[MotownJohnny]

I had a really strange one. Touched on a lot of themes. Kinda just was like putting everything going on with me in a blender and mixing it all up. None of it was realistic within my life experience, but I would say one major theme was trying to be my mother's protector against evil and feeling inadequate. Another was fearing my own death. A lot of it was random external junk - in my dream, I was in a concentration camp and hiding to survive - this came straight from catching an episode of Rick Steve's Europe where he went to Krakow and Auschwitz, along with speaking the other day with a client, who told me his father was a survivor. The is the external irrelevant part of the dream. I'm not even Jewish, but that stuff always got to me. But for me, this terrible entity trying to enslave and kill me is certainly representative of dad. It touched on so much of how I feel about things now, which is blech.

I hate this - I turned off the alarm because I just couldn't face it for a few minutes. Now an hour and a half later I am late, I completely missed my opportunity to hit the pool, and I'm going to be in a bad mood and will probably end up venting a bunch of this to my poor PT who I abuse way beyond his job description by making him listen to this stuff during the workout. Good thing he's such a great guy and is willing to listen. I told him the "T" stood for both Trainer and Therapist - well, he costs almost as much an hour as my T does, so I'm getting my money's worth and then some.

Your personal trainer seems like he's a genuinely good guy. I remember you mentioning him before. Despite the unpleasent dream, I hope your day goes well Motown

[Open Eyes]

((MowtownJohnny)),

I had bad dreams and thoughts in my sleep last night too. I had a strange day yesterday so that probably set the wheels of my mind in motion to produce these bad thoughts/dreams. I woke up off an on and pushed myself back into sleep and I never really got a peaceful rest.

With you though, well you have been opening up a lot lately talking and thinking about elements of your past that "hurt you and made you feel bad about yourself in some way". Your father was often mean and disrespectful towards you growing up and you didn't have enough life skills to "self protect" or "protect your boundaries".
Typically, a father is supposed to teach his son these skills, not be the one who bullies or makes his son feel "unsafe and unvalued".

Often when we work through our childhood where we may have been "abandoned or felt powerless somehow" we were scared, stressed, and even depressed. These emotional flashbacks can come forward where we are "remembering these feelings as if we are living that way in the now. It took me a while to really realize that myself too. However, what you need to understand is that these sort of "flashbacks" come over us like a wave and though the struggle is confusing, it does fade again.

My T told me this is a part of "remembrance and mourning" and it is important to do just what you are doing, talking about it, getting validated and comforted so you can finally "heal".

((Hugs))
OE

[A Red Panda]

I get the messed up dreams. I've had SO MANY OF THEM (horror movies are nothing like some of my dreams....). Last night I had the most messed up dream I've ever had. It didn't relate to things that happened in my life, but it did involve my family and it was absolutely horrific. It woke me up and I did not fall back asleep, and sorta felt like throwing up from what I'd seen in my mind. Blech.

[HealingNSuffering]

I know what you mean, I've had this same kind of dream before, protecting my mother and feeling inadequate. She blamed me for the crime I protected her against in a dream, won't go into too much detail about it but yeah same principle different actors. She would do this in real life to, quite often actually, didn't help that she was paranoid all the time to and always thought that people were trying to make her miserable. My sleep has been disturbed lately as well, been waking up frequently and not being able to get comfortable. Then in the morning I feel like **** and I have to really push myself to have any sort of motivation. Hope your day gets better, I found talking about my nightmares and the themes I remembered about them in Therapy to really help me resolve some of the issues floating around in my unconscious mind.

[MotownJohnny]

Thanks, everyone. It did get better, had a good session with the kid, and then I got down to business trying to clean up my disaster of a yard. Things were just left as-is last year, other than I did manage to get the leaves cleaned up in the fall. I did some spring cleanup, but not enough, so, it's REALLY BAD. Weeds, overgrown beds and shrubs, a couple of dead small trees. I just didn't have the willpower last year. I want to "put it to bed" for the winter in good shape.

[Open Eyes]

Mowtown, That's very good that you got something accomplished today. It is very easy to get drawn into the PTSD. It is much better if you do something "productive" if you can, that helps you regain a sense of empowerment. You don't want to get so you are re-establishing bad feelings about yourself while you are working through your history and "healing".

Remember, the healing is about mourning however, it is also about "reclaiming yourself too".

OE

[JaneC]

Ugh I hate the dreams. Most often I luckily do not remember all of the content, but wake up startled or terrified and not knowing where I am, just feeling afraid. Then the dreams I do remember almost always involve running from someone/thing, trying to hide, trying to protect myself or my little boy or feeling humiliated in some way because of fear of being "found out". I feel exhausted and tired and wishing I could stay in bed all day.

I dont though. I have a gorgeous little boy to look after and a job that I am passionate about(intellectually passionate, struggle to get really emotionally passionate right now), and it pays the bills! lol

Wish the dreams would not come back to me during the day though.