Fuckin' Nightmares

Wednesday, May 4, 2022 - 8:00 PM

I had nightmares all last night. At the time, they didn't entirely feel like nightmares, even though I knew I should be, would normally be, flinching at the electric jolts of pain. I'm still feeling a lot of the numbness, distancing me from the touch of the nightmares, and the memories--previous times I'd assume I was fine, and get blindsided by the tsunami coming in later, but I know better now, and I know that this is just the water drawing back from the beach. It's not actually calm, or receded, it just looks like it.

It's funny that this nightmare could make me feel this way, that it could try to argue that I, I dunno, shouldn't hold my abuse against my abusers, or whatever bullshit conclusion you might want to draw from it alone, when only a few days ago I was hit with how much, and how thoroughly, and how many of my memories (all my memories?) just feel like shards of broken glass. I was never safe, and it's never gonna be okay.

The dream itself...it was about my dad. In it, I didn't really have access to the memories of the bad things about him, and my own abuse was minimized. Basically I was in a pocket dimension constructed to be the way your abusers gaslight the situation into being, where they're completely reasonable, and you're being unfair. And hurting them. Of course.

Basically, in the dream, which dream backfill said was apparently set in Michigan, I was in this restaurant's event space type thing after the event is over, and kinda trying to help pack up so everyone could leave (in one of those situations where you aren't actually responsible or required to help the people in charge, and don't really know what you're doing, but you want to help anyway and there's always small fiddly things to take care of to save the people who are dealing with the actually important stuff the time). And having my dad there trying to engage with me about how I left and that he's sad about it. I knew it was a dream, but couldn't wake up. Or else I had a few such dreams but they all kept dumping me back in with my dad. He was on decent behavior. I didn't really try to leave, more than shuffling around the room.

I dunno. That's me getting caught up in the weeds of the details. In the dream, he didn't really engage in some of the really shitty things I'd expect him to say or do in real life--didn't try to grab me, didn't do a lot of the emotional blackmail tactics. The point wasn't about living what it might actually be like, or what my experience of it would be. The point was what his point was. Which was that I "didn't give them a real chance," and that "I hurt them by leaving." It was about his pain, his grieving. Again, all his good traits were there. The gentle way he uses his hands. The tone of his voice. The fact that I could hear these words without having them completely rip me to shreds. I knew I had reasons, good reasons, for leaving. That I won't ever, ever go back. But the dream still wanted me to wonder. Forced me to wonder. It demanded that maybe I over-reacted. That I hurt this poor, kind man for nothing.

Fuck that. I lived that way for too damn long, shoving myself into a corner of myself, staying out of the way, tending their emotional needs--and letting them hurt me. I knew that relationship was a lost cause long ago, and just because I protected myself as best I could from further abuse while I was still trapped there doesn't mean I "Never gave them a real chance." They blew up every chance that came their way from the time I was Actually 15, and finally prepared to acknowledge that I wasn't being treated well. Just because I don't have clear memories of the number of traumas, and only have instances I've held onto for myself as evidence doesn't make it okay, and it certainly doesn't invalidate all the work I've been doing to learn how to not behave like I belong in a corner and am apparently too shameful to exist.

It's also super damning that the second after I "put aside" christianity I started to realize I should be treated better than I was, and that the anger and pain I hadn't really been aware of came forward to say, "LOOK. THIS IS REALLY FUCKED UP." I finally stopped trying to sever parts of myself, and finally allowed myself to experience anything without shame.

Fuckin' Nightmares - Sonic