchase protocol.

Here is how I see this. Your life was all about your daughter, because she needed you due to her illness. Your daughter killed herself, and now you have no idea how to live life without her. The relationship was full of unhealthy aspects due to her illness, and you have shifted her death to now fill those unhealthy aspects. You don't know what to do with your life without her, without her need to need you. Unhealthy aspects everywhere in that type of relationship. Just the way it is with trauma.

Look, this is your life, nobody else's. You make your choices. We are just here talking. I am not blaming you, I am trying to get you to see a view that IMO and experience from helping people with trauma for 20 odd years, is pretty standard for people who are just - stuck. They're stuck in guilt, stuck in self-blame, stuck in owning things and telling themselves things that just aren't factual.

You have to own what you own. You have to place ownership of your daughters actions at her feet, for what she owns. That is not yours to carry, it is not another persons to carry. She owns her actions. You own your actions. She killed herself, that is her choice, she owns it. You are left behind to deal with the aftermath of her actions.

None of this means you don't love her, miss her, or anything else you may think I am saying that I'm not. Love is not the problem, guilt is the problem. To be specific, survivors guilt.

This is about the toxicity of guilt and it eating away at you and your life. I am simply telling you how to get beyond that. I'm not saying its going to be easy, but it is doable. It can be done. It sucks having to face trauma head-on and be super honest about every aspect of it.

I have this very same conversation with women who were raped, blaming themselves because they believe it happened due to they wore a short skirt that night, revealing top, had one drink to many, etc etc. They've convinced themselves that these things are why they were raped. None of those choices said, rape me. That belongs solely with the person who raped them, not with them. Welcome to survivors guilt.

 

[Jade-]

I hate this thread because it brings up my own pain from losing my son a few years ago, to addiction.

I completely understand how you're feeling and what you're going through @ellzeena ,cause I've been in your shoes and was stuck where you are. I spent over a decade living for my son, trying to fix him, trying to save him just to find him in a room from me,passed away, about 15 away from where I was.

I had/have so much guilt and so many woulda, coulda,shoulda's. And I could drive myself completely insane dwelling on them,which I did do for awhile.

It's not ok that my son is gone and it never will be. I will grieve for him the rest of my life. But I had to make a conscious decision to go on with life despite my loss. Not a day goes by that I don't think about him and I had to change my ficus and all my thoughts from the fact that he died and how he died and all the years of trying to save him to the fact that he lived. He was not and is not just his death, or his addiction,he was my son and there's lots of memories and good things about him to focus on. If he could have (or maybe did?) look down when I was going through what you are he would have been so heartbroken to know that I was hurting so much and carrying so much guilt and only focusing in all the bad about him and only remembering that he was an addict when he was and is so way more than that.

I do what I can in honor of him,I try to help those struggling with addiction.I couldn't save him but if I can help just one person I feel I have somehow honored him. I am more compassionate and empathetic to those that struggle with addiction,I have learned so much about it .I did the best I knew at the time with my son. I wish I had done better,I wish I could have saved him but I couldn't.

I didn't think I could go on living without him,yet I was. It was a miserable way to live though and I had to make a choice,live miserably,like you are now or do something about it. I was living anyway,have to continue living unless I kill myself so why not try to turn his death into something good that he would be proud of me for? And I feel he would be proud and would know I love him(still) so much that I want to help others to maybe help them not go through what he did or what I did trying to save him.

It's not easy at all. This is THE hardest thing I've been through in my life. You ARE living without your daughter already,you have no choice. Have you tried doing things to change your focus,give yourself a purpose, maybe help others struggling like she did,kike you did? I truly believe helping others is the saving grace through this kind of loss.

And I'm sure I just pissed you off. I get it, I've been there too. I felt nobody understood the depth of my pain and loss.

I felt like not being a complete mess 24/7, not lost in my grief, not being miserable was somehow betraying my son. How dare I ever smile again, laugh again,do anything again when he is dead? I wore that grief and guilt like a weighted blanket never taking it off. But once you start lifting it off now and then, slowly, taking a look around, noticing all the other people and loved ones that have been left out and neglected and that not only did they lose a loved one to death but they lost me too,you realize life does have to go on. It will never be the same life,I had to create a new one without my son in it and had to accept that no matter what he's never coming back. But I want to live a life he would be proud of that he's still a part of even though he's gone.

I'm sorry for your loss. I hope you can find yourself again and create a new life. It's hard to do when your entire life was your child and it was all you knew. I get it.

 

[Stompdown]

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 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.

I feel your heartaches and concerns in more than one way. And I'm not going to say that you should talk to a professional about it unless he's actually going through or went through what you did. Their great listeners but they cannot relate to how you feel although most think they can. The best phycologist are the ones that learned from experience and not From a book. Talk with people that are in the same situation as you and you will be able to determine if that's the approach you want to take for yourself to see if it will help you the same way.

 

[Anne-Ana Mouse]

A DV counselor told me something that I had never been able to understand which may be relevant here too. She said I was taking care of everyone but myself. This sparked deep anger and I said that’s impossible because I take care of myself better than anyone, I have all my needs met, my pets too, yadayada. Then she pointed out that even though I was taking care of my physical needs I was railing and staying upset at the unhealthy situations around me that mostly were other people’s issues: my ex’s disability, his unsupportive family, the expectation that if you have a dollar, you should give away $1.50 and all sorts of things that kept me angry, in tears, confused, and stressed. I had sent $30 in groceries to a family member who was ‘down on their luck’ and was furious when they spend the money on frivolous items that wouldn’t last and had no nutritional value. I felt hustled, duped, lied to. I didn't have ‘extra’ money but knew I could do without and was happy to be able to help, until I wasn’t. The counselor made me see it wasn’t the $30, it was the hours of figuring out how to get the money to them, then realizing they had more than me, and the hours I spend thinking and talking about it. Everything that was brought up upset me more and more. She showed me that’s not taking care of my emotions. It’s so hard to deal with mental illness and also family who has health issues and it’s nearly impossible to have standards and boundaries. I never found the medical system helpful as they encouraged me to endure, endure, endure, and praised me when it broke me down. Now, finally, I get it. If it disrupts my peace of mind and brings me stress and heartache, it’s not for me. It’s for them to deal with, for God to deal with. I am learning to have faith in people and in the Great Spirit, that I have a purpose which isn’t to rescue others even if it seems like I ‘should’. I’m learning not to act out of obligation to keep people from using me and to only help when it ‘feels good’ to ME. I don’t have a child going through this but I have had a husband, a mother, an uncle, and a whole family of screwed up people to content with.

 

[Anne-Ana Mouse]

As far as the nightmares, here is my formula which worked when no over the counter or pharmaceutical would help.

You first need to understand a bit of neuroscience in that humans go into various brain states as we fall asleep and then as we wake up. We go into Alpha, Beta, Theta, ect. During alpha is where we can affect our subconscious, or speak to our futures, or manifest, or however you like to say it. We can get into alpha right before bed as we fall asleep in the last 30 minutes naturally and many other ways you can google. But right before bed and right after waking up (before you see a phone or tablet or tv) that is our sweet spot.

So, here is what to do: Think about your nightmares. (not specifics, just about having them in general) How do you fee? Scared, most likely. Angry? Frustrated? It will always come back to fear, anger, sadness. Tell yourself how you feel and repeat it a second time using the work NOT>. for example: I am afraid to go to sleep because I always have nightmares, I am NOT afraid to go to sleep because I always have nightmares. Your insides will probably start to argue. That’s BS! It might yell, I do TOO have nightmares EVERY night! So we just continue to add NOT to undo the feeling in the sentence. Like this: That’s NOT BS! NOT I do TOO have nightmares EVERY night! And continue to check in with the emotion and work it down.

Check it in the morning and you might find that you’re not scared anymore, but maybe feel guilt about having had them. Now we work down the guilt, what does the guilt say? Maybe the emotion has a tiny voice, maybe it’s says I’m a failure, I’m a looser. So we continue with our NOT statements. I’m NOT a failure, I’m NOT. looser. Again before bed as we fall asleep into Alpha and checking the emotion in the morning. You can heal whole trauma’s this way and I now sleep like a baby. It took a month or so. I have severe PTSD and used to have night terrors. That was for about 6 years with meds and counseling doing nothing to improve it. Nor did meditation, guided relaxation, or any herbal tea, bedtime ritual or supplement.

Good luck! Note: This method is part of Goran Arnoux’s 7 Steps to End Negative Emotions Workshop. He teaches the Mirror concepts that if we change our emotions, our life will adjust around us accordingly. Things just have a way of adapting to our feeling states we hold inside. Sounds like magic, perhaps it is!

 

[Anne-Ana Mouse]

Something else I’d like to share that comforts me around life’s tradegies is watching Near Death Stories on YouTube. You know the ones where they are in a coma or pronounced dead for a certain time and they miraculously come back having heard things and sharing experiences of a journey to a white light, pure love, and Devine justice. They are so similar, having learned certain things, mostly that life is beautiful and meaningful, and many of these people negotiate to come back to Earth or are told to return because they have a mission to share what they learned. There is one particular YouTube Channel just for these stories and after I listened to 15 or 20 of them, I realized, they are all the same! They loose their worries and guilts and step into this light of pure love. Not one of them can describe the feeling of pure love. They have deep understanding and are at peace. Some have lessons and are shown certain things they did wrong, or right. There is always a part where they review their lives and are surprised to find their deepest failures weren’t that at all, and the smallest kind gestures were the moments they changed lives. One pastor spoke of being a racist KKK leader his whole life in the South. In his near death experience he realized he was wrong, that the Jesus he prayed to never said to hate a certain race and never said to kill in his name, the way his preacher Daddy had indoctrinated him. Today he is on a mission to spread love and end racial hate in the Church. The same church he grew up in to beat black men in the name of god.

I only say all of this because I have a deep faith that there is something more meaningful at play. That our tragedies are wiped away our suffering does end. That our loved ones are in a beautiful place or at worst, have been given a new life to start over in. I don’t feel I have the right words to convey this hope I have. I just find it so comforting and it’s made me look at suicide in a different way. It’s not something I have as a back up plan anymore because I see there really is something to this life. It’s not just the Industry and consumerism and depression we see daily. It’s something far more interesting indeed.