Setting the stage
All through these years, I was doing a lot of EMDR. Throughout 2018-2019, I had thirteen sessions of it. Those were the early years of releasing all the trapped emotions, and because there was such a huge well of them that needed to be addressed, we had to take it slowly. Because I had been abused so frequently and intensely for such a long duration, there were so many incidents we had to work on. And while part of me wanted to just empty everything all at once, that would not have been prudent. So instead, we had to work through them one at a time. We’d select an incident, work with that one, process the emotions around that event, then work to instill a positive belief statement in me by the end of the session. It was intense, meticulous, plodding work.
We spent 2020 discussing all the insights that had surfaced in those previous two years of work, which made things a bit calmer that year. But if I thought I was done, that was a mistake. It was just the calm before the storm of 2021 through 2023.
EMDR, Journal notes from 9/13/2021 session:
We discussed the rage I feel while driving. About when others cut me off or do something stupid. While it might seem like it’s about driving itself, or fear, or the loss of control, what it is REALLY about is wanting to “make them pay.”
About control, my therapist pointed out that when driving, I AM ALREADY in control the minute I put my hands on the wheel. I already have control to decide my actions in any moment – get off the exit, keep following the driver, turn around, slow down/speed up, stop. I AM IN CONTROL ALREADY.
The driving reactions when stuck behind someone, or they do something to me, are that I want to get even. It’s REALLY about: “How DARE you do that to me!… I will show you how wrong you are!… I will get even with you!!!” It’s about all the rage I feel at him and what he did to me BACK THEN. All are things directly related to him, what he did to me, how humiliating that capitulation felt, over and over and over again… It is about him….I want to make him pay.
Statements that came up in me were things like: “I HATE YOU! I want to fight you…hurt you. NOW! I want my chance to beat you and be in control.” Deep down, I still want to fight him, let him have it, and THIS TIME, WIN, not have to, yet again, capitulate…
There are “some” other bits mixed in: “this will never end, I am trapped, angry, no one is coming, I am abandoned, and yet again I have to fix it myself” and the rage at that abandonment.
It begins…
Journal notes: Nightmare just now – 9/15/2021 3 a.m.
This nightmare had such horrible, overwhelming fury and murderous rage it woke me out of a sound sleep. I felt so awful, I had to get up, write it down, and give that energy time to dissipate before I could sleep again. This was NO coincidence coming two days after Monday’s EMDR…
Nightmare:
This segment started with Dad and his fury… that same look and face of rage…the fisted hand raised up to hit me…
But I didn’t fold back in fear…not at all. Instead, I just started yelling as loudly as I could: “YOU DON’T TOUCH ME EVER AGAIN!!”
I stood up to physically block him and just kept yelling: “You don’t touch me! Don’t you dare touch me. You put that hand down! Touch me once, and I will have you in jail!!!”
Again and again I yelled: “This is my line in the sand! YOU DON’T TOUCH ME!!”
My emotion in this nightmare was of total FEARLESSNESS. I had absolutely no fear of him at all. Instead, this time, I was just ENRAGED and fiercely DETERMINED. This dream was all about, “I’m in control and setting the rules. And from here on, there was no question but that my rules were the way it was going to be.
The scene then shifted, and I was an adult talking to a friend. I explained to her that while I was abused by him (?as an adult?), I discovered that even worse, he was constantly and always abusing this young child (the young me?). I was FURIOUS as I described what he did to that child and said it was even worse and longer duration than anything he did to “me” (adult) (???)
Then, raging, I captured him – Got him in my custody, physically…put him in a closet, along with the child. I told the child to watch him while I went to get “somebody” (??) and told my father to wait there and NOT do anything further to the child (why I did that I can’t explain). But when I came back, there was no sign of the child. I went through things hanging in the closet and found the child’s body?…or evidence the child was harmed, and I exploded. I was going to GET HIM, punish him, beat him to shreds, kill him. I was in a totally out-of-control MURDEROUS RAGE and just started pummeling him. Every fiber in me wanted to destroy him – literally smash him into a bloody pulp with nothing left…This was a totally, no-holds-barred explosion of rage, giving him every last ounce of a totally fury-filled beating, destroying his body.
The dream suddenly shifted again, and he was now a “hardcover book.” I kept picking it up and SMASHING it against the ground. I was determined to DESTROY that book, and I just kept slamming the book viciously down against the ground, trying to obliterate the hard covers and spines until there would be nothing left but a smashed-up pulp of a book. Over and over I flung the book against the ground, one hardcover side at a time, then the spine. I even searched for a sledgehammer to make the destruction even more vicious and complete but couldn’t find one. So WITH ALL MY MIGHT I JUST KEPT PICKING THE BOOK UP & SMASHING IT AGAINST THE HARD GROUND. Even with the snapping of that spine and covers, with nothing left but floppy, destroyed remnants of covers and torn flapping pages, the destruction complete, I still kept at it.
At this point, the absolute rage in this nightmare woke me up, and in that state, I didn’t want to go back to sleep yet. The intensity of the dream bothered me, and I did not want to return to that dream.
Reflection
Later that morning I shared it all with Ed, who noted the significance of my Father being a book. Ed said it was as if I was confronting and destroying everything about my father — his words, his beliefs, his indoctrination and teachings, his brainwashing, his being, everything from all those years. I totally blasted all of it…him, apart, and pummeled to shreds.
For many months after this, the nightmares continued off and on, but nothing like the intense fury of this one. It’s one thing to go to bed every night and know there will be some form of nightmare that is related to all the therapy work I was doing. I could handle those. But those nightmares of murderous rage really bothered me. So I was relieved that they seemed to subside, at least in their intensity, even as I continued with more EMDR sessions.
And then, there was 2023
The Christmas holidays of 2023 were uncomfortable to say the least. Something about the holiday season was triggering constant emotional flashbacks. STRONG anxiety, that sense that I was a bad person, and tons of sadness, pain, and despair.
I was relieved that the nightmares had been quiet over the last few months despite all the therapy and EMDR work. But December brought them back with a vengeance.
Journal notes: Nightmare – 12/30/2023
I started having many nightmares again of snakes, and of being caught in many places on the road behind people blocking me completely in traffic. The dreams had me trapped so that I couldn’t even move, leaving me screaming in the car and me blowing the horn unceasingly.
Given nightmares during sleep and flashbacks during the day, I was soooo ready for the holidays to be over. I figured the nightmares might subside once we moved back to normal routines. But mid-January brought a new level of horror, especially one night that seemed to go on forever. I’d wake up, fall asleep, and continue to another round of nocturnal terror and rage…
Journal notes: Nightmares – 1/12/2024
It was a dream overloaded with Cobras in an area that was a cross between a desert and a place with scorpions, venomous creatures, and a swamp. All around me, there were group after group of multiple, coiled, writhing venomous snakes — ESPECIALLY Cobras….SO much danger all around me!
Then the dream shifted, and I was back driving again. I was on various highways, trying to get around people who were outright blocking lanes…ESPECIALLY ONE OLD MAN in front of me as I was trying to merge onto another highway at 80 mph. I had to literally almost stop because he was mostly on one side but still in my lane and just CRAWLING; even a cop coming up on the highway behind me had to pass both of us.
At some point I saw that the old man was Dad, and there was another person in the car with him – I don’t know who. Mom? But in the dream, whoever it was seemed insignificant – which means it probably WAS Mom because she was insignificant in life, whether in protecting me or as viewed by him. I was SO ANGRY all of a sudden because yet again, here was DAD — HE’S HOLDING ME BACK – TAKING MY LIFE, MY TIME…MY LIFE IS BEING WASTED!!!
And as an aside – that is what I feel about slow drivers now – they are slowing me down, stopping me and wasting my time, my day, my chance to do the things I want to, or need to do. They are preventing me from getting to what matters, and again I am losing my life to another.
But just as quickly, the dream went back to Cobras:
It started immediately after seeing all those cobras and dangers all over that threatening landscape. There was a cobra in front of me, and I grabbed it – got it by the head – and was holding the flaps close against its head. For the moment I felt we were all safe because I’ve got it controlled (I didn’t think about the fact that cobras can spit into your eyes and can blind you; or that if their venom gets in an open wound, it can still harm you).
I started getting scared because I knew I couldn’t hold it forever. It was like riding a tiger: how do I get rid of it safely and get away from it? I also suddenly realized I had my son with me and I needed to tell him not to touch anything and be careful.
For a moment, the snakes morphed into stinging jellyfish. I crushed one with my shoe, but it stuck to my shoe, and I was having trouble getting free of it. At that same moment, it went back to its cobra form and was now following us, HUNTING US, RELENTLESSLY, AND GAINING ON US!
I smacked it, and it lay there, but I was not sure if it was dead. I told my friend who was with me, “If it’s still here when I get back, then that snake is ‘history.’” She agreed.
In a few moments, I was there with her, her dog, my son, and “others in the background,” and the snake was coming right at us. An OVERWHELMING sense of PROTECTIVE MOTHER RAGE filled me, and I EXPLODED.
With every last bit of energy I had, I grabbed a nearby pool cue stick, and I started to ram it again and again and again into the snake’s mouth. I knew if it got free, it would get us, and I WAS NOT GOING TO LET IT GET US AGAIN! I WAS GOING TO OBLITERATE IT!
IT WAS A HORROR SCENE! I KEPT THINKING – I HAVE TO KEEP SHOVING THE STICK INTO THE SNAKE! PINNING IT BY THE HEAD.
BUT IT PUSHED BACK SO STRONGLY I HAD TO FIGHT BACK EVEN MORE FORCEFULLY. BUT IT WASN’T CLEAR I WAS GOING TO WIN, AND I NEEDED TO USE EVERY LAST BIT OF ENERGY, UNENDING, PUSHING THE STICK, CRUSHING THE SKULL – HEARING BONES CRACK AND CRUNCH AND STILL I HAD TO KEEP PUSHING IT. I COULDN’T BELIEVE HOW MUCH FORCE I HAD TO BRING TO BEAR.
BUT I WAS SO OVERWHELMED WITH PROTECTIVE MATERNAL RAGE, FORCE, AND POWER, THAT I COULDN’T AND WOULDN’T STOP. I JUST KEPT SMASHING THAT SKULL UNTIL FLUIDS AND BLOOD STARTED TO SQUIRT OUT OF EVERYWHERE AND MORE BONES CRUNCHED. I JUST DIDN’T DARE STOP UNTIL THERE WAS NOTHING LEFT.
I felt such a huge mother rage surging through me, a channeling of such protective energy. In that moment all I could think of was:
“KILL IT AT ALL COSTS FOR THEM! I AM THE MOTHER AND KIDS AND DOGS ARE THERE, AND I AM GOING TO PROTECT THEM! I NEED TO MAKE SURE THE “KIDS” ARE SAFE, SO HE CAN NEVER THREATEN ANYONE AGAIN!”
It took me a LONG TIME, and ALL MY ENERGY AND RAGE, BUT I WASN’T GOING TO STOP UNTIL IT WAS TOTALLY DESTROYED!
The others were all in the background just watching, until it was clear that all were safe. By then I had no energy left, having used it all up. I was beyond exhausted and had used up all my adrenaline. Looking at the snake, it was finally no longer a threat because there was NOTHING LEFT BUT MUSH.
Reflections
At that point in the dream, I just stayed up. I didn’t dare go back to sleep. The next day I felt scared, anxious, unsafe. I didn’t want to do these paintings, but I felt driven to.
When I looked at them, I felt totally NAUSEATED and wanted to throw up. And this sick feeling went on for days. Even the images of the pool cues scared me. Then the “metaphors” came to mind.
A couple of years ago, Ed had noted about the snakes in my dreams that I had never cut off their heads. But then, cutting off a snake head is dangerous, as they can still bite and envenomate.
But in this dream, I CRUSHED it to bloody pulp. Full rage. Full determination that it would never strike me again and that only by bludgeoning it to mush could I be sure it could never hurt anyone else ever again…most especially, never hurt any kids. I had FINALLY fought AND destroyed the snake.
The other two things that came to mind were about powerful mother figures, and “beating the guys at pool.” I had learned to play pool in college and was very good at it. In fact, I often beat many of the guys when I ran the table. Back then, the guys seemed to think girls couldn’t play and just by virtue of being male, they should win. So the pool cue was my crushing blow to male ego….dicks. I had to wonder about the use of the pool cue as my weapon against the snakes.
And as for the powerful mother figure – all the years I was raised Catholic, most statues of the Mother Mary had her PINNING THE SNAKE FROM THE GARDEN OF EDEN WITH HER FOOT AND CRUSHING IT. I had always looked to Mary as that “Mother force” that was missing in my life. She had been my replacement mother.
Even more strangely, when I studied Buddhism, the monk gave me the name “Auspicious Tara,” the compassion goddess, who is essentially the Buddhist version of Mary. Then when I converted to Judaism, I took the name Ruth, the woman who refused to leave her mother-in-law’s side, but remained with her, loyal and protective. I had always wanted to protect my mother but couldn’t. However, in my dreams, I felt this overpowering protective maternal energy that could protect them all – friends, kids, mothers, everyone…from that SNAKE.
But as bad as this night was…the nightmares weren’t done with me yet.
They just kept coming
Journal notes: NEXT NIGHT – 1/13/2024 – MORE Nightmares:
I was circling through the airport building trying to get somewhere. I kept walking the same path again and again, including walking by my Christmas tree in our house, over and over. Then, there were more driving images where I was trying to get past blockages, then back again walking through the airport trying to get past people.
This dream went right into the following scene:
For some reason, I had climbed a ladder…or set of stairs… and had my dog with me. When I got to the top, I let my pet dog go first, but I forgot that there were missing steps/rungs that were always there, and that no one had fixed yet… we just always knew to “step over” them. Nobody seemed to care to fix them. And …I forgot.
The dog fell through the hole and fell 2 stories to the concrete basement floor. I was horrified and was screaming and running down to her, convinced the dog was bloody, broken, smashed, and that I had killed her. As I screamed and ran, I kept waiting to hear the “splat. We all just kept screaming. Terror. Guilt for not realizing the dog would fall through the hole. Horror at how badly it might be hurt.
When I got down to her, I was relieved to see she had no apparent damage outside, no broken legs. But I kept asking everyone, “Shouldn’t we go to the vet? Might she have bad, hidden, internal injuries?”
Yet everyone else was satisfied the dog LOOKED okay and said let’s not worry about it. Just shrug it off instead of going to the vet to make sure there were no internal injuries. I was horrified and upset. But then I woke up.
Reflections
I had few insights about that nightmare, except for the broken stairs that no one cared to fix. And no one thought we needed to do anything to make sure the dog was okay. That was another version of “Why wasn’t someone doing something about the abuse in our house?”
Was I the dog? As long as I looked okay on the outside, whatever damage was underneath didn’t matter? I had horrible “injuries and scars” underneath from him. But no one looked.
As to the rest, circling things…being stuck…Was it about my progress not being fast enough for me? Or that I circled back to the same things again and again?
It was also interesting that this was the very next night after the nightmare about smashing the snake head. Had that been real life, that act of fighting back against Dad could have gotten me killed. Even when I confronted him later in my life in adulthood, it was so hard and took everything I had.
Aside from these thoughts, I had no other clues. I only knew that the past few weeks over those holidays had really done a job on me. It was exhausting, and I felt such fatigue and despair. The reverberations of the nightmares go on into the days afterward – you don’t just get up, brush them off, and “go grocery shopping” with a spring in your step. And the fact that they just kept coming didn’t help.
One last round
There was one last short nightmare that “closed out” this round of them.
Journal notes: Nightmare – 1/20/2024
Another nightmare – very short – with a snake. Copperhead or cobra, not sure. Big snake. But this time, as I reached into the woodpile and it came at me, I was able to evade being bitten. And I was quickly able to pull it off my hand and toss it aside. I don’t think I was bitten.
Reflection
However bad the last month had been with all these nightmares, this last one seemed to be both “anti-climactic” and a “victory” of sorts. It was as if on some level of my psyche, I had crossed over to a whole new emotional place.
My whole reaction in this dream was almost “bored indifference” to the snake. My demeanor when confronted by it in the wood pile was just to “grab it, toss it aside, and verify it hadn’t touched me…”
Up next…
Rage, Part 3 – What Do I Want Now?
Soul Mosaic 
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