Before I get into the “Teshuvah time” that I mentioned in the last post, I need a moment to talk about “dreams.”
Buried alive
For a lot of 2017, I was really busy. Between my treasured work teaching kids in a science museum, and helping with visits to see Mom, I was finishing up my book about another love – my fifty years of visits to Colonial Williamsburg, the reconstructed Revolutionary War capital of Virginia.
But in the quiet moments…things were coming alive. Things that had waited a lifetime, but that were growing impatient. And while my days might be too busy to allow many random thoughts to creep in, the nights were another matter.
For a lot of my early adulthood, I hadn’t had a lot of nightmares, maybe because my daytimes were enough of ones themselves. Still, there were some — memories of abuse, and they were never pleasant.
After my father died, they increased. And about the time I decided to undertake this deeper therapy, they showed up with a vengeance, becoming a regular occurrence.
They were ugly…really ugly. Disturbing, shame-filled portrayals of “something” that was buried alive within me. Sometimes, I would thrash around and talk in my sleep. My husband was aware that it happened, though he couldn’t make out what I was saying, given my CPAP mask. Except for one night very recently, when I yelled REALLY loudly…something I’d never done before. But I’ll get to that later.
He just said that the sounds coming out of me, and through that mask, had an “otherworldly” haunting quality. Which was appropriate since those dreams were filled with the ghosts of my past. It was my subconscious trying desperately, I think, to “flush the cesspool of my memory” and process things still trapped and unfinished.
I guess I wasn’t surprised. I was “poking the monster” in a big way now, so, of course, nIghtmares would become my regular companion. It can be a common occurrence in people with severe trauma, whether from a some terrible accident, a combat battlefield…or a domestic one. What does surprise me, though, is how they have evolved over the years, and in ways I consider very significant. I’ll come back to that.
In any event, while I initially tried to do my “healing work” in an orderly, “cerebral” way, my subconscious wasn’t having that silliness. It made it very clear with those nightmares…and it was just getting started.
Still the victim
Those “nocturnal visitors” were constant replays of my abuse. Real. Detailed. Emotional. Recurring images of the same things.
Over and over, night after night, I was trapped in bed with him, unable to prevent his advances or even muster the ability to try. He would molest me at will. And the worst part in those dreams was being reminded that my body responded.
Those dreams left me drenched with guilt, shame, disgust, and most especially, despair. I felt so filthy…and I blamed myself in them. In the dreams, it was a confusing mix. Sometimes I was a child, sometimes I was an adult with normal sexual needs. No matter what, my only option was him. I had no hope of escape, and even if I did, who would want me? In those dreams, I felt hopeless that I could fight him or find a way out. I absolutely loathed myself.
Sometimes in those nightmares, my mother was there in the bed, but a shadow in the background. And he would actually climb over her and have his way with me. I would feel appalled…at both of them. But all I could do was comply.
Occasionally, these nightmares would alternate with ones where I tried to reach out across the decades to an old boyfriend to see if he would come back, or ones where I found a new boyfriend. Each time, I hoped one of them might become a soulmate and help me escape. But it never worked. The old boyfriend never came back. And the new ones never stuck around.
In another variant, I would revisit the house I grew up in, especially my grandparents’ apartment. Sometimes a grandparent would be there, “sort of,” but not really. More like a ghostly presence. And the apartment was a cold, cob-webbed, and emotionally-barren shell, as if to remind me that those people and that time were gone.
The taste of freedom, denied
In a few, I had actually managed to get out of that house and live in my own place…just as I had finally been able to do in real life. But in my nightmares, something always went wrong, usually financially, that would require me to move back home. Then, for whatever reason, I could never get out again. THOSE were the worst, because in them I’d had a taste of freedom, and then it was taken from me. Even now, I can feel the emotional devastation.
Additionally, even though in all of them I wanted to be free, I had the overwhelming sense in every one that I was wrong and bad for even trying to have my own life. I wasn’t supposed to do that…I had no right to do that.
So sleep was no respite. Just night after night of more failure, guilt, shame, disgust, and hopelessness. And in the dreams, I was still the victim. All the things coming up were sensations and emotions I must have felt during the abuse, things I’d consciously blocked for so long….until now.
Caught in two worlds
The mornings were tough. I would get up and carry that energy into the day for a few hours, feeling like I was still “back there.” Finally, the present-moment requirements of my job would distract me enough to bring me back to the “now” and let me shake off that blanket of shame. It was like living in two worlds, both of them very much alive and real. Then at night, I would go to bed and wonder what fresh hell would arrive.
As time went on, as I finally embraced and ripped open all those locked-up emotions and stopped fighting them, the dreams became more vivid, energized, and even violent. For now, suffice it to say that over the course of years, they, and I, would change. I will be sharing that evolution in upcoming posts.
But given all of this, I accepted that it was time for some serious self-reflection, emotional surrender, and the acceptance that the only way out was through…or “down” into the abyss of that dark underworld.
In that moment, I would realize I needed to do something entirely different in my therapy. But first, there would be a reckoning with the “Teshuvah time” — a place where you had to return and turn back, before you could go forward.
Note:
I am seeking financial support to complete my memoir, work with an editor, and return home for fact-checking. Your help would mean the world to me as I take this step toward healing and giving voice to my journey.
Please like, comment, and share this post to help spread the word. The link for my fundraiser is on GoFundMe. Thank you for your support.
Soul Mosaic 
Leave a comment