it's been over three years since i had the dream/nightmare but it still bothers me. it's not recurring or anything, it's just that it was so real and so scary and there's nothing in the dream that lets me know that it didn't actually happen, unlike most dreams where you realize that everything was fuzzy or your couch was a different color, you know what i mean.

i have always had nightmares about being raped, ever since i was little, but i don't have any idea why and i don't like talking to my parents about it because they'd get worried and blame each other for something stupid and might actually think that something happened to me when in all likelihood it didn't, as rape dreams are (according to my last therapist) kind of common among women. anyway, the nightmares were never very believable but just make me kind of wary of men in general and i don't like being alone with a guy i don't know that i can fight back.

but this particular nightmare was one about an ex, and i can't remember if i had it while we were together or sometime after. he was the only other person i've ever slept with besides my husband, and so thinking about him is really awkward and i'm shaking now because i really don't want to talk about it but maybe someone can reassure me or something.

in the nightmare, we were in my room in my apartment, the lights were off except my lava lamp, and everything about my room was crystal clear, nothing out of the ordinary like there usually is in dreams. i don't know...if in the dream i actually consented or what, but somehow we progressed into **** sex, which i've never done and never want to do, and i don't know why i would have done it with him, but he pinned me down, it seemed, and wouldn't stop, or at least i think i asked him to stop. but i can't even remember anymore, i don't really want to.

just the thought of it makes me kind of sick. i told my husband about this dream (the other guy was a month-long fling a year before i got married) and i don't remember his reaction. i feel like if i tried to talk to him about it again he might get upset or he'll just brush it off like it really was just a nightmare, or like it's all in the past now, and although i do think it was just a nightmare for the most part, it still hits me really hard when i remember it, and anytime i see a guy who looks even remotely like my ex i kind of freak out and try to get away.

i don't want to think about it anymore. i brought it up with my last therapist, but we weren't able to work on it because she had to move back to italy, haha. so umm i plan to bring it up with my new therapist, after i get settled, i guess. it may not have been real but it still really bothers me, obviously, or i would have forgotten it, right? i don't know...