Restless, angry dreams

Over the past 2 weeks, I have been restless angry dreams toward the man who abandoned me 4 years ago. It seems impossible to me that I could still have such submerged feelings, and I hate it that they sandbag me at night, when I am defenseless.

We had two dogs, and when he left me, he suddenly stopped being the "dogfather" and it was all my responsibility. One dog was young and needed to go to a farm, and went to a superb home. The other was a mutt and neurotic. She started chewing doorframes during thunderstorms without a companion. Paul found a home for her with a friend in Alburquerque. But within a few months, she'd been run over by a car and killed.

My dreams are about wanting to scream at him that it's his fault this happened. It isn't really, though, because she had been a feral dog and was an escape artist. I went to great lengths to keep her safe; I never would have left her tied up in a front yard in the city, like his friends did, though.

I promised her, when she was a feral puppy I found on the streets and so scared, that I would always keep her safe. She's the only dog I ever had that died under the wheels of a car, and I feel so guilty that I didn't keep my promise to her.

And these feelings that come up at night -- they practically cause seizures in my chest. I hate it.

((((wants2fly))) I think that these things are coming out in your dreams now, are good? Your brain is trying to file them away for you. Try and "allow" them, when they distress you, make a positive remark if you can, to yourself. "Yes, that shows how mean he was, or Ok, but that's not the way things are now, I'm doing ok." TC

I have a cat that was found as a kitten on a shelf in my next door neighbor's garage. My neighbors were in their 80s (now 90s) and already had two cats and cried because they couldn't figure out where she came from and couldn't keep her and were going to have to take her to the pound. I couldn't stand to see this adorable animal go to the pound nor to see my neighbor, whom I love, cry



but my kitten was mostly feral but desperately wanted love at the same time; she cried to be touched but ran if you reached out or moved suddenly. I took her to the vets and the too-small plastic flea collar was taken off and she was covered in fleas and had worms, etc. She was/is very "sensitive" and had trouble with what she could eat. She turned out to be clingy and I'm allergic so I got another kitten :-) a month younger than she, to keep her company. She tried very hard to kill him. Now they are 5-1/2 years old and tolerate one another well :-)

I made the same promises you did Wants2fly, to keep her safe. I named her after my great grandmother whom I never knew but wish I did/is my favorite relative. I wish I had been named after her. But now I live in a tiny townhouse and am retired and my husband wants to do a lot of long-term travel. I love my kitties and whenever I think of the relatives I "could" give them to who would like them (especially the "other" kitty who couldn't be any sweeter) I just can't do it. No one particularly wants my little girl because she's not "easy" and friendly. But I identify with her. . .

My mother died/"abandoned" me when I was 3. I believe we work things through with our dreams, our pets, with each person we meet. I use to dream about cockroaches all the time and cleaning my old apartment in the City I lived in from 1973-1986. Over and over; it only went away recently, was related to therapy. Last week I dreamed about bugs but they were mostly silverfish :-) and the feeling I use to have when I dreamed about the roaches wasn't there. I still don't know what "the" dream was about (it was always slightly different, wasn't a recurring dream, just similar "items" and scenario), am glad it is gone, but I'm strangely glad too that I had it all those years?

Don't have a clue where I'm going with this Wants2fly :-) but I think I understand. I hope you work something through, figure something out, get left alone instead of having the horrible dreams. I think if they were mine I'd do a little yelling at the old boyfriend for leaving you and giving the dog away and a little forgiving of myself for "breaking" my promise to keep the dog safe. We're not gods and we did love the animals and keep them safe when they were in our care but, like children, they have their own destiny? Early in my care of the cat I knew from 1986-2000, I feel I was abusive. During our long relationship together, I was working in therapy with the issues I had with my abusive stepmother. Toward the end of my cat's life I "knew" he had come into my life for a reason and what a blessing he was. I don't think your wonderful puppy died "in vain"?

sometimes I do think of calling or writing the Ex with an angry tirade -- but as one of my friends has said -- he doesn't deserve to know how much he hurt me. I had my say 4 years ago -- and I was more cussed to him than I've ever been to any person in my life -- thanks to working with a therapist, I finally believed that I had as much right as any person on earth to express how I felt to this man who had made so made promises that were lies in his mouth when the going got tough.

Yes, Perna, I had a very similar experience to yours taming my little feral dog. She was very ill when I found her. She wanted attention desperately -- but so desperately that she could not hold her body still for it. So wrhen she was sleeping, I would lie next to her and feel her heart next to mine and croon promises to her about love, and my promises to her. I called her "the dog of my heart" because of this strong heart connection to her.

I would not have placed her in another home, but she had already injured her teeth, breaking off both canines with the excessive storm neurosis.

Last night, I dreamed she was alive and we were playing, but then she morphed into a dog that only looked a bit like her.

Have had a couple of nights without these troubling dreams. Phew.

Okay, so I know this thread is kind of like one of those blogs that only the person posting visits -- about 99% of all blogs apparently

But I had an interesting experience yesterday that put these dreams in perspective:

Whenever similar information crops up twice or three times in my little world, I assume the Universe is trying to tell me something. Yesterday, the places for the message were Estes' [i]Woman who run with the wolves{/i] and a church group. The idea was that even though we can think we have worked through negative emotions surrounding some scarring event, the truth is that being human means that it's going to crop up again and again.

I have indeed noticed in the past that life seems to be like a spiral, and each instance of some experience or learning is like looking out on the same vista by from a place higher up, as if one is ascending a spiral staircase in a castle tower, with only a few turret windows.

It's also interesting to me that once I can make sense of [b]why[i/] or what something means, I am less distressed by it.

Wants, i've been divorced 16 years. it killed me.....just like you. i still have these horrid, horrid dreams where i'm trying to get him back and the outcome is humiliating and embarrassing.....i don't think it's that unusual where you've really been traumatized, as we were.......love you, pat

Thank you for responding, Pat. Yes, there is an element of finding such dreams embarrassing and humiliating when one thinks one has "taken care of" all negative emotions.