TRIGGER WARNING – DESCRIPTIONS OF FEAR AND VIOLENCE IN NIGHTMARE DESCRIPTIONS
Unaware
I didn’t know it at the time, but bubbling deep beneath my surface was a huge, roiling well of trauma. And it would be another 10 years, with events in 2006-2009, before it would surface and blow me apart. Until then, I would live “unaware.”
I was unaware that my intense fear reaction to my father’s “look” in the hotel that day was an emotional flashback. I didn’t know there was even such a thing.
I was unaware that the intense anxiety I always felt on Saturdays and Sundays were “body memories.”
I was unaware that the rage that would flare up in me instantaneously if someone held me back even gently, or if my shirt got caught on a doorknob, was a reaction to past abuse.
I was unaware that my intense fear of darkness, of driving on dark, rainy nights, of inexplicable body pain or tension, or a deep sense of foreboding in unexpected moments, were trauma reactions to “things only my body remembered and knew why.”
And I was unaware that there was even a thing called “trauma,” much less something called PTSD.
I will write more about these in the next book section about what I’ve learned over the years, and what it all meant.
But at that time, I was unaware because I was too busy taking care of life. And because medical science itself was only starting to understand all of this.
If there was any hint or premonition of the trauma reaction to come, it was in my nightmares. They really ramped up in this period, with many recurring scenes and themes. While nightmares continue to this day, which I will write about later, there is one difference now — the nature of them. Now, they have evolved to give me more power and let me fight back. The ones in the 1990s until very recently, though, were all about being the victim.
Sleep was no respite
My journal notes from December of 1995 relate dreams of darkness, dismembered bodies, and scenes of my past sexual abuse, laden with shame, guilt, need, and no escape. Snakes started to appear, harbingers of danger. Along with knives and axes.
There were dreams of dark rooms filled with a sense of foreboding and an evil presence. And everywhere, shadowy figures.
And there were many dreams of being unclothed, looking for bathrooms, and only finding ones that were broken, closed, or out in the open.
Also, I had many, and still do, of trying to call someone on the phone, but being unable to dial it right, find the number, or get the call to connect.
The other characteristics of my nightmares were that they were in locations that felt “familiar,” and they frequently started out with a full-angle view of things. But in the most critical moment, the scene would suddenly zoom in on some specific detail that filled my whole view.
The overpowered victim
Many of the nightmares of this time period were about being attacked, unable to get help, or in a place where I was about to be overwhelmed.
On that last one, which I still have to this day, I am driving on roads near or almost in the ocean waves. Walls of water are racing up, swirling all around me, and I am about to be swept away.
As to the former themes:
For years, I had a recurring dream of being alone on a rainy, dark street in the middle of the night, being chased by a lone, shadowy man with a knife.
Another recurring dream had several variations, all set in a house that was supposed to be “home.”
They almost always involved an “upstairs” where I could literally feel an intense evil presence, and I had deep fear to go up there. There was a sense that something terrible happened up there, or was about to.
One time, my father was behind the door with an ax. Another time, I watched as the “unseen” evil presence went from room to room, axing people. I could see what was happening and felt what the victim felt, but I wasn’t the perpetrator or the victim. I was the “camera.” And in one of those, I actually met the killer face-to-face. I knew because I saw it in his eyes.
The most intense version of this “house” dream was set in the actual apartment where I grew up. In the dream, my husband and I were sleeping in the spot my parents would have been, and our son was in my old bedroom. Ed woke up and saw a man heading for our son’s room, so we raced to stop him. But I got separated from Ed. Alone, I headed for my old bedroom. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a dark figure raced full speed at me, rapidly swelling in size until it loomed over and overwhelmed me. All around me was a sense of pure evil.
No one cares
A version of those same “house” dreams ended with the sense that no one cared, and I was on my own.
In that nightmare, I went up into the darkness, again feeling total terror and the presence of evil. Suddenly, I felt someone behind me, very close, breathing. I couldn’t move at first, but finally was able to turn and attack it. I stabbed at it with a sharp, ornately decorated letter opener. I killed the evil person, but the next day, when being questioned by the police, I was aware that the rest of the family in that house was indifferent to my situation. They were glad I took care of it, but then went on as if nothing happened and with no concern for what would happen to me.
One nightmare with a more realistic setting was my trying to get my family to accompany me to a therapy appointment. They kept stalling until we were late. At the same time, I had to push a heavy file cabinet to the appointment and up a set of stairs. No one would help, and no matter how much I yelled for them to hurry up, we never made it to the appointment until the time was over.
Feeling I harmed what I loved
This dream came shortly after the intense last confrontation with my family, when I wrote the article about my father abusing me. I had tried to help the family, but all it did was blow up.
In the dream, for some reason, the situation required that I kill our pet hamster, whom I loved. I don’t know why, but it had to be done. I didn’t want to, and I knew he trusted me. So I tried to make it fast and painless, but failed. Instead, he died slowly in agony and pain, looking at me as if to say, “These hands that used to stroke and snuggle me and that I trusted…look what you did to me!” Even as I wrote this in my journal, I felt like throwing up.
Was this a very early real memory?
The most realistic dream…if it was a dream — I cannot say if it was a dream, or a mix of dreams and early memory — but it showed up in my journal entries from 1995-1997 more than once. In it, the victim switches between my son and me in that role. At times, I am that observing “camera” again.
3/30/95
I am in our old house, in a sibling’s bedroom. I have the sense that something has been done to me/my son. The doctor is there to examine one of us, and I have this feeling that finally, there will be proof of what Dad has been doing.
Mom is there, not believing. I am watching as the doctor does the examination….I (or my son) am about 4-5 years old. The view suddenly zooms in on a vagina….the doctor says that it has been opened up. My mother doesn’t think this is possible as the vagina is too small and says it can’t be done, but the Dr says it is so. I have the sense my mother can’t/won’t understand that this is possible. Dr asks …what my dad does with his penis, and now it is my son answering. He says my father puts it in a little bit and pushes back and forth – so the doctor knows this had to have happened because either one of us, as the victim, is too young to know about this unless it happened.
My mother is still puzzled, and I remember explaining to her (I am the adult observer at this point), with frustration at her ignorance, that of course he could. She was angry because he felt it necessary to get off like that…like it was some sort of shortcoming in him, and she almost seemed familiar with the act, like it wasn’t the first time he did this. But there was no anger that her child had been violated.
Later in the dream, we are in the doctor’s office, and he is telling my mother that I have been abused – there is skin trauma there. My mother is horrified and can’t imagine who would do that
What sustained me?
In the next section of the book, which will be coming soon, and where I make sense of my questions and share the things I have since learned, I will write more about nightmares, trauma processing, and my healing. The dreams are much different these days, but they took years to evolve into my taking charge and claiming my power.
For now, I will focus on completing this section of the book — “The Old Country” — which is my life story. And for now, I will simply say that I feel these dreams were my subconscious trying to hold and process so much trauma that was there beneath the surface. I think the nightmares were the only tool my subconscious had then to try to manage it all.
Looking back at everything I’ve shared in this “Warrior” section — all the things Ed and I were dealing with in those years ourselves, then the family confrontations, and finally all the trauma I was carrying even as I was unaware of it, I found myself wondering: HOW did I sustain?
Because by this point, I was approaching middle-age and growing weary. I no longer felt like the fierce, strong warrior. More like one who’d been through one too many battles. And I was at a loss for what to do anymore with my father and his “system.”
So, next up – what sustained me.
Soul Mosaic 
Leave a comment