[jnt1989]

So, last night I had the weirdest dream. I just can't get it out of my head!

It was the middle of the night and I was in the house I grew up in. I had something in my hand that I thought was bologna or something at first. Then suddenly I realized it was the skin off my feet? I don't know. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe it was bandages off my feet? Could have been. It was very confusing. Anyway, I wrapped it up in paper towel so nobody would see it and threw it in the trash. And I remember thinking that I had literally peeled the skin off my feet... And when I looked at them, they were covered in clear oozy stuff. It reminded me of what my burns and scratches always looked like after taking a shower. So, I go upstairs and try to sneak in my room to get bandages for my feet. I'm walking really slowly and easily so I won't hurt my feet. But when I got in my room my sister woke up and kept asking questions. It was almost pitch black in there and she kept saying my feet looked weird and asking me why and why did I need bandages and such. I kept trying to get her to hand them to me and quit asking questions. And my feet started getting sore and then I woke up.

When I woke up, I felt...sad? Kind of? I wanted to cry, but didn't have that feeling like I was going to cry. The whole dream, especially the look of my feet, made me want to scratch or burn or...well, anything that would look that way eventually.

I just can't get it out of my head! I feel very uneasy about it and confused. I kind of have an uneasy, queasy feeling thinking about the whole ordeal now.

[Perna]

Interesting dream jnt989! Thanks for sharing it.

That you were in the house you grew up in with your sister means the dream was probably about that period of time growing up. We are supposed to be all the people in our dream so your sister was some questioning aspect of you. When did you start scratching/burning? Are you in therapy? Could be you were recently thinking about or working on issues related to these things and questioning them.

I like that you took off the old, soiled bandages and threw them away but it seems like you were disgusted rather than concerned for your feet and wanting to care for them? It is like they are not a part of you, like the bandages, and you do not want to acknowledge them, emphasized by trying to get your sister to shut up and just give you more bandages to cover the problem instead of perhaps turning on the light and discovering what is truly going on and trying to soothe/help it so it can heal completely.

At first I thought your feet were "new" skin and expressed healing because the bandages seemed "opposite" to the impression I got of them without but then you wanted to cover them again and they were oozing and the darkness and problems with your sister, etc.

I do think you are expressing an inner conflict of where-to-go now (and your "feet" would take you there, make you mobile) and that makes you anxious, hence wanting to scratch/burn after you wake.

[jnt1989]

I started self harming when I was 18, and we lived in the house we do now. It was my senior year of high school. I dream about being in our old house a lot though. I guess maybe I think of it as home more than I do this one? I don't know.
I am in therapy. She's been trying to get me to talk about my childhood more, but I don't think there's anything to say about it. I did write about how I felt about myself growing up and something that my dad did that I didn't like in my journal (which was when we were kids sharing a room in the old house).
I don't think it was so much that I was disgusted with them. I was trying not to hurt them walking on the carpet, but was trying to hide them so that noone would see what I had done. I always tried to hide my self injury even when my parents and some other friends and family found out. I still tried to hide it from them.
I am trying to figure out where to go now in a way. T keeps asking me if I really want help from her because I apparently don't try anything she suggests. Which I'll admit I only try about half of what she suggests, but I just don't see how the other half will help me any. And she's trying to get me to make goals for myself and get me motivated and stuff but I just don't get it. I mean, what's the big deal if I don't have plans for my life or what I want out of life? Why does she care if I don't know what I want to do with my life? I'm just now seeing things settle down from my tics being so bad (I recently found out I have tourette) and everything is just starting to feel normal after always having doc appointments and such. I mean, I'm 22, and I live with my parents. I can't afford to move out right now. Things are just now starting to settle down, and no, I don't have plans or know what I want out of life or what I want to do in life. Is that such a bad thing?!?!

[Perna]

Not having some idea of which direction you want to start out in is not a good thing because the alternative is just "sitting". And one can't sit still, one is either going toward something or getting further away from anything. The less you do, the harder it is to do anything. Everything takes "practice" (including setting goals and working on them) and if you aren't doing anything at all, there will come a day when you literally "can't" because the effort required will be beyond you.

It's like I'm faced with now; I'm 61 and my muscles are atrophying and unless I work with that, I'll be sitting/bed ridden sooner rather than later?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4502862.stm

The difficulties one faces, one has to keep working on/with, not to "cure" them necessarily but just to slow them so you get the maximum benefit of the time you have. No, I'm not going to join "Biggest Loser" and exercise 5 hours a day the rest of my life because my payback, at this stage, would not make that worth it, even if it were something I really enjoyed doing (which I do not :-) But you are young so your payback for "doing" is much greater now than it will be in the future.

[jnt1989]

Thanks Perna. I do understand what you're saying and it helps me understand why T's pushing me so hard to make goals and plans. I still don't't really understand why it's such a bad thing and why it's 'not normal' for me to not want what I wanna do with my life or what I want out of life.

Anyway, I had another stupid dream last night. I was in church and my friend's little sister (who I know self-injured for a while) gets on and starts talking about how she had a really bad day that week and wanted to cut her finger off. I was like, what?!?! And she kept going on about how she used to self-injure and used to be suicidal (which I don't know if she ever was for real or not). But her talking about it so openly and so realisticly bothered me so bad, but I wanted to hear what she had to say. I left when she quit talking about it and started singing some song. I went and sat in the bathroom for a long time trying to get myself to just quit thinking about it.
Then I started dreaming about aliens, so I wasn't upset when I woke up like with the other dream... Lolz!

[jnt1989]

I don't really remember anything about the dream, but I dreamt something about SI again... I just wish I could stop dreaming about it. It's really starting to make me mad.

[jnt1989]

Oh my gosh! I just randomly remembered what I dreamed last night!
I was at the college I attended for a couple of semester, and I suddenly, like had no clue what the heck I was doing and I'm pretty sure I SI'd right there in public. And I ended up having to take time off school because I was apparently really badly ill. Well, next thing I know, I'm walking up to the office of one of my teachers (who was always really great and understanding about my tourette and everything) and told him I was back, but I'd be a little late for class because I had to see the on campus counselor and psych. Like, it was a mandatory thing that I was told in my dream I had to do if I went back. So, I go and I sit down with one of them and they ask me some really dumb questions. I don't remember what they were, but they were absolutely irrelevant to the situation. After they asked like 10 or so irrelevant questions, they told me that if I was coming back, I would have to have my regular psych give written and oral permission to them AND I would have to come back for further evaluation. I was like, what the heck? So, I took it as I couldn't come back yet. I was upset and it made me want to SI in my dream AGAIN! So, when I woke up, all I remembered was that I had SI'd in my dream and been triggered.

This is getting really stupid.

[Perna]

It could be you are dreaming this all the time because issues related to why you SI or the SIing itself is what you are working on? I know I dreamed for 10-15 years about my old apartment where I lived alone before I was married and I was always cleaning it (depressing because I'd wake up feeling great because my environs were cleaned and then find they were not :-) and, extremely depressing for I don't know what reason to this day, I would dream there about cock roaches in the apartment (there were when I was living there) and they always made me feel hopeless.

I dreamed this dream throughout therapy and eventually, toward the end of therapy it went away like several of my other symptoms. So, maybe your dream is just a symptom helping you in some way; frustrating, I know, but try to be "grateful" for it, just sigh and shrug?

[jnt1989]

Yeah, Idk... I dreamed last night about being admitted to a psych ward. It's weird. I see T thursday and I'm gonna talk to her about the dreams then. Its just really frustrating...especially when I had the one and then woke up triggered. It was horrible. I just don't know...