I Knew It Was Too Good To Last.

[FindingMyself88]

Almost 4 weeks without flashbacks or night terrors... too good to be true right? Should've known that.

Last night's nightmare though was different. Normally my nightmares and flashbacks are from reality of things that happened to me. But last night's wasn't. And if I do have a regular nightmare, I don't ever remember them.

I was back in my hometown where me, my mom, my stepdad use to live with his parents. Except somehow I got the impression my parents were not living there. Anyways I was out on a walk, without Bristol, which makes no sense. It was getting close to dark, but not dark yet. I was almost back to my grandmother's when this guy walks out of a yard. He has no facial expression, just staring dead at me. I immediately want to run and scream, but I can't. We are almost there, we are in the yard. I'm trying to call my stepdad on the phone but I can't get him. Again, I want to scream, I want to run. We are on the porch and he grabs me. All I manage is a little small scream. But no one hears or responds. He is SO calm, so sure no one will hear me. He starts dragging me away.

This is when I jerk awake and again my body is FLOODED with adrenaline but I can't scream. I normally try to stay in bed when nightmares happen, because by this point Bristol is on top of me licking my face and trying to ground me. But I had to get up, I had to prove to myself I could move.

I thought I was through with these :(. I thought sleep was safe again. I see my T again today. A small part of me doesn't want to tell her because I don't want to start EMDR again anytime soon. That last round really wore me out. Although it did work so I am thankful.

I don't get why I remembered this one but not any other nightmares that aren't based in reality. I mean as much as I hate to admit it, I see parts of this dream that are related to 2 past traumas, but yet totally different. The fact that he was so calm and sure he wouldn't get caught and the feeling I got of not being able to scream or run reminds me of the rape, but also the physical abuse from my dad. If I reacted at all, I got beat way worse.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

Almost 4 weeks without flashbacks or night terrors... too good to be true right? Should've known that.

Dear Finding Myself, please don't diminish the victory of 4 weeks without flashbacks & terrors :) Just because they are back, doesn't mean that you will not get to that point again where they fade or go away.

I'm sorry you had such a horrible nightmare... I can imagine why it really shook you. Maybe you can tell your therapist about it, but tell her also that you don't want to do EMDR because it wore you out?

 

[digger]

Almost 4 weeks without flashbacks or night terrors... too good to be true right?

You haven't lost that progress. You still had four weeks without flashbacks or night terrors and you now know that that can happen for you. My T has repeatedly told me that progress in therapy is most often not linear and much as that frustrates me at times, I think it's probably true, especially for complex trauma where so many things are tangled and interlinked with each other.
Sometimes I think dreams, and nightmares, are a sign of parts of the mind trying to process things.

 

[FindingMyself88]

Sometimes I think dreams, and nightmares, are a sign of parts of the mind trying to process things.

This is exactly what my T says when I have them. I don't think we will start EMDR again anytime soon because she will be having surgery soon and she only does EMDR with me when she can see me 2 times a week until we are done. The only way we would start again is if it gets bad again. But she probably will schedule to see me next week instead of going 2 weeks, which I am okay with.

I know I haven't lost the progress, but gosh this nightmare bothered me more than it should've. Before it had become "normal" to have them every night and I was able to get out of them quicker with Bristol's help. This one lingered.

 

[FindingMyself88]

Well I saw my T today. She thinks that the nightmare was my psyche's way of trying to show me something. She does not think it was necessarily PTSD in the sense of flashbacks or anything. The running theme in it was how calm and sure of not being caught the guy was and my inability to do anything. We talked about the fact that I am a different person than I was back as a child and even than I was when I was raped. That I am stronger and I CAN do something now.

So yeah, I am feeling a bit better. I will see her weekly for the next 2 weeks because her surgery got moved up and she will be out after our session March 3rd until the 31st. Plus my 1 year mark from attempting suicide is coming up on the 12th and since she won't be here, we want to focus on that the next two sessions to make sure I will be okay.