Triggered by recent events

I haven't had a nightmare, bad dream, about my fiance that died in quite awhile.

Recent events and disturbances are manifesting in my dreams...I saw my fiance in my dreams tonight and the symbols were telling me to pay attention to my feelings and intuition.

I feel incredibly distressed right now...as I just awoke from the nightmare.

I am saying my affirmations, trying to calm down and remind myself everything is - and is going to be - ok. I feel horrible, though.

My skin is crawling and I feel the anxiety bubbling inside of me. My brain feels too full. The truths really, really hurt.

He reminded me in my dream of things ... he spoke about me, to me, wrote to me, wrote about his feelings of us. The journal belonged to both of us and we both included various entries.

.My friend A found his writing about me, written in the notebook....in pages written way backshe made notes in the margins,and then further into the notebook/journal write to me: "I can see his fingerprints on page 8. They are still there."

I could barely see them. They were smudges. But they were his

He never loved me and only wanted me for my money and lifestyle. And for what he fantasized /thought he could get from me. How his life could-would change dramatically with me. He could stop working.

Same as what is happening now with new guy.

I hate them. I hate myself.

I have often felt that he stole my heart, and took it with him when he died. With the new guy, I did not give him any part of the heart I have, that I had to retrieve....literally bring back from the dead.

But I feel with the new guy, he was trying to steal my body and soul. I was feeling smothered and trapped. So I resisted him and tried to create space between us, which he would not give me. He wanted to have every bit of me. Despite my protests.

I feel disgusting and deflated (depressed) all over again.

I am thinking of you, I don't have any words to express what I feel for what you are going through right now. I am sorry this is happening....

((((Rose)))),

You have done alot of growing as you have been healing and dealing with PTSD. As you know with PTSD we are pretty much forced to sort through our pasts, who we are, and alot of realities we may have not recognized or understood.

It is important to recognize that when a person is "a good person" they do not see all the bad in people, and unfortunately there is a lot of bad and selfish in humanity. Good hearted people do not think about doing bad things to others, they tend to "love" humanity and see the good in others.

Good people often do become "targets" unknowingly because people who are selfish and are only looking for people they can "take from" get good at spoting "good people". When a "good person" does get taken advantage of they often feel like it is somehow their fault or that they are unworthy or dumb. Often they feel they should have known more about people who have "bad intentions" and they morn deeply because they really wanted to flourish with the "good". And "good people" really feel like they will be appreciated and loved because they are "good", so when they see that doesn't happen, they can easily feel very "unsafe" and extremely "disappointed and even disillusioned". It is very easy for a "good person" to begin to feel they are dumb because surely somehow they should have been smart enough to be able to recognize how much bad there is or that it is common for "many" to fake being "good" just to get what they want and they can truely be "cold hearted" about it too. It becomes clear that bad people, dishonest selfish people, do target "good people" and consider them "easy dumb prey".

It is mindboggling that at some point a good person has to educate themselves about how to spot "bad people". For a good person it can be very depressing and can make the world and life look so "uninviting". It can get so depressing that it can feel like "trusting" anyone to be "good" seems impossible. Because a good person's mind doesn't come up with the "manipulative ideas" that bad people think up.

I have yet to meet a "bad person" suffering from PTSD. All the people I have met who struggle with PTSD are "angry and disillusioned" and often "very misunderstood" but their "core" is "good". And most of the people I have met with PTSD are "intelligent and strong" too. They were driven and goal oriented and typically have strong beliefs and can be very "soulful" too. Often they were just never very good at "being bad" and just never really had those kind of "thinking patterns" to them. And they are always "lonely" because while they do "love and respect and cherish deeply", they can't understand why "others are not the same".

(((Rose))), I am very sorry that you tried to "trust" again and again got to see beyond a fake persona someone put up that made them seem "good".
It is very important that while you are facing this challenge that you make sure that you don't "self blame" in any way. Instead you need to think about the "positives" and I know that is such a challenge when facing a let down like this.

You really did "gain" alot on the PTSD and the hurt and anger that came with recognizing so many disappointments in your life. You "did" begin to once again step outside your comfort zone and tried. That is a positive Rose. It is important to understand that even though you were again disappointed and let down, you still gave yourself permission to try. What you did discover is that you were able to spot the bad this time and you are now strong enough to determine that this person is not worthy of your time. So you have gained enough self respect to make better choices instead of hanging onto a toxic person.

The truth is that you got strong enough to do things with this person. And that means you actually made some gains. While this person didn't work out, you can look at this person as doing you a favor in that you did do more. While this person turned out to be a jerk in the end, you at least did do more. It is all in the way you look at it Rose, you have to learn to see your own gains inspite of this person's failures.

In reality, we all learn as we go and interact with others. Each person we interact with will teach us something that we can hang onto so we can see more of how to know better as we keep moving through our lives. Instead of thinking of ourselves as unworthy somehow, it is important to instead just be ok with recognizing that often it is "others" that are "unworthy".
There is nothing wrong with defending the good in "self" Rose. It is important to work on developing that good self "inspite" of how disappointing others can be in our life path.

The dream you had was upsetting, but what it meant Rose is that your brain is learning how to file better and recognize more realities now. If something is bad or upsetting or disappointing in someway, your brain will file it that way so that at another time when something "suspicious" takes place, you will have a better sense of it so you can "avoid" it and stay safer.

Remember the snakes Rose? If we get bitten and hurt by a bad snake, we grow fearful of all snakes and not all snakes are dangerous. We can learn to differenciate the good snakes from the bad so that we can go out where snakes are and not get upset if we happen to see any snakes. We can see a harmless snake and know better. That is really how we are designed to thrive as human beings. We are designed to learn and differenciate. As we do that our brain attaches emotions to the bad so that we get more of a warning so we can thrive better. We are designed to always remember whatever is bad enough to hurt us badly. It is not to make us feel bad about ourselves either.

Well, you met another snake, but you began to recognize it before it bit you and hurt you. That is what we do in our life, all of our lives. We keep learning and growing all through life. We are not born to "know it all", we are born with the capacity to learn and emotionally respond to our life experiences in order to help us thrive better.

Think about the fact that you did step outside the comfort zone and you managed pretty well, while you did get disappointed, you still learned Rose. It is all about learning and giving yourself permission to do just that.

OE