Sexual Assault Question For The Ladies, Sorry It's Strange.

[Melp283]

I just put this together because my medication has been helping so much with my nightmares. No bad dreams for almost 3 weeks (new personal best)!

The last 2 nights I have had nightmares about rape. The last 2 nights I've been cramping like hell because Aunt Flo is a ruthless female dog....

I'm sure the cramps/pain and the rape dreams are connected. Maybe I never noticed because before Prazosin, 99% of my dreams were like that.

Has this happened to anyone else?

 

[wyrd_dragon]

Uterine cramps are triggering for me certainly - not nightmare-causing, but cause me to have intrusive thoughts about rape and sometimes flashbacks, or a general feeling of emotional instability.

 

[Melp283]

As much as I don't want to say it, Deathray, I feel better knowing I'm not the only one...
The nightmare aspect may be related to the heavy EMDR I'm doing too.

 

[Seagreen]

EMDR bought on a lot of nightmares for me. As for the cramps and dreams being related, they could be. I sometimes dream about being in pain when experiencing real pain during sleep. The location of the pain in the dream is always relevant to the location of the real pain. Eg. dreaming I got kicked in the leg by a horse, then waking to a leg cramp.

 

[joeylittle]

@Melp283, I had this happen for years. Eventually it stopped, and I'm not sure why. At the time I chalked it up to some other changes happening in my life, but I do know that while it was happening, all my direct associations were with my rape. What helped the most was really loading up on ibuprofin right on schedule, and taking it every four to six hours in a prescription-sized dose for the first four days of my cycle. Probably was not so great for my liver, but did dull out the pain, which in turn made the memories go away.

 

[confusedandfrazzled]

Hi, I actually had something similar happen to me only a couple of weeks ago. I had one of my worst most vivid nightmares I've ever head. The next day I got my period. I did wonder at the time if they had been linked because physically I had felt very different in my body the couple of days leading up to my nightmare. I experience most of my symptoms very physically. During your period I suppose we're more concious of certain parts of our body. A link would make sense. Thanks for brining it up, I had casually thought it to myself but hadn't really thought it through properly.

 

[Biz]

Ya'll this is mind-opening for me. I definitely have disturbances around my period. I think a part of that is identifying as gender queer. (Although for a while this was about my body bloating and looking more feminine around my period. Now I'm thinner, and that's not the case). It could be more than that though and I'd never even considered it.