Incest Nightmares...wtf?

[Sideways]

@illusionist - well, definitely not coping with something at the moment, although I've been guessing at the likely cause. Last couple of weeks it's like I've hurled myself backwards about 5 years of progress in therapy and just clung back to the old belief system about how loathesome I am as a person and how my abuse was actually just a really valuable lesson in survival and I've started clinging to that again like my life depends on it.

I feel yuck. All the time now. But since I'm no good at dealing with emotions I've just been hammering it down and trying to just smother it with distraction. Sleep would usually be a coping tool, because it's always been an escape. Nightmares aren't real. Except now, I don't want to sleep. I don't want to give my head a chance to go back there.

Repress, repress, repress. I don't know how else to keep breathing.

 

[Sideways]

@Friday - my hunch is that my gut is sposed to be telling me whether this dream is of the ridiculous nightmare breed, total flashback, or somewhere in the middle. But all my gut can give me right now is a whole heap of "yuck" and a bad flare up of my IBS.

Can we please please just return to the reliable old nightmares about the end of days and people getting sucked into oblivion so that I wake up knowing exactly how high on the Reality Meter any given dream rates!?

 

[illusionist]

It is normal for us to go back to square one again....it gets easier ( for me anyway ) to get back up again.

Have you considered every other possibility that could be setting you back?

 

[Friday]

Can we please please just return to the reliable old nightmares about the end of days and people getting sucked into oblivion so that I wake up knowing exactly how high on the Reality Meter any given dream rates!?

LMAO... You know you have PTSD when...

(it's funny because it's true)

 

[Sideways]

@illusionist - I'm usually only good at identifying stressors with the benefit of a lot of hindsight and a few subtle nudges from my T! But my grandad is in hospital, and he's pretty unwell. That's been stressful. I can't really do an accurate appraisal of how much that's stressing me out, because my rational brain says it's a pretty big deal, but I spend a lot more time in my Denial Brain, where it really doesn't matter that much, and is barely even happening, and if it is happening, he's gonna be fine. He's always fine in the end. What's the problem? Certainly I'm not spending long periods during the day mulling over the can't-confront-it fact of his mortality.

But that'd be a stressor. Probably a pretty big one. Grandad's pretty important to me. Not happy about that situation at all.

@Friday - any other day of the week, I have a very healthy sense of humour about my nightmares. They're gawdawful macabre, try not to throw up as you wake up type scenarios, which oftentimes end with me being greatful that there is clearly good prospects for me writing zombie-fiction if all else fails. It's just shitty that as soon as you start superimposing bro's face into the nightmares that funny quicky turns into *groan* this is gonna take at least one appointment with my pdoc to sort out whether I like it or not.

Or, I'm just completely insane, and need to start cranking up the meds in a big big way.

Still, I can see the bright side. I have a whole community of people here who see nothin especially weird about me having nightmares about people getting limbs hacked off. Cheers to the good company!

 

[Friday]

My apologies @Ragdoll Circus. It was very much the nightmare rating scale (Not all nightmares are bad. Some are worse.) ...& wishing to return from nightmare B back to nightmare A... And the sheer number of times I've done that.

Wasn't meaning to poke fun at either bad or worse. Just... Been there. A lot.

 

[Sideways]

@Friday - not at all, was good to ge a laugh out of it!

 

[Heather]

@Ragdoll Circus no I've always remembered what he did to me..til this day he denies it...a$$hole

 

[Gs172003]

I had a dream yesterday my son was accidentally drowning me in a panic and I was watching it happen from under the water to myself. Aren't dreams crazy?

 

[Gs172003]

My oddest one? Two rhinos in my backyard. One was ramming his horn up the other ones rear while chasing it around the pool. I don't even want to deal with that one.

This is why my therapist leaves my dreams alone.

 

[Naoru]

I really like @Friday's response above.

They say we only dream of faces we've seen before, so it's possible the dream was relaying fears or memories or what-have-you, but your mind just plugged in the face of your brother ... rather than a more 'appropriate' person (like your dad).

Or it could have all just been rubbish.

We don't know.

Regardless, it is painful ... and I'm sorry it happened and caused you such confusion. Nightmares were a driving force that sent me to therapy!

 

[Gs172003]

@Ragdoll Circus no I've always remembered what he did to me..til this day he denie...

Im sorry :(