Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 4 Comments

Dream Analysis #2


WARNING: Discussion of sexual abuse, pornography, and grooming. Also ambivalence regarding such. Triggery stuff for some.

I think i know this face. As soon as i saw it, i felt like my entire body was singing with electricity. There is a back story to this and i’ll try to tell what i can.

My mother fell in love (or whatever approximated love for her) with a married man. I remember him coming to the house and they would go to her room while i was watching telly. I knew, based on my already long history of abuse, that they were having sex, but my dissociative nature was just as well established, and so i didn’t mark it or think about it at all. After a time of him visiting us regularly, i found myself calling him “Daddy”, and he would talk to me before he retired (/s) to my mom’s bedroom. He started bringing me presents, too. Most often it was candy or chocolate, but he brought the occasional stuffie, too.

The day eventually came when they brought me back to my mother’s bedroom with them. Details aren’t necessary or helpful, but it’s important to state that things escalated exponentially from there. He drew my mother and i into a world of drugs and sexual abuse. I don’t know how she met him, but my guess is that it happened through her contacts with people she was selling/renting me to. A lot of this is guess work, so i might very well be wrong – this is just me trying to piece together my memories and make some sense from them. I guess that she loved him, because i never in my life witnessed anyone else being able to tell her what to do, or wield any sort of power over her. I have very clear memories of Daddy yelling at her, and her crying and begging his forgiveness. He forbade her from prostituting me to anyone. From what i recall, it would seem he’d already told her that, but she’d continued and he’d found out.
I just went from being used by her contacts to his.

He and my mother attended the same church. It was some weird, non-Christian religion that i won’t name. She told me i wasn’t allowed to talk to him at church, EVER, and there was an unnaturally sophisticated part of me that understood why. He sat with a woman, and 2 boys and 1 girl. I knew that was his wife and children. I’d heard her phone calls at night where she’d sob and shriek and beg at him.

I share this because i (sort of?) recognise the face of the man in my nightmare sending me chat requests. He looks younger than the man i called Daddy, and older than his oldest son. His oldest son started talking to me after services, when everyone went down to the basement for cake and coffee. He was older than me by a significant margin, but i don’t know how much. He was definitely at the tail end of puberty, and i was 5 or 6. I would always sit in a chair by the stairs that led back up to the main floor (to this day i always need to be near/facing the quickest means of exit), eating cake and drinking Tang or Kool-Aid. He started by bringing me a second piece of cake.

It was a savvy move, although i can’t be sure that he’d thought things out that craftily. I was starved on the regular, but i also knew if i ate more than 1 piece of cake that my mother would beat me when we got home. I only ever took 1 piece of cake/sweet bread/muffin/whatever after services. He’d sidle up to me with 2 or 3 on a napkin, exclaim he took too much, and hand me 1 of them without even asking. I thought he was handsome and smart and funny. He made me laugh and said i was a “cutie-pie.” He was my first crush. Well, maybe my second, because i was head-over-heels in love with my mother’s brother. It was utterly guileless and sweet and without any thought of kissing or boyfriend-girlfriend stuff… But yeah, that sort of lovely naive adoration.

My uncle never did anything even remotely untoward. My “Daddy’s” oldest son started in on me within weeks of bringing me cake. The grownups would be chatting animatedly at long, wooden tables, all of them with styrofoam cups of coffee, and snatching treats off of fancy plates, laid down the middle. He said he wanted to “show me something.” It was pornography, of course. We would sit in 1 of the back rooms where they held Sunday school, and he would flip through pornographic magazines and make light commentary while doing so.
“What do you think of this?”
“Wow, hahaha, look at THAT!”
And i, as the multiple that i was, would play along the way i thought he wanted me to. Affecting a precociousness borne of being raped since before i could speak.

I don’t know if he knew of his father’s relationship with my mother. I don’t know if he was consciously grooming me. What i know is that i dissociated from sex and abuse and any mixture of the 2 – so all i knew was that this handsome boy was paying attention to me and saying nice things. He made me feel like a princess. My sexuality had already been awakened too early, so it’s not shocking that he made me blush and made my girl parts swell and tingle.

He began molesting me within weeks, and i liked it. I wanted him to.
This is what sexual abuse did to me. I’d already been groomed for him, by so many others. He barely had to smile at me. One piece of cake and i was his.
I won’t be detailing how far it went or describing the things he did. This blog is not for that.
I don’t know how long it went on for, but i do know my mother’s relationship with his father was getting rocky when he sent us to another city, thus ending his son’s access to me. As far as i can recall, we never went back to that church.

I did see the boy again. I know what the final, most disturbing scene means now.
I know i’m coming off super dramatic (because i am), but i won’t be writing about that part. No one should have to carry those images, that knowledge, unless they must.

I know why i dreamed of men falling out of the sky the next day, and i will share about that. It’s easy.
There were so many. So many.
They fell out of the sky and onto me and i was hollow inside.

The first dream is about the shame that i carry for “falling in love” with an abuser. It connotes my ambiguity as a child, living through trauma. The ugly truth of it that, a part of me preferred, even wanted, the sexual abuse, because (not often, but sometimes) it felt better than being beaten and starved and humiliated.

I think maybe my second dream was a gift from my weird brain – from my system, to me. I always struggle with feelings of inadequacy and guilt. That i haven’t accomplished much of anything, and i’ve made so many mistakes, and i’m so often barely functional…

There were so many.
I don’t know why i’m so damn hard on myself, because times like this –when i’m looking at it all– i’m shocked that i survived it. Even being a multiple and my brain hiding the sex stuff, the things that i’ve fully and consciously remembered all along were horrific.

As soon as i started typing, the truth of the dream started pouring out of me. I want to be completely honest and up front with you all, and i feel i must disclose that i drank a 6-pack before i could even touch the goddamn keyboard.
I will not be going on a bender.
I just leaned on the tried and true because i knew it needed to come out and i kept actively fighting it. I greased the wheels. I’m not proud of it, but i won’t ever lie on this blog – by omission or otherwise.

I’m going to cruise YouTube and shnuggle my doggo and my hubs.

Life is better lived with clarity,
~H~

IMAGE: Toa Heftiba

**********

Sunday, September 20, 2020: I’m adding on a bit more. I rushed to complete this yesterday, and everything was pouring out quickly once i started bashing away on my Notepad.

I think it’s significant that i was taking care of children (a common motif in my dreams). There were 4 boys, ranging in age from around 4 – 10yrs old. The oldest looked a bit like my real life nephew, but i might be reaching there. In the dream they were my SIL’s sons, and i was freaking out because i knew she’d be justifiably upset that they’d been exposed to such violent and sexual imagery. I haven’t quite figured out/decided if everyone being male except for me –in both dreams– is significant. I present very femme, but have some strong traits that were traditionally identified as masculine. Plus, i always test as androgynous (not just online silly ones, i’ve taken psychiatric tests in hospital). I’ve always felt very “girly-girl” inside, and despite being Amazon-sized, i’ve never been mistaken for a boy. I do however, have 2 in my system that are male. One of them is a manifestation of pure rage, and the other disappeared a couple of years ago along with another. Their disappearance precipitated my return to therapy.

**********

ETA on October 6, 2020: DUH! I’m the one that’s angry that >>i<< was exposed to pornography! Of course! Man, my brain writes a layered story, eh?

**********

I think the hacking part is quite significant and deserves some commentary. I hacked my own mind, in a way. The personality part of my brain broke into parts of my deeper functions at infancy (i think – no proof, just speculation on my part) and accessed inner abilities. From there i could split off into pieces in order to survive what was happening to me. I’ve read scads and reams of information on memory and so i know all of this is nebulous at best, but i’m unescapably drawn to doing it, and it seems to help, so i’m going to keep doing it until my results stop, or stop being helpful.

I think i’d already accomplished splitting off before i could speak. I think this because i have a crystal clear memory of laying on the couch and looking up at my maternal grandfather sitting beside me. He was laughing and talking to someone sitting directly across from him, but i either didn’t see who it was, or my memory just doesn’t include that information. I felt happy and i could feel my legs kicking and my face smiling. Years later i related the memory to my mother, who went immediately to a bookshelf and pulled out the photo album she had of my first 3 or 4yrs. She said, “You’re just internalising this picture as a memory. You were 9mos old.”

Sure enough, it was exactly what i’d described. However now, looking back on all the events that i have, and reading and studying so much scientifically based information on the nature of memories, i have some basis for doubt. The memory doesn’t come with words, only emotion. I can hear my grandpa talking, but i don’t understand what he’s saying (he only spoke English). Further, as someone who has long and much experience in learning how to separate dreams from actual memories that were hiding in my brain, and were merely disguised as dreams, i can now easily tell the difference. The memories where i was drugged are fuzzy and feel fluffy in my brain. The memories where i was not under the influence are sharper and feel crispy-crackly. Significant data exists to show that an alters’ memory can be nearly eidetic. Legitimate dreams may feel either way, but they’re the easiest to discern because there will always be something bizarre (TVs and computer monitors keep popping up where they weren’t before), or something impossible (it’s raining men), or something that doesn’t jibe with my real life remembered history (my SIL doesn’t have 4 sons), for which i have tangible evidence.

This is the tough part; the reason i felt compelled to add a bit more onto this analysis. My brain was also hacked by other people. This is a sketchy and controversial area to wade into, but i’m already neck deep in stuff many (including professionals in the field), don’t believe in, or reserve judgment based on what they see as insufficient evidence for them to accept it as true. Multiplicity, memories, lucid dreaming, a bunch of paedophiles and disgusting sexual opportunists that know each other and help each other and maybe even hang out. So yeah… I’m gonna go there.

It is my firm belief that many of my abusers knew i was a multiple. I also believe they knew how to MAKE them. This is based on memories i have of abusers calling me names that weren’t my name and realising years later that they were the names of some of the parts in my system. I remember some of the things that abusers would say to each other in front of me that i didn’t understand at the time. Things like, “It’s all good when she faints and then opens her eyes.” And my mother on the phone, telling someone what name to call me, or reassuring them that i won’t rat them out because i never remember.
They hacked into my brain and accessed certain parts, and made other parts that were closer to their personal grocery lists of what they wanted in a victim.

Yes, i’m aware i’m flying around in cuckoobird territory.
And yes, i might be wrong.
But i don’t think so.

I think i’m done with this dream now. Maybe. Hopefully.

Y’all take care of yourselves as best you can, y’hear?
~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 2 Comments

Stuck

I’ve spent the last week filled with dread and unable to write. Every time i click [+Write], i’m stuck. Initially i wasn’t sure what the problem was, but that’s not entirely true. Being as dissociative as i am, the knowledge was there, i was just afraid and instinctively pushing it away from my consciousness. By midweek i cried uncle and admitted to myself what’s going on…
Dream #2 is going on.

There is something there that i genuinely can’t access right now. Not without analysing it. And i have this feeling that i don’t want to know what it is. I call it a dream, but it was a nightmare. It’s the worst nightmare i’ve had in years, probably since i was going through disclosing my abuse history. The night after i had it, i had the first semi-lucid dream i’d had in weeks. I was in acres of lush green meadow grass, soft and warm and full of that incredible smell. The sun was high and gorgeous and golden, and i gazed up at it in awe.

Then something large and dark caught my eye. I could see it was falling towards me, and falling fast. It thunked heavily on the ground next to me and it was a man. And then suddenly, it was raining men, literally, and even as i write this, my dark sense of humour is not kicking in. It was horrific. They were coming down all around me, hitting the grass and making sounds like when you knock on a large melon, or drop a heavy stone on freshly laid sod. The meadow was filling with them and i knew 1 would eventually land on me.

Like i did when i’d first learned lucid dreaming as a child, i knelt down, put my head on my knees and cupped my hands around my face to keep the light/the sight of it all, out of even my peripheral vision. Then i squeezed my eyes shut as tightly as i could and i said, NO, i don’t want to be here. I’m going to WAKE UP RIGHT NOW!! And i willed myself awake. There is a literal pulling sensation inside me, like waking up from anaesthetic; i feel drugged and heavy-limbed.

When i was fully awake i felt the dread i’d felt the night before, and i knew they were connected. I felt sick to my stomach again. I felt that gnawing pit down inside me yawn wider.

I sit in front of this blank white screen and i sense doom approaching. The other shoe is about to drop. I can’t explain it, but i just KNOW. I never repressed my memories per se, my brain hid them from me, disguised as dreams/nightmares/night terrors. It has been my belief that i know everything i can know about my past at this point. It took a long time to separate dreams from memories, and then memories from drug-induced hallucinations and imaginings (i was often drugged during the abuse: alcohol, depressants, and even stimulants and hallucinogenics).

I keep myself busy and try to keep my spirits up during the day, but by the time my husband comes home from work i’m exhausted from the effort. I spend the evenings feeling myself slide around inside my brain, and have fully switched out a couple of nights. I decided that it’s got to come out, lest i find myself crawling back into a bottle.

I’m setting myself up for the best outcome. I won’t be tackling the dream/s until my husband has the day off. I’ve bribed my system with promises of things they like to do after it’s done. (They’re children after all, and i found bribery a very effective tool with my sons, on occasion.) I’m talking to my system more, and at peak mindfulness. I’m establishing trust, but also asserting my place as the mama/head monkey in charge of this circus. They live in my brain, and they are all me, so it’s no secret that i’m very afraid (not all are developed enough to know anything about anything – they are a feeling, or a moment in time), but i also have a solid reputation as one who can and will do the thing anyway. I remind myself (selves) that i lived through it, and if i can survive that, i can survive looking at it and thinking about it and dealing with all of the fallout. ALL of it. I’m hella capable, and so far in this life i have never given up – i don’t intend to start now.

I don’t know what’s going to happen, but i do know that if i try to run from this or quash it, it’s just gonna keep getting bigger and sucking more of my precious energies into that ever-widening maw in my gut. Eventually it will either drive me into more dangerous switched behaviours, or i will go on an epic bender and/or wind up hospitalised. I know how i work, so i’ve got that goin’ for me. Heh.

That was almost a joke.

I will stare this in the face and learn what it has to teach/tell me.
I’ll feel the pain, i’ll grip the rage tightly in my savage breast and roar my way through, and i’ll embrace the wrenching sobs that i know are coming after.
This is the process; to feel what i feel while knowing what i know.
(I’m my own life coach, woohoo!)

Ah, there’s my sense of humour.
It never leaves me for long.

Love and Peace,
~H~

IMAGE: Alex Iby

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Dream Analysis: #3

I won’t be going point by point quite like it did in Dream Shifts, Pt II. This dream wasn’t filled with so much specific symbology, i don’t think. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s more of an overall commentary, rather than, this guy represents x, and this event represents y.

That being said, it is powerful, powerful imagery for me, and representative of a number of things. It is my brain diorama, a dream box, a mind play, representative of dichotomy, otherness, and conflict in my life.

I find the setting of an unofficially segregated graduation celebration most telling.
These children are celebrating the fact that they accomplished a great and difficult task. And yes, i call them children now, as i analyse the situation. I’m in my 50s and, as a parent, i know that if i’d lost one of my boys in their teen years, i would have wept and mourned them as children. In the scope of the bigger picture, older adults know that they are, indeed, children. The age my country ascribes to legal adulthood is arbitrary, and only necessary within our societal construct in order to maintain our current political framework. I mean, what i’m saying is we have to pick an age, because reasons. Because laws. Anyone in their 30s surely recognises that an 18yr old is still a child. Or at least in my opinion, they should be considered still children in some ways. I think of those years of say, 17-21 as transitional years. Still and all, i’d say adult maybe, but mature? Not necessarily.
So yeah, to me, which is what’s important to the analysis because it is my dream after all, they are children.

Back to the segregation of the white from the black children.
Why is it that they can all come together and party in the same place, but they cannot intermingle? This speaks to me of a number of my life issues. One, my mother instilling in me that we had to act “normal” and “fit in” around others, but her insistence that we were NOT like other people. She taught me that we were better: smarter and more evolved, and that other people weren’t capable of understand our ways because of it. A manipulation cleverly designed to hide the abuse, of course. Another issue this brings up for me is the othering that children do in school. There were rich and poor kids, advanced classes and remedial, which was decided by teachers sure, but you better believe kids understood the difference, and the crueler ones played on it. Then there was attractive and not attractive, which wasn’t necessarily based on actual looks (although it could be), but often more on if you were rich, or popular, or –as in the case of so many small towns whose schools i attended– if your family was well-established.

I don’t say this to be ignorant, but my 10yr high school reunion was an eye-opener. I had enough time and distance to see things through a different lens, and wow. Those that we’d held up as the most attractive and sought-after… I will diplomatically say that it wasn’t always the case. I will also further state, to save myself from being an arse like they were to me, that attractiveness is personal, arbitrary, and based on any number of criteria. And although i’m speaking from a purely aesthetic sense here, it is still and ever shall be, in the eye of the beholder. It’s just that i was treated as ugly, while others were touted as the most. gorgeous. EVER. I’m not ugly, and many of my fellow students that were likewise treated were not, either.

As i’ve grown and let go of a lot of the bullying i received growing up, i’ve found the lens through which i view physical attractiveness, is highly influenced by that person’s treatment of others. There’s a general sort of appeal to an aesthetic for me, but if a person is truly good and kind –even if initially i found their physical looks unremarkable– i find myself seeing them as more and more attractive.
That’s just me, though.

A more airy-fairy sort of interpretation is about my light and my dark. My conscious me and my subconscious me. My belief that i was one, and the truth that i am many. I want to be very clear here that this is just my brain and a dream. I’m not even distinguishing which group was light and which dark, which was conscious/subconscious. In the dream, the black children were stoic. I’m not sure what that speaks to. Is it just a reflection of some biases from my past? (My mother a vicious racist.) Is it my absorption of cultural, racial stereotyping from my past and my community? (I grew up in the 80s, in an area where there were almost no black or brown people, but plenty of uninformed opinions about said people.) I’m not sure, but i’m open to knowing. I’m not going to go on any further in that regard, because this is about my dream analysis, and my blog is not for socio-political issues. Just know that this blog is only about 1 particular aspect of my life, even though that aspect is enmeshed and far-reaching. I am a person who is more than childhood abuse and mental illness. I’m a multifaceted human being with myriad interests and many concerns – just like anyone else. In the dream, the white children were stuck up. I’m white, i grew up not knowing any non-whites except aboriginal people, and i wouldn’t characterise but a few as stuck up. I’m not sure what that means, beyond my brain was using established tropes to try and tell me something.
My brain will tell me if there’s more to it.
I want to know and it wants to tell me. Heh.

The most standout part after the segregation, is the part where i’m told to leave.
That and my reaction to it, seem to vibrate with meaning inside me.
It doesn’t take Freud or Jung or my therapist to tell me what that’s about.

1) You don’t belong here is the story of my life.
I was too poor, too weird, too fat, too mouthy, just tootoo much for everyone, everywhere i went. I was rejected by authority, by peers, by church members, by boys/men, and yes, even though it sounds maudlin and poor-meish – by society in general.

2) I was kicked out of certain areas of my brain for many years.
My system protected me from the truth until my mid-late 30s. I had dreams on and off, dreams that were actually memories, but i didn’t know that for a long time. I remember as a kid, daydreaming and my mind would stray over to a picture of the man i used to call Daddy. He was my mother’s married lover, and my second worst abuser, after her. I had no knowledge of him and what he was doing or what my mother was doing. I was entirely split off from those things. My Bits N’ Pieces were the ones dealing with the sexual abuse. So, i’m woolgathering and his face pops into my head. I’m feeling kind of weird: scared, nauseous, curious… And my brain would, i don’t know, some dissociative things are harder to explain than others. My brain would punt me into another part of my brain. Like, when i was at my babysitter’s house when i was very young, and i accidentally walked in on one of her teenage son’s using the downstairs bathroom (which was the only one i was allowed to use). I could see him sitting on the toilet as i was looking in the large mirror to my right, and he jumped up as quick as you’d think, and slammed the door closed. Like that.

As an adult i was almost always searching for a good therapist. I knew i needed help, i just couldn’t seem to find the right help for me. There were more times than i can remember (because i switch, because i’m a multiple, heh) that the person i was seeing would suggest what was called MPD (multiple personality disorder) at the time, and i would either never go back, or actually get up out of my seat and leave their office.
That was my system telling me, Nah, you need to go.

3) Inner commentary on where i’m at now.
The young, androgynous figure in the mirror is a good representative of where i’m currently at sexually. Although i’m queer, veering far closer to hetero, if i weren’t with my husband i’d consider and be capable of, strong feelings for anyone. I can’t say for sure, because i haven’t put it to the test. It’s my hope to stay in this monogamous, straight relationship for the rest of my life. But as i’ve dealt with the ways that sexual abuse affected me, and found some healing from it, and been able to be a better partner in my marriage, and dealt with my multiplicity… Well, i don’t know how i’d define it at this point. It’s personal and i’m not ready to say anything for sure but… Yeah, the mirror image has some meaning to me.

The Cher song.
My brain loves to irritate me with ear worms/whigs. That is my take on this one. Pfft.

The smug shit who tried to intimidate me.
That’s my mom, for sure, and how i went in anyway, and wiggled my ass at him after, is a sign to me that i’m breaking her control, in every way, more and more. Good stuff.

The sexually active kids in the booths.
I say kids because i don’t want to say children. Because i know what that’s about, and i don’t need to analyse that any further, and this blog doesn’t need any details.

**********

I think there’s probably more, but i don’t think it matters. I think what this is is just kind of a brain check-in.

Brain: So, you got this, eh? We’re all on the same page, right?

Me: Yeah, this is where we’re at.

Brain: Okay, cool beans.

If you actually read all this, wow. Internet cookie/hero sandwich, whatever. You pick, it’s yours.

Love and Peace,
~H~

Image: Emily Morter





Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 2 Comments

Dream #2

WARNING: Relates an extremely disturbing dream involving sex, violence, and animals. This post could be highly triggering for some. Make sure you have your support stuffs in place if you decide to read.

**********

As i’ve stated many times, sleep has been an issue for the entirety of my life. It’s been so difficult that even my abusive mother sought treatment for me as a child. Granted, it was only because my screams regularly interrupted her own sleep, and also likely because she was keen to hide the abuse going on, but still. I couldn’t sleep, and when i could, i was plagued with nightmares. The doctor said i was suffering from “night terrors” and sent me to a psychologist or psychiatrist of some stripe. He taught me relaxation techniques, and told me about lucid dreaming. From him i learned to realise when i was in a dream and be proactive – whether that was to take charge within the dream, or just to wake myself up. It’s an invaluable skill that i’ve used throughout my 50+yrs.

Recently though, i’ve lost the ability to know i’m dreaming, and i’m troubled. I don’t know why this has happened, but over the last few months of intense dreaming, i’ve only known it was a dream a couple of times. I need the control back, as these sleep-movies have turned decidedly nightmarish, so i’ve begun journalling them again. I’m looking for clarity and control. They’ve become so problematic that my insomnia has returned, full force, which in turn makes managing my mental health issues that much harder. I can lose my shit, as it were, in mere seconds. I simply don’t have the energy to be mindful and considerate.
I need that lucidity to continue this work. So i’m taking a careful look at the dreams that don’t fade. I think the ones i can’t shake might be trying to tell me something.

This dream, unlike the last one, is a straight up nightmare. I’m going to restate my initial warning: this is awful and distressing and chock full of potential triggers. If you are a victim/survivor of sexual abuse, make sure you have your supports in place if you decide to read this. My dream journal isn’t for everyone. It’s mostly for me, but i share it just in case it helps someone out there to know they aren’t alone. My brain’s machinations produce twisted, scary stories to tell me while i sleep.

Dream #2

My husband and i are at home (i don’t recognise the house), and we’re taking care of our nephews on his side. That’s weird, because there’s only one IRL, but in my dream there are 3 or 4. It’s almost Christmas, and although hubs and i don’t celebrate religious holidays, in the dream we’re decorating and planning a big meal for the kids. They’ve brought all of their computer and gaming equipment, which they’ve set up in our living room. It takes up all the space, to the point where it’s hard to move around.

My husband is preparing something in the kitchen, and the boys are gaming and talking animatedly to me and to each other. I’m futzing around on my own laptop, when i get a DM request. It’s from a man, and i’m instantly brittle and electric. I can feel the evil coming from his screen shot. I quickly click it closed and ignore it, going back to my social media and games, etcetera. One of the boys says something to me, and when i look back at my screen, the request is there again.
Hey, wanna chat?
I want to show you something.

My guts churn and i click it closed again, but it pops right back up, immediately. His profile pic is only the top of his face, gazing over something. His hair is dark and curly and his eyes seem to be looking right at me. I click it closed once more, and this time 2 identical windows pop up.
Hey, wanna chat?
I want to show you something.
I think you’ll really like it.

I click them both closed and 1 of my nephews, the 1 i actually have IRL (he’s maybe 13, but he’s actually grown up, now) says, Hey Auntie, would you be mad if i wanted to go home? I say No, not at all, let me help you get your stuff together. We go over to his setup, which has 2 monitors, and i see the chat invitation on both of his screens. I immediately run back to my laptop and see a half dozen chat requests, all him, all saying the same thing. I exclaim, OMG, i think i’ve been hacked!

I try to click them all closed, but my hand is moving so slow, like it’s asleep. More chat windows are popping up, and he’s texting more things.
Would you like to see this?
This is very interesting.
I want you to look at it.
My guts feel like there’s a lead balloon floating around inside. I yell at my husband, Come and help me, i’ve been hacked! I look up and all of my nephews’ screens have the request on them, multiple times.

I run into the kitchen and beg the hubs to come and help me. He smiles inanely at me and assures me that he doesn’t mind taking our nephew back home. He says, I need a litre of vodka for this ceviche anyway. I look down and he’s throwing shrimp and scallops into a camping style cooler. It stinks and the fish doesn’t look right. Exasperated, i run back into the living room and try to close all the open chat windows on my computer.
I can’t, and he starts sending me pictures.
They’re pornographic in nature.
I scream at my husband in the kitchen to come and help me because i’ve been hacked. Then i notice that the images are showing up on my nephews’ screens, as well. I immediately freak out because 1, they’re porn, and 2, my sister-in-law will KILL me for exposing them to pornography. Every screen i look at has pornographic imagery, and at the top of every screen is his chat invitation. His face. His eyes, looking at me.

I start grabbing blankets and towels and trying to drape them over the boys’ computer screens, but they won’t stay up. They slip off no matter what i do. The boys are running around the living room and giggling and pointing. And every time i look there are more screens to cover. I suddenly have 2, then 6, then a dozen televisions and monitors in the room, and they’re all showing the porn with his chat at the top.
Hey, wanna chat?
I want to show you something.
I think you’ll really like it.

I’m crying and trying to get the boys to go upstairs and play.
And that’s when the porn escalates.
It becomes extreme.
(I will not be describing these images, save the one that i know i MUST deal with. )
These are a mix of sex and violence and every subgenre of porn that most people find distasteful/disgusting.*

I’m purposefully ignoring them as i frantically rush around the room, screaming for help, that i’ve been hacked, and trying to cover up the screens, in a vain attempt to protect my nephews from the violent sexuality being depicted. And over it all i can hear the ding, ding, ding of more of his texts flooding every screen.

That’s when i’m caught by some of what i see. There are college students in canoes, naked, being pulled into the water. Then they’re on a football field, being chased by men carrying big sticks. They bash any student they can catch, mercilessly, and they lie around on the grass in lumps of flesh and blood.
Ding, ding, ding.
His eyes are looking at me.
Hey, wanna chat?

And as i look away from his gaze i see it. The imagery has become progressively more disturbing and now i see it and cannot look away.

It’s a man and 2 or 3 women. They are lying in a large puddle of mud in the middle of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. They’re covered in hundreds of hissing black snakes, and they’re hurting dogs. (I won’t be more specific.) The dogs are drowning in the mud, and i scream myself awake.

This dream troubles me so deeply, that i haven’t been able to sleep well since i had it. Every night before i try to rest, i say to my brain, We will NOT be having this dream again. That’s fine; i’ve learned to control my dreaming life somewhat over my lifetime. The problem is it enters my mind every night and fills me with terror and disgust. Just the thought of it makes sleep nigh impossible.

I know i have to figure this one out if i’m to ever enjoy decent, regular sleep again.
I’m afraid of the process here. This kind of thing doesn’t usually scare me that much. I mean, my system kept my memories safe, but hidden in my dreams for years. I’ve had ugly, violent, disturbing dreams ever since i can remember a dream. But there is something about this one that chills me. I think about it during the day. I rue the approach of night. There is something here and i’m afraid of what it is.

That’s enough for now. I’m all wound up and i know sleep will be hard to find tonight, but it’s just gonna have to be that way. I’m already exhausted by the telling of it. I feel see-through and cold in my bones. My brain is sizzling.

I’ll turn my efforts to this tomorrow. Tonight i’m going to distract myself with food and television, and the love of my husband and son. I hope anyone reading this is okay. I fretted about writing it down, let alone sharing it. I think (hope) perhaps, it’s only upsetting to me.

This is my dream journal. It’s weird and also weird (plus a bit weird), but i have a gut feeling that it’s important for me to do this. It’s been my experience that gut feelings aren’t always correct, but they are worth listening to.

While i do currently feel like a live wire (PUN!) i’m hoping i can settle into a place where i can learn what this dream might be trying to tell/teach me.

Hang in there reader, y’hear?
I’m doing my best.
Love and Peace,
~H~

*This is not a judgment. This is not a discussion of pornography. What it is, what it isn’t, what’s okay/not okay. This is a generalisation, and i make it because it’s important to understanding my dream.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Dream Shift, Pt II

My habit is, after a new post has been up for a few hours, i’ll go back and proofread it, one last time. I usually find 1 or 2 errors. This time i found about 10. Wow. This dream has me all thinky and it’s coming from different places all at once. There’s so much chatter in fact, that after i proofread, all sorts of other things occurred to me that i missed discussing, because there was just so dang much! I don’t like to go over 2000 words though, so a second piece is better anyway.

Things that i missed in the first piece:

– more people kept popping up
– the man of the house having a beer with my husband, and then next saying he doesn’t drink
– my husband drinking uncharacteristically
– me being compared to Reese Witherspoon numerous times in my life
– the opulence of the home
– rich people being nice
– the part where the lady of the house gossiped that we were her only neighbours that really liked them anymore, because of some drama started by the woman across the road

**********

I lost myself for a time, which is why i haven’t finished this piece. It was unavoidable. It’s the nature of my current emotional/mental state, coupled with being a multiple. So i read the first part of this piece, “Dream Shifts”, in order to refresh my memory and access the feelings. The problem being, dream journalling requires diligence if it’s to work. It’s a muscle that must be built up. Even the most vivid of dreams can fade in a relatively short period of time. At least, this is what i’ve learned and that’s been my experience.

I’m rereading, and i found 2 more mistakes! Honestly, i’m a bit of a stickler for proofreading. If i find someone has read 1 of my older pieces, i’ll go back for a quick once-over to see if i missed anything the last dozen+ times i checked. I find that interesting. I think it’s good actually, the mistakes, because i think it speaks to how i’m just letting it flow. Stream-of-consciousness isn’t my bag, man. I’m a bit pedantic (no really, because i’m sure you didn’t notice), and if i don’t manage myself strictly, i will agonise once i’ve posted a piece and want to pull it down because i’m afraid no one will like it or get it or be helped by it, etcetera ad nauseum.
Also interesting, and seemingly contrary, is that i proofread, but i don’t edit much. What you read is basically how i wrote it. I’ll move around some words and rearrange a sentence maybe. OH! and i always comb through to try and eliminate as many qualifiers as i can – because i overuse the shit outta those (i’m sure you didn’t notice that, either).

Anyway, back to Over-Analysing My Life: The Dreams Edition.
Heh.

Comments, Thoughts, Meanderings, Ponderings:

I do see more now than i did then.
I think the lady of the house is an amalgam of all the ladies that were ever kind to me. I always felt big and clunky and awkward, graceless and unfeminine. There were a number of women that embodied all the things i thought i would never be, who were varying levels of kind to me. I never quite knew what to do with it. I craved their attention, and i was drawn to them because i wanted to be like them. On the other hand, being around them intensified these negative feelings i had about myself; i felt gross, like i took up too much space, unkempt, because i was a poor girl with lousy hygiene, loud and obnoxious, because i was socially awkward. There were some though, that extended themselves to me with such grace and gentility that i couldn’t help but be around them despite the troubling emotions they brought up in me.

The lady interrupts my mother’s sexual display and my response to it, to give me something girly and frilly of hers. She is giving me some of what she has, that i’ve always wanted so badly. And then she gives me lingerie that symbolises that i CAN start over, that i CAN go back to the beginning. If you’ll pardon me, she’s saying i don’t have to be a sexual rockstar pornstar superstar. That i am fresh and new and unspoilt. Now, i am NOT saying that someone who is sexually violated is spoiled, for that is a vicious lie perpetrated upon us. What i am saying is that i have felt that way, and she was giving me a gift, using symbology i understand (cuz, my dream, right?), that that simply is not true.

And regarding the blustery man, i think he’s more than a representation of how it’s okay to be my bipolar, switchy, slidey, messy, histrionic self. I think he also represents my abusers, who just came in and took from me, and unabashedly, shamelessly, came back and took from me again. In that vein, i believe that the man of the house becomes a much more complicated representation than i’d first thought. He is me, who is actively working on turning away from my abuse so that i might turn my attention to better things. But i think he’s also the embodiment of my Bits N’ Pieces, who just turned my head away from what was happening.

Of course more people kept popping up. That happens in most of my dreams. I’m a multiple – that one’s easy. The only other point i brought up earlier here that i see as significant is the Reese Witherspoon thing. I’d been told more than a few times that i look like her. I always thanked them graciously, but inside i thought they were off their rocker. I’d stare at pictures of her and i could never see it. She is the embodiment of Southern grace and charm, and besides her strong chin and jawline, very delicately featured. And she is lovely. I didn’t see those things in myself – i couldn’t.
I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t done the work.

A few weeks back, a friend of mine told me she’d watched one of Witherspoon’s movies the other night, and said how much she reminded her of me. Again, i went to the pictures, particularly stills of the movie she mentioned. And i’ll be damned if i didn’t see it. Her appearance in my dream is further confirmation that this work i’m doing IS having an effect. The scales on my eyes that i was born with, are falling off. The veil that was placed over me, to hide me, that i thought was my shield but was actually my prison, is slipping off, and it won’t be long…

Oh my, how much i want to believe it won’t be long.
Let’s hold on to that wee bit of hope today, shall we?
That stuff’s in mighty short supply in my life right now, so i’ll take any and all that i can get.

I’m just a fucked up girl looking for my own piece of mind, i’m not perfect.
~ Clementine Kruczynski

If you read this kinda weird stuff, thanks.
Love and Peace,
~H~


Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 4 Comments

Mindful Dreaming

The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.
~ Sigmund Freud

What? Not everything he said was shite. Even a broken clock and all that, amirite?

I’ve written about my dreams a number of times (nice and vague, cuz i can’t be arsed to check), and the time has come ’round again. My dreaming life has generally been full and often intense. I was treated for night terrors when i was around 5/6, and i still remember the worst of them in stark detail. Knowing what i know now, it’s easy to see what my brain was trying to puzzle out, as my sexual abuse began before i could speak, and was frequent until i was around 6. Then it slowed down some until my mother’s on-and-off relationship with the man i called Daddy fell apart for good when i was around 8, at which point it became sporadic.

Once the regular sexual abuse stopped, my switching behaviour also slowed down dramatically, and my dreams toned down, too. I started puberty far later than average, but when i did, i was once again dealing with sexual abuse, and it’s my belief that the dual stress is what led to a return of brutal and disturbing dreams. The dreams persisted until i left home at 18, returning as i came back home briefly, and again faced sexual and physical assault. They’d come and go as i was triggered, or trying some new therapy. To this day they occasionally plague me; a red flag for which i’ve become grateful.

When i finally entertained the possibility that i was a multiple, and began the long journey of figuring out the who, what, where, and whens of my childhood, studying my dreams extensively, helped. It was there that i realised that i needn’t recover any memories – they were all there every night in my dreams. Their subject matter, the way they played out as i slept, how i felt the next morning looking back on them… I couldn’t know these things and survive my environment, so my brain disguised them as dreams; keeping them safe until i was able to process their content.
Home movies i’d hidden in my attic.
Confirmation that i wasn’t crazy without cause.
Once i knew what they truly were, they became a part of my daily experience of myself as a person, and the dreaming of these memories stopped.

I kept dreaming, though. My brain is marvelous, and takes as good care of me as it can. It still communicates to me as i sleep, dancing and singing for me, lovely and terrible. My dreams reflect where i’m at mentally and emotionally. They can alert me to the stuff that’s going on behind the scenes that may require my attention. Dreams are a great processing tool for my brain to help me figure my shit out. It keeps on grinding away at various problems while i’m recharging my body’s batteries.

I don’t hold with anyone else analysing my dreams for me. I can usually figure out my own dreams, thanks. (This is one of the places where Dr. Freud needs to back TF up.) I’ve done enough inner work to know myself, and so it’s usually obvious what my dreams are saying to me. On the rare occasion that i wake up nonplussed, i have a method for interpretation that works well. A nun taught it to me years ago when i was in a halfway house run by the RCC. I write out the dream in first person, then i read through it and underline any words that jump out at me. I then take the underlined words and give them a personal definition, one by one. Once that’s done i’ve usually found some clarity.

Over the course of my life my dreams have been highly thematic. When i was very young i dreamed of a house filled with death, being pursued by a faceless evil thing, and being covered in bugs. The bug dreams were so terrifying that bugs became a lifelong phobia, so intensely so that even thinking i might have seen a bug could trigger a petit mal seizure (now commonly referred to as an absence seizure).* My dreams during adolescence and young adulthood were mostly about getting lost, and becoming separated from loved ones. The worst though, were the ones that mixed sex and death. Those were guaranteed to be followed by 1 or more sleepless nights, depending on severity.**

The last 15yrs or so, my dreams are generally about 1 of 2 things: It’s either the getting lost/losing loved ones dreams, or cleaning house/taking care of children. That second one might sound innocuous, but i assure you that it’s not. They’re the most emotionally draining dreams i’ve ever had (which, admittedly, could be due in part to the fact that i’m not as dissociative as i used to be). I’m in someone else’s house –before my happy estrangement from my parents’  families– and it’s messy, so i start tidying up. Instead of things getting better, i keep discovering more and more clutter, and eventually there’s filth everywhere i look and nothing i do seems to lessen it. Anyone else in the house with me is either oblivious or uncaring. These dreams can involve children. I start out caring for babies and toddlers, and am quickly bogged down with cleaning them and cleaning the house.

I’m not much for kids, to be frank. I love mine, i love my grandchildren. It’s not that i don’t like kids, although i used to think that’s what it was. It’s that being around children is one big triggerfest for me; i spend my time with them bracing for the next unintentional potshot. When i’m actively working with my system to improve my life and level of daily functionality, it’s worse.
In my dreams though, i love all of them. I’m happy to take care of them, even when they’re crying or covered in crap and needing a bath or generally running wild and misbehaving. I’m filled with love and i can feel how invested i am in their care. If there are other people in the house, they never help with the kids – i’m on my own. Sometimes i lose track of them and i’m running around the house frantically, trying to find them. In my dreams, once i lose someone i never find them again. Sometimes they grow bigger as i’m caring for them, which is fine, but other times they morph into something not quite human, and those are the worst dreams. No matter what the children are doing, anyone around me that’s adult gives precisely zero fux.

These dreams may not be nightmarish, but they’re exhausting. I wake from these feeling like i haven’t slept at all. I’m wrung out emotionally, mentally, physically.
And knowing myself like i do, it wasn’t hard to understand why i was having such dreams, and why they’d affect me in such a way.

The doctor who treated my Night Terrors as a child taught me a skill that instantly became invaluable, one that’s saved me countless times since. He taught me all about lucid dreaming. He told me how to figure out if i was dreaming or awake, which is what led to my realisation that some of my dreams were actually memories. He showed me how to wake myself up. Ms T (my therapist) says that a multiple’s mutant superpower is her imagination, and i think she’s correct. Everything that doctor taught me i understood with little to no explanation. When he told me i could fly away from the bad things in my dreams, i did it the very next time a night terror gripped me; i flew away and woke myself up. The ability to recognise that i’m dreaming ebbs and flows according to how i’m doing mental health wise, but once i know i’m in a dream, at the very least i can pull myself out of it. Sometimes the best i can do is pull myself into another dream, but at least i got out of the one i was trying to get away from.

And lately my ability has drastically increased.
I’ve been doing and saying things that i never have before, and some of it isn’t even a lucid choice i’m making. I see it as confirmation that this work i’m doing is taking root, it’s becoming a part of me and how my brain works.
I AM HEALING.

**********

Some cool dream stuff i’ve been doing lately:

I’ve stood up for myself to people who were treating me badly.

I’ve told my mom NO, and even told her off a few times. My mom! /mouth agape

I found my way back when i got lost in a mall. (Once i’m lost i’ve always stayed lost, wandering in maze-like places, never getting back to the place i wanted to be.)

And the children… I’m not losing them, they’re not getting dirtier or changing into something scary/gross. They stay with me and we have a good time. I’m suffused with love for them. Knowing i’m dreaming changes it not a whit.

Estranged/dead family members still pop into my dreams, but they don’t ruin me. Nothing they do goes unanswered. (I’ve always just taken it – in real life and in dreams.)

**********

I know this piece is a bit off the beaten path, even for me, but the way i see things, this is a big deal. My dream life has always been a huge part of who i am, and i find this change significant. It makes me feel good about the work i’ve done, and emboldens me to continue.
My dreams steadfastly refuse to forget what happened to me.
My dreams assure me that i’m not crazy for no reason.
My dreams keep telling me when there’s something terribly wrong, and t’isn’t me or my fault.

My precious, precious, marvelous, fantastical brain. I love it so.
Yes, it’s weird how i treat it like it’s my best friend and not quite me.
It’s weird and accurate.
Maybe one day i’ll be able to explain that, but for now, my brain art (dreams) is telling me i’m helping and all of me is feeling better.

Fanfreakingtastic.

They say that dreams are only real as long as they last. Couldn’t you say the same thing about life?
~ Waking Life (2001)

This freaky, overthinking weirdo wishes you the best of everything.
Hang in there.
Love and Peace,
~H~

*I was epileptic as a child; it’s now considered dormant.

**I’m not including the memories that came to me as dreams.

PICTURED: “Having a moment” in the movie, Waking Life.